How to Clear Cache on iOS 26

Quick answer: on iOS 26 you clear Safari’s cache in Settings > Apps > Safari > Clear History and Website Data, and you clear individual app caches by offloading them in Settings > General > iPhone Storage. There’s still no magic “clear all cache” button, and honestly, that’s by design. iOS manages most of this automatically.

But the Settings app got a real shake-up with the iOS 26 redesign, so if you’re hunting for options that used to live somewhere else, you’re not imagining things. They moved. I’ve been running iOS 26 since the betas last summer, and in this guide I’ll walk you through exactly where everything is now, what’s actually worth clearing, and when cache clearing is pure placebo.

What Changed in Settings on iOS 26

The big one: Apple moved every app’s settings into a dedicated Apps section. On iOS 17 and earlier, you’d scroll a long list at the bottom of Settings to find Safari. On iOS 26, you go to Settings > Apps and everything lives there, sorted alphabetically with a search bar at the top.

So if a guide tells you “go to Settings > Safari”, translate that to Settings > Apps > Safari and you’re golden. Same for Chrome, Google, and any other app that exposes settings there. The Liquid Glass redesign changed how things look, but the actual storage tools work the same way underneath.

If you want the bigger picture of what else moved, we covered the whole redesign in our iOS 26 features roundup.

How to Clear Safari Cache on iOS 26

Safari is the one place Apple gives you a proper, official cache-clearing button. Here’s the full wipe:

1. Open Settings and tap Apps.
2. Scroll to (or search for) Safari.
3. Tap Clear History and Website Data.
4. Pick a time range. iOS 26 lets you choose the last hour, today, today and yesterday, or all history.
5. Confirm.

Two things worth knowing. First, this signs you out of most websites because it deletes cookies along with the cache. Second, it does not touch your saved passwords, which live in iCloud Keychain, not in Safari’s cache. If that’s your main worry, we wrote a whole piece on clearing Safari cache without losing passwords, including how to nuke data for just one misbehaving site instead of everything.

How to Clear App Cache on iOS 26 (Offloading)

Here’s the part that surprises people: iOS still doesn’t let you clear an individual app’s cache directly, the way Android does. Your two options are the app’s own built-in cleaner (if it has one) or offloading.

Offloading deletes the app itself, including its cached junk, but keeps your documents and data. Reinstall it and you’re right back where you were, minus the bloat. Here’s how:

1. Go to Settings > General > iPhone Storage.
2. Wait a few seconds for the list to populate (it’s sorted by size, biggest hogs first).
3. Tap an app and look at the split between “App Size” and “Documents & Data”.
4. Tap Offload App, confirm, then reinstall from the App Store or by tapping its dimmed icon on your Home Screen.

On my iPhone 15 Pro, offloading and reinstalling TikTok recovered a bit over 2 GB. Instagram gave back around 1.5 GB. Results vary wildly depending on how heavily you use each app, but social and streaming apps are almost always the biggest offenders.

Apps With Built-In Cache Cleaners

Some apps skip the offload dance entirely because they include their own clear-cache button:

• TikTok: Profile > Menu > Settings and privacy > Free up space
• Spotify: Settings > Storage > Clear cache
• Snapchat: Settings > Clear Cache
• Google Maps: Settings > About, terms & privacy > Clear application data

Chrome and the Google app have their own paths too, and they’re weird enough that we gave each one its own guide: here’s how to clear Chrome’s cache on iPhone if that’s your daily browser.

When Clearing Cache Actually Helps (and When It’s Placebo)

Real talk: clearing cache is oversold. Cached files exist to make things faster. Safari caches images so pages load quicker on your second visit. Spotify caches songs so they don’t re-download. Deleting all that means your phone has to rebuild it, which briefly makes things slower and burns more data.

Here’s my honest breakdown of when it’s worth doing:

Situation	Does clearing cache help?
A website loads broken or shows stale content	Yes, clearing Safari data for that site usually fixes it
One app has ballooned to several GB	Yes, offload it and reinstall
Storage is nearly full and iOS is acting up	Yes, iOS needs breathing room to run well
Your iPhone “feels slow” in general	Mostly placebo, restart it instead
Battery drains fast	No, cache has basically nothing to do with battery

One genuinely useful trick: a plain old restart. iOS clears a chunk of temporary system files on reboot, and it’s the fix for most “my phone is being weird” complaints. Hold the side button and a volume button, slide to power off, wait ten seconds, power back on.

Set It and Forget It: Automatic Offloading

If you’d rather never think about this again, iOS 26 can offload unused apps automatically. Go to Settings > Apps > App Store and toggle on Offload Unused Apps. iOS quietly removes apps you haven’t opened in ages, keeps their data and icons, and reinstalls them on demand when you tap them. I’ve had this on for years and genuinely never noticed a downside beyond the occasional re-download wait on slow Wi-Fi.

And if cache clearing didn’t recover as much space as you hoped, cache is honestly the small stuff. Photos, videos, and Messages attachments are where the real gigabytes hide. Our guide on freeing up iPhone storage beyond clearing cache ranks every method by how much space it actually recovers, and it’s the logical next step. For the broader basics that apply to any iOS version, the classic how to clear cache on iPhone guide has you covered too.

FAQ

Does iOS 26 have a clear-all-cache button?

No. Apple has never shipped one, and iOS 26 doesn’t change that. Safari gets an official clearing tool, everything else is handled per app through offloading or the app’s own settings. Any App Store “cleaner” app promising a one-tap full cache wipe is overpromising; iOS sandboxing doesn’t allow it.

Will clearing cache on iOS 26 delete my photos or messages?

No. Clearing Safari data or offloading apps never touches Photos, Messages, or anything in iCloud. The one thing you will lose from a Safari clear is website logins, so expect to sign back in to your usual sites.

How often should I clear my iPhone cache?

Honestly? Almost never on a schedule. Do it when something’s broken: a glitchy website, a bloated app, or a storage-full warning. Monthly ritual clearing just slows down your browsing while everything re-caches.

Why is my storage still full after clearing cache?

Because cache usually accounts for a few GB at most. The heavy hitters are your photo library, videos, Messages attachments, and the dreaded System Data category. Work through those and you’ll recover ten times what cache clearing gets you.