We're turning the lens around for this week's Ask Lifehacker. Our Managing Editor Virginia Smith posed a question in our internal Slack channel that cuts wide and deep: "It's safe to delete photos from my iPhone, right?"

iOS: So you’re running out of space on your iPhone. Perhaps you’ve been unable to download that new movie you purchased to your device because there’s no room. Maybe your iPhone has popped up the dreaded “Storage Almost Full” warning.

However you were notified that you were running low on space is irrelevant: Your iPhone is filling up and you should probably look into that sooner, when it’s less critical to do so, than at a later point when you really need to do something and can’t.

If you want to have a Mac that's as free from garbage and stray files as you can get, I recommend giving CleanApp a try. The app runs a background process that keeps track of everything an app dumps on your system when you're installing it. When it's time to remove said app, this ensures that CleanApp takes everything off your system that shouldn't be there.

When you walk into retail store to buy an external hard drive, there are dozens of options to choose from. And there's always the option of buying a hard drive or SSD and putting together your own. So, manufacturers have to find ways to add value to what is a reasonably straightforward device you can rig up yourself. LaCie's answer is the Rugged SECURE. As the name suggests, it combines with physical and logical security features.

Wasteful packaging is an inescapable part of drawing breath in a capitalist society but, for a variety of reasons, most people can't alter their food choices based solely on the materials that contain it. This is why I reuse food packaging whenever I can: sure, it cuts down on waste, but I also get to stock up on storage containers for free.

Apple recently (and finally) brought Messages to iCloud, which we've written about a bit over the past month because it's just that useful and necessary of a feature. However, with all new, great things comes confusion; setting it up can be a bit of a head-scratcher and apparently, figuring out just what it's doing is equally question-inducing.

NAS devices have transformed from simple storage devices into multimedia and data management centres that are as much at home in the home as they are in the office. The QNAP TS-453Be straddles that line between work and play, offering a bunch of connectivity, applications and storage options. And while it offers a rich set of features, it's let down by some usability challenges.

Windows: Most computer geeks know about WinDirStat, an incredibly useful utility that shows which folders and files are taking up so much room on your drive. It's a must-have app, because you'll be surprised - heck, I've been surprised - how many times you might find some random, triple-buried folder on your desktop that's using an unseemly amount of space.

This one's almost a cop-out, since all Windows users should know about WinDirStat by now. This app has been out for nearly 15 years, and it's one of the most helpful tools you can use to clean up your hard drive.

Windows: Sometimes, finding the right Windows settings to automate some portion of your digital life feels like digging through the nooks and crannies of your couch to find loose change. In this case, Windows' "Storage Sense," a handy way to automate hard drive cleaning, has probably been staring you in the face for a while, you just never thought to activate it. And you should.

Drives fail. And no matter how many backups you have, losing a drive when you're in the middle of working on something important -- my namesake's law -- can be a real pain in the arse. Thankfully, replacing your old-and-busted drive with a brand-new drive is one of the easiest upgrades you can make.

Organic peanut butter is tasty stuff, and it can even be part of a healthy diet as long as you don't eat too much. But when you store it for a while (or in some cases, when you first buy it), the oils separate from the rest of the butter and rise to the top, which requires a vigorous stirring before you can spread the goodness. A quick flip can fix that.

Magnetic knife holders are a great way to keep your knives at the ready, sure, but they're also useful for keeping other household items organised and easy to grab. (That is, provided they're a good amount of metal in them, such as drill bits or paperclips.) Below, other strategies for putting a magnetic knife strip to use in your bathroom, office, workshop and kitchen.

LaCie has been around for a long time - mainly appealing to Mac owners who are prepared to pay extra for stylish enclosures that match their hardware. The LaCie Rugged brings together an aluminium enclosure and bright orange protective surround that offers physical protection for your data as well as the offer of data protection services.

The humble USB drive - supplanted by the download and the cloud sync, but still useful in all kinds of ways. If you've got an old drive lying around, here are some of the ways you can put it to use that don't just involve sharing old pics to your mum.

Every IT admin knows the pain of having unused user accounts lingering around. But when you run a global cloud storage business, unused accounts can be a pain in the butt. For Dropbox, which is preparing to go public and is facing stiff competition from Microsoft, Google, Apple and others, the need to better manage infrastructure costs is particularly acute. In a filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Dropbox has said they've been able to save over US$35M in infrastructure costs. One of the things they did was delete data from inactive users.

Eventually, we all run out of storage. And we all want to get our hands on our information as fast as possible. In most cases, that combination of requirements means looking for an array of SSDs. But Samsung has upped the ante with a massive 30.72TB SSD - one of the most capacious 2.5" drives ever made.

We now store more content at home than ever before. And even though streaming services like Netflix, Stan, Apple Music and Spotify are changing the way we access media, we still need to ensure data is reliably backed up. Many of us - me included - have large libraries of digital content we've already paid for and want to be able to access at home or work. So, what makes a good NAS and what's available on the market?

If you have kids who love LEGO, you've probably shouted in pain after stepping on LEGO bricks. Those things get everywhere. Here's a DIY solution from The Handyman's Daughter. Using an IKEA Lack side table, a Trofast bin and some baseplates, you can create a play table with a drawer to keep the pieces contained.