What Is "Media" in iPhone Storage?

By Jack Smith — Updated March 8, 2026

What Exactly Is in the Media Category?

When you go to Settings → General → iPhone Storage and see the horizontal colored bar, "Media" typically appears as a yellow or orange segment. It includes:

• Apple Music downloads — Songs and albums you've downloaded for offline listening
• Podcasts — Episodes downloaded in the Podcasts app
• Audiobooks — Downloaded books from Apple Books or Audible
• Custom ringtones — Tones purchased from iTunes or imported
• Voice Memos — Recordings made in the Voice Memos app

Note: streaming music and podcasts (content you listen to without downloading) takes zero storage. Only downloaded content is counted. Photos and videos from your camera roll appear separately under "Photos." See our full iPhone storage breakdown guide.

How Large Is Media Typically?

Media size varies enormously by usage. A typical album is 100-300 MB. Users who download entire Apple Music libraries offline can accumulate 5-30 GB or more. Podcast subscribers who download episodes automatically for offline listening are often surprised — a daily hour-long podcast at high quality is about 100-200 MB per episode. With 30 days of backlog that's 3-6 GB just from one podcast. Voice Memos are smaller but long recordings for meetings or lectures can still reach hundreds of MB each.

How to Reduce Media Storage

Here are the most effective steps to reclaim space from the Media category:

• Apple Music — Open the Music app, go to Library, swipe left on any downloaded song or album and tap Delete. Or go to Settings → Music → Downloaded Music to see and delete everything at once.
• Podcasts — Open Podcasts, go to Library → Downloaded Episodes. Swipe to delete episodes you've already listened to. Set Podcasts to auto-delete played episodes: Podcasts → Settings → Delete Played Episodes.
• Audiobooks — In Books, swipe left on a downloaded book to remove the download while keeping your purchase.
• Voice Memos — Open Voice Memos, swipe left on recordings to delete. Old meeting recordings can be gigabytes in total.

Media vs Other Storage Categories

Understanding what each category means helps you target the right one when you're low on space. For a full breakdown of every category:

• Photos — Camera roll photos and videos
• Media — Music, podcasts, audiobooks, voice memos
• Apps — App binaries and their documents/data
• System Data — Caches, logs, Siri voices (formerly called "Other")
• iOS — The operating system itself

Read our full explainer on what counts as Other in iPhone storage and our guide on iPhone System Data explained.

Related Articles

• How to Check iPhone Storage Breakdown
• What Counts as "Other" in iPhone Storage?
• What Is System Data on iPhone?
• iPhone Storage Calculator