iPhones never had a straightforward interface to check the file size of pictures on your device. Users have had to use third party gallery apps, or upload their images to Google Photos or something similar to be able to check the file size. However, there’s actually a much easier way to check file sizes of photos, and you won’t even have to leave the Photos app to use it. We’ll accomplish this using Shortcuts, so follow along as we build the Siri Shortcut for this purpose.
In case you’re not aware, Shortcuts is an Apple-made iPhone app that lets you create your own routines to simplify repetitive tasks you perform on your iPhone or iPad thereby improving your overall experience. It is worth noting that the Shortcuts app will be pre-installed if you’re running a beta version of iOS 13.
How to Easily Find the Size of Files in iPhone and iPad
1. Install the Shortcuts app (Free) from the App Store. As I mentioned earlier, you can safely skip this step if you’re using either the developer beta or public beta of iOS 13.
2. Open the app and tap on the “+” icon that is present in the top right corner of the app or press the “Create Shortcut” option. Assign a name you want for the shortcut, switch the toggle to “Show in Share Sheet” and choose the media types for which you need to see the shortcut. Since this guide is focused on media files, I chose “Files”, “Media”, and “Images”.
3. Now that you have created a shortcut, you need to set an action for it. For doing so, tap on the “Add Action” button that appears when you open the shortcut and type “Get details of files” in the search box.
5. Once you’ve done that, you will see the action as shown in the image below. Tap on the blue-colored “Detail” and choose “File Size”. You can also set other actions like File Extension, Creation Date, Last Modified Date, and so on if you want.
6. We now have to define a custom action for making the file size to show up as a notification. You can do the same by creating a new action named “Show Notification” which you can find by simply searching “Notification” in the search box.
7. Do note that when you create a notification, the default text that shows up with it is “Hello World”. You can set it to something meaningful as you can see in the above image. Do not forget to choose the variable “Details of Files” that will display the output of the previous action in the notification.
That ends our step-by-step guide on how you can comfortably view the size of your files on your iPhone and iPad. To trigger the notification, choose the file you would like to know the size of and tap on the Share button. In the Share sheet, choose the Shortcut we created and you will get a notification showing you the size of the file.
Do not forget to share this with all your iPhone buddies and let us know if you found this helpful in the comments.
