Twitter/X is using several gigabytes of storage on my iPhone, and I can’t find a clear way to delete the app cache without losing anything important. iPhone Storage shows the app taking up more space than expected, so I’m looking for the safest way to clear Twitter cache and free up storage.
Clearing the Twitter, or X, cache on an iPhone is weirdly tucked away. You won’t find it in the iPhone’s main Settings app. It’s inside the app itself.
Open Twitter/X, tap your profile icon in the upper-left corner, then go here:
- Settings and Support
- Settings and Privacy
- Accessibility, Display, and Languages
- Data Usage
- Scroll down to Storage
That’s where you’ll see the cache options.
Media storage is the one most people should clear first. It’s mostly cached images, GIFs, thumbnails, and video bits the app saves while you scroll. Clearing it is safe and shouldn’t sign you out.
Web storage is different. That’s tied to websites you’ve opened inside Twitter/X, including cookies and cached pages from the in-app browser. If you clear all web storage, there’s a decent chance you’ll get logged out, so don’t do that unless you know your password. If you only want a safer cleanup, clear web page storage instead.
This won’t delete your account, saved posts, or anything like that. Search history is separate too. If you want to clear that, it’s under Settings and Privacy - Privacy and Safety - Clear Search History.
Clearing the cache can help for a little while, especially if the app feels sluggish or your iPhone is complaining about storage. Depending on how much you use Twitter/X, you might get back something like 1 to 3GB. The annoying part is that the app will build that cache again pretty quickly once you start using it normally.
That was the catch in my case. I cleared the Twitter cache, got some space back, and then a week later the storage warning came right back. Twitter wasn’t really the main problem. The bigger issue was the photo library: old screenshots, repeated burst photos, and huge videos that had just been sitting there for years.
When an iPhone is almost full, it can stay slow even after you clear an app cache. iOS still needs free space for temporary system files. And compared with photos and videos, most app caches are small. A single forgotten 4K screen recording can take up more room than a ton of Twitter cache.
What actually made the storage cleanup manageable was dealing with the photo library properly. Clever Cleaner helped with that because it’s free, has no ads, and doesn’t require a subscription.
It doesn’t clear Twitter cache for you. You still have to do that manually in the Twitter/X app. What it does is point out the stuff in Photos that is actually eating storage.
The Heavies tab shows your largest files first, with the exact file size on each one. So instead of digging through thousands of photos, the big videos and screen recordings show up right away.
The Similars tab groups near-duplicate photos and picks a Best Shot from each set. That makes it easier to delete ten almost identical versions of the same picture without checking every single one manually.
It also shows file sizes on screenshots before you delete them, which is useful because you’re not just guessing what matters. Everything runs on the device too, so the photos aren’t uploaded to some outside server.
The order I’d use is simple: clear Twitter/X media storage first if you need quick space, then clean up the photo library with Clever Cleaner. The cache clear gives you some breathing room, but the photo cleanup is usually where the real storage savings are. After deleting photos or videos, remember to go to Photos - Recently Deleted - Delete All, or the storage number may not drop right away.
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Check whether the space is under App Size or Documents & Data before deleting anything. If the app itself is only a few hundred MB but Documents & Data is multiple GB, that is usually cached media, in-app browser junk, drafts, or other local files X has piled up.
@mikeappsreviewer’s route through the X settings is the cleanest first try, especially clearing media storage. The catch is that iOS may not update the storage number immediately, and sometimes X just hangs onto data anyway. After clearing it, force close X, restart the iPhone, then check iPhone Storage again. Don’t judge it five seconds later.
If it still shows several GB, the blunt fix is deleting X and reinstalling it from the App Store. Do not use Offload App for this, because offloading keeps the app’s documents and data, which is usually the exact stuff you are trying to get rid of. Full delete/reinstall should not delete your account, followers, bookmarks, posts, or DMs because those are on X’s servers, but it can remove local drafts and will probably require logging in again. Make sure you know your password and have access to whatever 2FA method you use before doing it.
For quick storage relief, cache clearing is fine. For actually keeping the phone from filling up again, I’d look at videos, Messages attachments, and Photos next, since X will rebuild cache as soon as you start scrolling. Clever Cleaner can be useful for finding big photo/video clutter, but it is separate from the X problem and won’t clear the X cache itself.
Don’t delete anything until you know you can get back into the account. The cache is disposable, but your login situation might not be. If your X account uses an old phone number, an authenticator app you no longer have, or a passkey you are unsure about, fix that first before doing the delete/reinstall route.
I agree with the others that clearing media storage inside X is the least risky first move. But I would not spend an hour trying to make that number perfect. iPhone Storage is often slow to refresh, and X will never stay tiny if you scroll through a lot of video. If it drops from several GB to something more normal, call that a win.
If you do reinstall, make sure you choose Delete App, not Remove from Home Screen and not Offload App. Remove from Home Screen does nothing for storage, and Offload keeps the local data. After deleting, restart the phone before reinstalling if the storage number still looks wrong. The only local thing I’d really worry about losing is unsent drafts. Your posts, followers, bookmarks, DMs, and lists are tied to the account, not that copy of the app on your phone.
Expect the number to come back if you use X like a video app. Clearing media storage is safe, but it is more of a reset button than a permanent fix. The app will start caching previews, videos, GIFs, and profile images again as soon as you scroll for a while.
After you clear the media cache, I’d change the data settings so it rebuilds slower. In X, go to Settings and privacy, then Accessibility, display, and languages, then Data usage. Turn on Data saver, or at least set video autoplay to Wi-Fi only or never. That won’t make the app tiny, but it can stop it from ballooning so fast. If you mostly browse the feed on cellular, this helps with storage and data use.
The delete/reinstall advice is right if the app is still sitting at several GB after that, but don’t expect iPhone Storage to behave instantly. Sometimes the storage screen is just stale. Restart, wait a bit, then check again. If the phone is almost full, you may need to delete something else temporarily before iOS will clean up properly. X cache is annoying, but chasing the last few hundred MB from it usually isn’t worth the time.
Data saver keeps the cache from bloating, but it also loads everything at low res until you tap each image, which gets old fast if you actually look at photos on there. Fair tradeoff for storage, just know you’re paying for it in quality every scroll. The reinstall route is still your cleanest fix if the number won’t budge after clearing media.