How to free up space on an Android phone — so much space! For activities!
Everything we do on our Android phones takes up a tremendous amount of storage space — from the many photos and videos we take to our media-heavy chats and the dozens of memory-hungry apps we browse. So it’s no surprise that most of us run out of space within a year or two of use. Luckily, it’s just as easy to get back some of the lost disk space, and you can free up disk space in a few steps without compromise.
Android gives you many options for freeing up space on your phone, but Google also offers tools to help you get rid of junk you might not even know is clogging up storage, including automatically deleting unnecessary items like duplicate photos and screenshots . This is how you can easily free up the internal storage of your Android phone.
Delete duplicates and other junk files
Google’s free memory management app called files can erase large chunks of your phone’s memory with a few taps. It intelligently scans your phone’s storage for items that you can boot without a second thought. For example, it will suggest to delete duplicate files, screenshots, meme images from chat apps, unused apps and many more.
Another unique ability of Google Files is that you can clean junk files. All computer systems, like your phone itself, produce temporary data in order to perform normal, day-to-day tasks, and over time this can accumulate and consume a significant portion of your device’s memory.
To access these suggestions, download and open the Google Files app. Give it a few hours or days to scan your storage. Once it’s done, you can find the suggestions under the “Clean” tab.
Clear app cache and data
Your favorite apps will preload the features you use most to speed up the experience and keep you logged in. However, to achieve this, they store hundreds of megabytes of temporary data in your phone’s memory, which continues to accumulate as the developer releases new updates. However, if you are running out of storage space, you can throw that data off your phone instead of uninstalling the app entirely and it won’t damage it.
Go to Settings > Storage > Apps > [App Name] > Clear cache.
Messaging apps are the silent culprits behind your phone’s low storage space. You may not mind downloading a few photos that your friend may have sent, but we may receive hundreds of files every day or week. Before you know it, your favorite IM app may be responsible for consuming gigabytes of storage space.
Luckily, most chat apps offer a storage tool that lets you manage the locally stored data. In Google Files, under the Clean tab, you can find sections for deleting unwanted chat media like memes and screenshots.
For example, on WhatsApp, you can go to Settings > Storage and Data > Manage Storage. WhatsApp automatically categorizes your chat files into different, convenient buckets, e.g. B. those larger than 5 MB, the items that have been forwarded many times, and more. You can tap each of these sections to delete files individually or remove them all at once. On Telegram, such storage management options are also available under Settings > Data & Storage > Storage Usage.
Another uncompromising method to instantly free up space on your phone is to review all the content you have saved for offline consumption. This can be anything from offline maps on Google Maps to movies and TV episodes streaming platforms. Unless you’ve specifically selected low-quality downloads for streaming apps, even a single hour-long episode can take up more than 500MB of disk space. Google Maps had somehow taken up 6GB on my phone.
Unfortunately, Android doesn’t have a central hub for managing your in-app downloads. You must visit each app individually. Alternatively, if you know you’ve looked at everything from an app’s download list, you can just navigate to Settings > Storage > Apps > [App Name] > Delete data.
Switch to Lite Apps
Many popular brands like Facebook and Google offer so-called “lite apps”. These apps are intended for low-end phones that don’t have enough memory and storage space to run a full-size app’s regular client. Lite apps come with a reduced set of features that allow them to take up exponentially less space on your phone, and you won’t miss out on much in most scenarios either.
Some of the best lite apps available on google play store are Facebook Lite, Instagram Lite, Spotify Lite, Twitter Lite and Messenger Lite.
Move your files and apps to an external drive
In case you are struggling to free up space on your Android phone, you can move some of your data to an external drive. Android makes it easy to move your files and apps to an SD card (on compatible phones) or a USB stick via a dongle. You can use any file management app to do this, but we’ve found Google Files to be the most reliable.
Go to a file in Google Files and tap the three dots button at the top. Select “Copy to” or “Move to” and then choose the name of your external drive.
The process of moving apps to an SD card varies depending on your phone’s manufacturer. However, this should work on most devices: Go to Settings > Storage > Apps > [App Name]. Tap on “Change” and select the SD card.
Enjoy the new space on your Android phone!