Clear Up Space On Android

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  1. Clear Android History
  2. Android Clear Data

'I've made a huge mistake'. When I was buying a secondary Android phone, I went with the 8 GB Moto G model. 8 GB will be more than enough I said to myself, it's not my main device anyway. I was so wrong. Out of the 8 gigs, only 5 GB are usable. When you use many apps (for testing) and some media, that's not a lot.

It got so bad that this one time when I was trying to download a storage space analyzer app, I got an error saying I didn't have enough space left. Luminar software for mac. Oh, the irony.

Look Up Storage in Settings: First, go to Settings -Storage and take a look at what's taking up so. To download more apps and media, or to help your phone run better, you can clear space on your phone. Storage is where you keep data, like music and photos. Memory is where you run. How to free up space on Android: How to fix low storage on Android and get more space without root - YouTube. How to #Increase #Internal #Memory / #Storage of #Phone using Memory card (SD Card. Clean Up Space will run automatically once you have at least 1 GB of photos or videos to upload on your device (either by already having them on the device or by taking new ones). A notification will appear on your device offering to Clean up space on your device.

But in the end I was able to persevere. Using a combination of different apps (yes, yes, adding insult to the injury), uninstalling apps, clearing caches, and being ruthless about downloaded files, I was able to clear more than 1 GB of data in a matter of minutes. To me, that's a lot.

Read on to find out how I did it. And how you can too.

1. Look Up Storage in Settings

First, go to Settings -> Storage and take a look at what's taking up so much space. Is it apps, photos, or videos? Tap on an option to see the complete list. Although, deleting files from here is not possible for some reason.

More importantly, tap the Misc option. This lists all the extra files left from apps you uninstalled, old backup files, or any other file type. I found over 1 GB of data taken up by such miscellaneous files. Deleting the old ROM backups, ROM images, and more was an easy way to free the space.

2. Analyze Storage Using Disk Usage & Storage Analyzer

Sometimes a visual representation of data helps. That's where Disk Usage & Storage Analyzer comes in. Once the app scans your storage, it will show you a breakdown of your entire storage directory, folder by folder.

It displays this using a branched circle structure. You can use the Directory tab to go deeper into the folders. Tapping a folder/file brings up the Delete option.

3. Clean Cache and Temp Files

Clear Up Space On Android

If you're a fan of RSS readers or offline reading apps, app caches can build up pretty fast. I'm talking about a couple hundred MBs here. You can either go to Settings -> Apps, choose the app and clear the cache manually or you can use a cleaner app.

When it comes to cleaner apps, you can either use Clean Master or CCleaner (our review here), Clean Master being the choice of Android veterans.

When you launch Clean Master, you'll see a Junk Files option. This will include system cache, app caches, system junk files, residual files from old apps and more. You can select what you want to delete. It freed nearly 300 MB using this feature. Not bad for literally 15 seconds of work. As caches build up with time, you'll have to do this cleaning at set intervals.

4. Upload Photos to Dropbox and Delete Local Copies

Dropbox's Carousel app has a 'Free up phone space' feature (available in Settings) that deletes local copies of photos that are already backed up to Dropbox.

They can be accessed from the Carousel app anytime. Carousel will show thumbnails of all the photos. Tapping them will give you a larger preview. You can save photos from here to local storage as well.

If you want to do this manually, you can. Choose your cloud photo backup service of choice. Upload, then delete the local copies.

5. Do a Manual Sweep with ES File Explorer

There's nothing better than just having a look around. Grab a full-featured file manager like ES File Explorer and start hunting. Explore the folders from top down. You're bound to find files and folders taking up unnecessary space.

Check the Downloads folder: Everything you download on your phone will be on the Downloads folder. Over time, it gets easy to ignore this folder while it fills up. I found a couple of apk files and many wallpapers the last time I went looking in my Downloads folder, all of which I could get rid of.

6. Use the Old Fashioned Way: Delete Via PC

If you're looking for an easier way to manage/delete data from your phone that's possibly the most reliable way, connect it to a PC. This will list your internal storage as well as external SD card. Browse around, rearrange, and delete anything you don't need.

7. Batch Uninstall Apps

We've talked about the best ways to batch uninstall apps, including Titanium Backup for rooted users. But you can use a cleaner app like Clean Master to uninstall apps as well.

Apps like Facebook and Instagram can take up more than 100 MB of space (not to mention significant battery power). You can consider deleting them and using the website instead.

8. Do a Factory Reset

We're talking about taking extreme measures here, but if necessary, you could just do a factory reset and start over fresh. Make sure all your personal data is backed up (to the cloud preferably) before you do this.

How Do You Free Up Storage Space?

What's your workflow for getting rid of unwanted apps, photos, and files? Let us know in the comments below.


The above article may contain affiliate links which help support Guiding Tech. However, it does not affect our editorial integrity. The content remains unbiased and authentic.

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Have you been receiving the 'Phone storage is full' notification on your iOS or Android phone? You can easily free up space with a little spring cleaning on your smartphone. Here's a breakdown of what you can safely delete to give yourself some more space.

How to free up space on your phone

We use our phones for everything these days, from our music player and camera to ordering groceries. So it's easy to find yourself with a lot of unused apps and cached data taking up space on your phone that you could really use to take more pics of your beloved pet. Every day, Asurion Experts help our 300 million customers (and counting!) to get the most out of the tech devices they love and rely on, including how to free up space on their smartphones. We'll walk you through what you can do to get more device storage, from how to clear cache on your phone to how to back up your data to the cloud.

How to check your phone storage

The first thing you'll want to do is check to see which apps on your smartphone are the biggest users of space and delete the ones you can live without. On your phone's usage screens, you will see your available storage, along with a list of your apps ranked from top to bottom based on how much space they're occupying. With a little luck, you'll find an app that's taking up a lot of space that you never use, so you'll have no problems saying goodbye to it.

On Android

Android has built-in tools to check your storage.

  1. In Settings, select Device Care (may also be Battery and device care).
  2. Then, click on Storage.
  3. From there, you can see what's taking up space on your phone.

On iPhone

iPhone also has a built-in system check.

  1. Tap on Settings.
  2. Then, choose General.
  3. From there, select iPhone Storage.
  4. At the top of the screen, you can check out how much storage is used on your iPhone, what content takes up the most space, and how much memory is left.

What apps should I delete to get more storage on my phone?

Consider whether the apps that you rarely use really and truly need to be on your smartphone. Ask yourself, 'Does this app provide a function that I cannot get by going to the company's website?' If it does, then by all means, let it be. If not, delete the app and bookmark the company's website instead.

For Android users who wish they could remove some of the apps pre-installed by Google or their wireless carrier, you're in luck. You may not always be able to uninstall those, but for newer Android devices, you can at least 'disable' them and reclaim the storage space they've taken up. Simply long press the app icon in the apps menu and choose Disable from the pop-up window.

For many social apps on your iPhone, you can choose the Offload App option to help free up space. Settings > iPhone Storage > choose an app > then enable Offload App. This feature will automatically offload your unused apps when you're low on storage, while saving your related documents and data for future access.

How to clean my files and delete unwanted documents

File manager apps can help you to easily clean up your phone and create more storage space. These apps can scan your device to remove duplicate files, clean up your contact list, and identify apps you don't use that are hogging needed space. Here are a few worth checking out.

Best file manager apps for iPhone and Android​

Files by Google

Available for Android devices

Files by Google easily scans your device and gives recommendations for freeing up your phone's storage space with just a few taps. The app also helps you to keep your device free of clutter, sending you prompts from time-to-time to remove junk or temporary files that impact your phone's performance.

Smart Cleaner

Available for iOS devices

Smart Cleaner scans your iPhone storage and allows you to easily remove duplicate contacts, screenshots, and similar photos from your gallery. Its Smart Cleaning function makes the process simple, taking care of freeing up space with just a single tap of a button.

KeepClean

Available for Android devices

KeepClean is a powerful all-in-one solution for your phone storage cleanup needs, offering everything from junk file and device cache cleaning to antivirus security. It also helps keep your phone performing at its best with its built-in battery saver and quick charging functions.

Back up photos, videos, music from your smartphone to the cloud

If you're still in need of additional storage wiggle room, check out your photo and video albums. Deleting duplicate photos will be a huge help – and you're likely to have a lot, since it typically takes 10+ tries to get that perfect selfie. But the biggest space saver will be deleting video files. Video files tend to be huge, so the more you can get rid of, the better. Post them on social media or a cloud storage account, or save them to your home computer before deleting them from your smartphone. You should also consider enabling automatic uploading from your camera roll to Dropbox or another cloud storage solution – check out our easy guide to backing up your phone photos.

Keeping music downloaded on your device can also take up room on your device. Consider keeping only the music you really love and want to be able to listen to if there's no WiFi or wireless service available. Otherwise, stick to music streaming apps like Pandora or Spotify, since they take up much less space than a big music library.

Best cloud storage for Android​ and iPhone

  1. ​Google Photos offers 15 GB of free storage, which is more than most cloud services offer. With features like tagging for faces and places, plus it being backed by Google's powerful search, Google Photos makes locating the particular photo or video you're looking for simple and keeps your phone photos organized.
  2. iCloud offers 2GB of free storage and allows you sync files between your iOS devices as well as your PC, but take note: there's currently no iCloud option for your Android devices. A bonus feature is the Family Sharing option, which allows family members to share access to music and App Store purchases and a family photo album. Check out our guide on how to use iCloud.
  3. Dropbox offers 2GB of free storage and is a simple solution if you're just looking to back up files and sync them between your devices. The Dropbox app allows you to automatically back-up photos or videos as they are taken, making it even easier to keep the storage space on your phone uncluttered.

Do emails, text message and voicemails take space on mobile phones?

You'd be surprised at how much space old text messages and voicemail take up on your device. Sure, there are certain exchanges you keep for the sake of cherished memories, but the photos of your dogs in their Halloween costumes you text to your spouse a year ago probably aren't the best use of storage space on your phone. Take a few minutes to go through these and delete where necessary.

Clear your phone cache

What is phone cache?

Phone cache is information—like files, scripts or images—that is saved on your device after visiting a website or opening an app for the first time that speeds up your experience when returning to them in the future.

Clear Android History

If you're like most people, you use your phone for just about everything, which means over time your phone will collect a large amount of cached data that you just don't need and that will put a strain on your phone's memory. Clearing out your phone's cache occasionally will help to free up a little storage space on your device and will likely improve your device's overall performance.

How to clear cache on your phone

If you have an app that's running slowly or crashing, clearing the app's cache can solve a lot of basic issues. Clearing app cache will erase unnecessary files, but you won't lose any of your app's saved passwords or data.​

How to clear cache on Android:​

  1. Go to your device Settings.
  2. Choose Apps.
  3. Click on an often used app, like Chrome. Then, click on Storage.
  4. Click on the Clear Cache icon in the bottom right corner.
  5. Repeat these steps for the other apps on your device.

Android Clear Data

How to clear cache on iPhone:​

Instructions to clear app cache on an iPhone varies from developer to developer. If you suspect a particular third-party app is causing performance issues, go to Settings > General > iPhone Storage. There, you'll see your apps listed in order of size. You can click on an individual app to see if there are options available to clear cache data. If there is no cache clearing option available, try uninstalling and reinstalling the app.

Protect your phone now.

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