For instance, Facebook and Instagram will cache social media posts you've recently viewed, and Google Docs keeps a cache of anything you've been working on recently - even though the actual docs are saved in the cloud.Įach app does its best to manage how much data gets cached, but even so, some of them can grow pretty large over time. That's not the only way caches are used, though many third parties also cache other types of data locally for similar reasons. Since we often revisit dozens of the same websites every day, browsers like Safari and Chrome store local copies of webpages and their static elements like logos and graphics, so they don't need to download them again every time you go back to the same website. The most common type of cached data lives in your web browser. This data is referred to as 'cached' data, as it's information from elsewhere that's been copied to an area on your device where it can be reused for faster access.

Much of this data is kept on your device to speed things up and reduce the amount of data that needs to be repeatedly downloaded over your cellular or Wi-Fi data connection. Andy Boxall/Digital Trends What is the cache on your iPhone?ĭuring its normal course of operation, your iPhone stores quite a bit of temporary data under the hood.

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