Apple Intelligence is coming soon as part of iOS 18.1. When that happens, you might need to free up some extra storage space on your iPhone. Here are the storage requirements for Apple Intelligence at launch, and why they’ll increase over time.

4GB storage requirement for iPhone 16 and later

According to a document published by Apple and included with the latest iOS 18.1 beta, Apple Intelligence will have specific storage requirements at launch.

This is what it says in the document, which can be found in the ‘Supported Devices’ section:

Apple Intelligence is available on iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, all iPhone 16 models, and iPad and Mac models with M1 and later. iPhone devices require 4GB of storage*.

Now we know that 4GB is the storage required to install and use Apple Intelligence features. This is on top of the storage required to install the iOS 18.1 update itself.

Interestingly, only iPhones that have the required 4GB of storage are mentioned.

Maybe there are different requirements for iPads and Macs. Or maybe there’s another reason Apple chose not to share that information.

You may have noticed the asterisk at the end of the quote. That’s because 4GB is just a starting point for the first set of AI features.

More storage space required for future Apple Intelligence features

A footnote at the end of Apple’s documentation states: “On-device storage requirements for Apple Intelligence models will increase as more features are rolled out.”

It’s unclear how much additional storage will be needed for further AI models. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the starting requirement double over time, to 8GB in the next year.

If you’re someone who keeps your iPhone storage pretty full, it might be time to start identifying cutbacks you can make to free up space. Or, if you’re in the market for a new iPhone 16 or 16 Pro, maybe avoid the 128GB options this year.

Are you concerned about the storage requirements for Apple Intelligence? Let us know in the comments.