The Facebook app is one of the most popular mobile phone apps on both Android and iOS devices.
That in itself is hardly a surprise given that Facebook is the most popular social media platform on the planet, and has been for well over ten years now.
As with all mobile phone apps though, the Facebook app quietly takes up chunks of data on your device without you knowing about it. This data is better known as ‘cached data’.
There are benefits to cached data, mainly the fact that it helps speed up the performance of the app, however, as time goes on you may have to delete this cached data to make space for something else on your phone.
In this article, we are going to look at how you can clear the cached data on the Facebook app, across both iOS and Android devices. Let’s take a look.
How to clear cache on Facebook app – On Android and iOS
Clearing the Facebook app, or any app for that matter, follows a different process depending on which type of device you have.
This is because the operating systems in question are completely different, despite them providing very similar functionality.
In order to clear the cached data on the Facebook app while using an Android device, please follow these instructions:
- Head to the settings app.
- Select ‘apps and notifications’ and then ‘see all apps’.
- Select the Facebook app and then click on ‘storage and cache’.
- From here you will be able to simply select ‘clear cache’.
- If you want to create even more storage space, you can also select ‘clear data’. This is usually an extra step for if you are finding the app to be buggy.
The process is very different when it comes to clearing cached data on an iOS device.
Within the app’s settings you won’t see the option to clear the cache with a simple click of a button. Instead, you will simply have to delete the app entirely and then reinstall it from the App Store.
This will clear the cached data that the app has gained over time, just in a more time consuming way. It goes without saying that iOS really should consider adding this functionality to their operating system.
It is worth noting that clearing the cache is essentially like performing a full reset of the app.
Therefore, after the process is complete you will need to log in to your account again as if it’s the first time you’ve ever used the app.



Clearing your Facebook app’s cache is a great idea if you’ve been having trouble with the app and want to ensure that cached files aren’t causing an issue.
How to check your phone’s available storage space
As mentioned earlier, the most common reason why people want to clear cached data from their apps is due to running out of storage space on their device.
Checking your available storage space is a fairly straightforward process, regardless of whether you are using an Android or iOS device.
To check your available storage space on an Android device, follow these steps:
- Go the settings app on your device.
- Select ‘device maintenance’ or ‘device care’.
- Scroll down and select ‘storage’.
- From here you will be notified of how much space you have left on your device and will be able to see where all your space has gone. You will be able to go in to your apps and delete cached data to free up some space or even delete the some of them entirely if you are looking to get rid of large chunks of data.
To check your available storage space on an iOS device, follow these steps:
- Go to the settings app on your device.
- Select ‘general’ and then ‘iPhone Storage’.
- From here you will be notified of how much space you have left and will be able to see where all your space has gone, much in the same way it works on an Android. Your iPhone will also provide you with some one click recommendations to free up some space.
When else you should consider clearing cached data from an app
While we’ve focused on the most common reason behind clearing cached data on your mobile device – clearing storage space – there is another reason why you should consider doing this.
When an app starts to play up and glitch most people’s go to response is to restart the app.
However, if you simply clear the cached data instead, then you are more likely to eradicate the issue rather than just temporarily sort it.
Clearing the cache is a good response to try when your Facebook apps not working, which is a fairly common experience. If you find this doesn’t help, you can also delete the app and re-install it on your device too.
Conclusion
To conclude, clearing cached data on the Facebook app is a very straightforward process that doesn’t require you to be a tech wizard regardless of whether you are on an Android device or an iOS one.
Understanding why you might want to do this is slightly more complex but we hope that the information we have provided above will help you to get to grips with this.