Instagram caches a lot of data on your smartphone. Search results, media files and other data stays on your smart device. You may want to delete this data for a few reasons:
- Free up space
- Privacy
- More that we’ll cover below
If you want to clear your Instagram cache and need a unified way to achieve this, keep reading. We’ll cover proven ways to clear out your cache on both Android and iPhone.
Why Should You Clear Your Instagram Cache?
Instagram sorts through a lot of data and stores it on your device to make the app faster. It’s faster to use a cache than it is to retrieve data from online, and some of the information that ends up in the cache are search results, filters you use often and even accounts that you check daily.
What we want to make clear is that deleting your cache does not delete your account.
Instead, the main reasons to delete your IG cache are:
- Free up a lot of wasted space on your device.
- Start fresh with no saved searches or filters.
- Stop others from knowing what you look at on Instagram.
- Fix bugs or errors that may make your app work improperly.
Due to the amount of data stored in the cache, there are cases where cache corruption causes the app to malfunction. You might not even be able to open the app in worst-case scenarios, so clearing the cache is in your best interest.
And if you look at your phone’s storage, like on your iPhone if you have one, it’s not uncommon for Instagram’s cache to be 8 – 30+ GB, which is huge. Restore some of the lost space and even make your phone run faster by following the instructions below.👇
How to Clear Instagram Cache on iPhone
Unfortunately, there’s no easy way to clear Instagram caches on iPhones. You’ll have to delete the entire app from your device.
Step #1: Tap and hold the Instagram icon on your phone until a menu appears.
Step #2: Tap Remove app.
Step #3: Tap Delete.
Step #4: Choose Delete app.
Once you’ve successfully deleted the app from your phone, you can download and reinstall it with a fresh cache.
But keep in mind that you’ll have to do this every time you want to clear things out.
How to Clear Instagram Cache on Android
Clearing your Instagram cache is easy on Android.
Here’s how it works:👇
Step #1: Navigate to Settings on your phone.
Step #2: Tap Apps and then All apps.
Step #3: Find Instagram on the list and tap to open it.
Step #4: Tap Storage and cache.
Step #5: Choose Clear cache.
It may take a few seconds for the cache to clear out. Be careful not to clear your data, or you’ll have to log back into your account.
You may notice that the Instagram app runs a little more slowly when you first open it, but this is normal.
Whenever you want to clear your cache again in the future, just follow the same steps above.☝️
What Data is Stored in Your Cache?
Instagram’s cache stores several different things, including:
- Media files
- Pages
- Posts
- Search results
The purpose of the cache is to make it easier and faster for Instagram to access these files and improve the user experience.
If Instagram is bogging down your phone, clearing the cache may help it run better. The great news is that clearing things out is quick and easy – just follow the steps above for your phone. But keep in mind that you don’t have to clear your cache all the time. Instead, do it periodically for optimal performance and to maximize your storage space.
