How to Free Up Storage Space on Your Android Device
Freeing Up Space On Your Android Device
App, photo, and operating system sizes are always increasing in size. If you use an older device you would quickly find yourself reaching the storage limit.
There is nothing worse than whipping out your phone for a once-in-a-lifetime photo, only to be met with the much-hated Storage Full message. So how can you free up storage on Android? Keep reading some ideas on how to do that.
1. Identify Storage-Hogging Apps
How many of the applications are currently installed on your phone do you use regularly?
Sure, we all need to have an email client, some social media applications, a news application, and maybe, a game or two. But do you really need that random weather widget application that you downloaded or that app that distorts your face to make you look like your dog? Am sure that the answer is no.
More recent versions of Android make it very easy for us to see which applications are the worst offenders. Go to your System Settings > Storage > Other apps. Wait for the list to fill up, then tap on the menu button that is in the top-right corner and choose Sort by Size.
Once you know what app is taking up the most space, uninstall anything you do not need by going over to Settings > Apps & notifications > See all [number of installed apps] apps.
2. Delete Offline Content
Lots of applications allow you to save content on your device so you can view them even when you are offline.
Saving content for offline use is awesome when you have enough space. If you don’t, you will quickly start wondering where all of your device free space went.
A few prudent steps would fix this problem. Instead of downloading lots of music albums, try making a playlist on Spotify with just enough songs to cover your gym music season. Only open the notebooks that you use most frequently on OneNote, and avoid downloading any huge files from those cloud storage services.
To clear the contents that you already have saved on your device, you have two options. You can clear the caches of the app by going to Settings > Apps and notifications > See all [number of installed apps] apps > [App Name] > Storage and cache > Clear Cache.
3. Move Photos to the Cloud
Google Photos would automatically back up all your photos to the google cloud storage. As long as you are ok with a slightly lower image resolution, they would not count against your Google Drive storage limits.
When looking at the photos saved on your device using Google Photos, it is very easy to miss the fact that they are not saved locally. They are still accessible and viewable through the Photos app so long as you have active an internet connection.
The app would even alert you when it can help to save some space, with an on-screen notification making you aware that you are reaching your storage limits.
If you think you are close to full capacity, you can get the app to check it on your behalf. Go to Google Photos > Menu > Free up space. The app would scan your device, let you know how many photos have already been backed up, and advise you on which ones you can delete safely.
4. Move Content to an SD Card
Unfortunately, fewer and fewer android devices now ship with an SD card slot. They are especially rare to be found on premium devices.
If you have a mid-range or budget android phone, it is more likely to have a slot for SD cards. This is fortunate, given that such devices typically have lower inbuilt storage than the more expensive devices.
Android is capable of formatting an external SD card so it works as internal storage on your device. Go Settings > Storage > [SD card name], then click on the three vertical dots found in the top-right corner and choose Storage settings. Select Format as internal to start the process.
5. Take Advantage of the Google Files App
The Android storage manager application called Files has an overlooked feature which is the Free up space tool. It is directly built into the Android Settings app. To use it, go over to Settings > Storage and tap on Free up space.
The File application would automatically open and start analyzing your storage. It would identify junk files, large files, old files, and anything else that it thinks you can safely delete. You would have to make the final decision of whether to complete the removal.
