iNaturalist was taking up obscene amounts of data (30GB) on my phone and I needed to clear the cache, so, following the instructions here:
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/inaturalist-using-lots-of-storage-on-iphone/3316
I logged out and logged back in. This did not clear the cache, the data usage was still high. I also tried resetting my phone, which did nothing.
I was forced to uninstall the app, after logging out, and then reinstall it. This fixed the problem. Then I was able to log back in. I would consider this a workaround, not a solution, because I had to spend quite a lot of time troubleshooting today, searching for the forum posts, following instructions, then trying multiple things.
I also would strongly prefer not to have to log out, as it’s tedious to log back in because my password is long, and I often have to repeat it because I frequently make an error, and I especially don’t want to have to do it twice because it didn’t clear the cache!
Wouldn’t it be simple to make a menu option available that just forces clearing of the cache? This seems particularly valuable because the amount of storage usage by iNaturalist is so high, it is by far the most space usage of any app and the second highest usage after the main camera storage. It would also save a lot of time, like a lot of people seem to have complained about the high usage on the forums over the past few years.
Also, it might be worth enabling some setting that would allow a rolling clearing of the cache, or perhaps an option (set by default?) to delete image files after they are successfully uploaded? Or perhaps mark them for deletion after some time date like 3 months? I can think of a long list of ways that would address the storage issue proactively, without having to require any input from the user.
Running out of storage on your phone can be very problematic. It’s happened to my partner, who has had some critical use of her phone that she needs in the moment, and then her phone runs out of storage and she has to like, rush to clear it, and if you need to do complex troubleshooting, it creates a stressful situation where you’re having to do it under pressure. Since iNaturalist has a way of accumulating such large amounts of storage usage because of taking all the photos, it seems critically important to have the app, by default, proactively manage this stuff, or it will be inconveniencing the user. I am very glad I caught this usage before the storage filled up completely, but I would strongly prefer that I don’t have to think about this stuff, that it’s handled automatically because it’s just one more thing to be worrying about in our overly-complex world.
I am on Android and am using the most recent version of the app although before I uninstalled it it might have been a few days since I updated it.
