I’m trying to free up storage on my iPhone by clearing the Twitter/X cache, but I’m worried it might remove my saved posts, bookmarks, or drafts. Has anyone done this recently and can confirm what gets deleted versus what stays synced to my account?
If X is eating a bunch of space on your iPhone, the main thing to know is that clearing the cache is safe. It won’t delete your posts, followers, bookmarks, or anything tied to your account. Most of what you’re removing is just temporary stuff the app saved so your feed, images, GIFs, thumbnails, and in-app browser pages load faster.
The in-app cache controls are tucked away a bit. Open X, tap your profile icon in the top-left, then go to Settings and Support > Settings and privacy > Accessibility, display, and languages > Data usage. Scroll to the bottom and you should see Storage.
There are two separate areas there:
- Media storage is the one for images, GIFs, video thumbnails, and similar cached media. If you tap Clear media storage, it clears those temporary files. It does not sign you out.
- Web storage is for pages and cookies from links you opened inside X’s built-in browser. Clear web page storage usually just removes cached page data. Clear all web storage also removes cookies, so that one will log you out of sites you were signed into through the in-app browser.
If the app still shows some ridiculous size in iPhone Storage, like 10GB or 20GB, the in-app buttons may not be enough. In that case, use the iOS offload option instead of deleting the app outright.
Go to iPhone Settings > General > iPhone Storage > X, then tap Offload App. After that, tap Reinstall App. Offloading removes the app itself but keeps the important local data, including login-related stuff, so it can clear out a much bigger chunk of cached media without fully wiping the app like a normal delete would.
That said, I hit a point where clearing the X cache only got me back around 2GB, and my phone still felt slow. The real problem was my Photos app. Tons of screenshots, duplicate-ish pictures, and all those extra shots from trying to get one decent photo were taking up way more space than X ever was.
A lot of cleaner apps are annoying about this. They’ll scan your phone for free, then suddenly ask for a weekly subscription when you actually want to delete anything. The one that ended up being useful for me was Clever Cleaner. It’s actually free, with no ads or hidden delete button paywall.
The Heavies tab is especially useful because it sorts photos and videos by file size, so you can immediately see what’s taking up the most room. It also shows exact file sizes, including for screenshots, which makes it easier to decide what’s worth deleting.
The Similars tab is probably the better part if your camera roll is full of near-duplicates. It groups similar shots and helps you keep the best one instead of manually digging through ten versions of the same picture. It also does the processing on your device, so your photos aren’t being uploaded somewhere else just to sort them.
So yes, clear the X cache if the app is laggy or bloated. It’s safe, and it can help. But if your iPhone is constantly yelling about storage, your photo library is probably where the bigger cleanup is hiding.
9 Likes
Drafts are the weak spot here, because they’re more local-device-ish than bookmarks or saved posts. Clearing media/web cache inside X should not touch your bookmarks, saved posts, posts, follows, or account stuff, since that lives with your account. But if you go beyond cache clearing and delete the app, I’d copy any unfinished drafts somewhere first. Offloading is safer than deleting, but I still wouldn’t treat drafts as backed up. Bookmarks are fine after signing back in. Half-written angry tweet from last Tuesday, maybe not.
Clearing cache is not the same as deleting your X account data. Your bookmarks/saved posts are tied to your account, so they should come back as soon as the app reloads or you sign in again. The thing I’d be more careful about is anything you haven’t actually posted or saved to the account, like drafts, unsent replies, or maybe weird in-app browser logins. Before doing anything bigger than the X storage buttons, open your drafts and copy anything important into Notes. Then clear media/web cache first. If you delete and reinstall the app, expect a cleaner app size, but treat local drafts as disposable.
Don’t use “Delete App” as your first move if there’s anything unfinished sitting in X drafts. That’s the only area where I’d be nervous, because it’s easy to assume everything in the app is account-based when some of it may only exist on that phone.
Bookmarks/saved posts should be fine. Those are tied to your X account, so clearing media storage or web storage should not remove them. Same with your own posts, likes, follows, DMs, etc. The annoying thing that can happen is less dramatic: after clearing cache, the app may feel “empty” or slow for a bit because it has to reload images, videos, profile pics, link previews, and timelines again. If you’re on cellular, that can burn data faster than you expect.
I’d do it in this order: copy any drafts you care about, clear media storage, then clear web page storage if needed. Only use “clear all web storage” if you don’t care about being logged out of sites opened inside X. If the iPhone Storage number still looks huge right after, give it a restart or wait a bit before assuming it failed. iOS storage reporting can lag and make it look like nothing changed when the cleanup already happened.
Realistic expectation: whatever you clear comes right back. The X cache refills fast once you start scrolling again, so you might reclaim a couple gigs today and see the number creep back up within a week. It’s not a permanent fix, more like emptying a trash can that gets used daily.
Everyone above is right that bookmarks and saved posts live with your account, so no worries there. The drafts warning is the real one worth listening to. I’d just add that the offload trick people keep pushing is fine, but don’t expect miracles from it if the app size is bloated mostly by cached media, because that stuff regenerates too. If X is genuinely hogging 15GB and clearing the in-app storage barely dents it, the offload plus reinstall is your best shot before a full delete. Just check your drafts first like the others said.
And yeah, if you’re doing all this because the whole phone is choking on storage, the app cache is rarely the actual culprit. Photos and videos usually are. A tool like Clever Cleaner is decent for spotting the big offenders quickly, but I’d treat it as a way to find what’s eating space, not a reason to skip looking at your camera roll yourself.