This can be very easy, especially if you have an Android phone with less than 128GB of storage: one day you try to install a great new game or an interesting new app and you just can’t. You’ve run out of space.
Do not panic. If you’re not ready to buy a new phone and your phone doesn’t have a handy microSD slot for extra storage, you can probably still get enough free space with a simple house cleaning. Here are some suggestions on how to get some of that storage back.
Note: These were tested using a Pixel 3 phone running Android 12. Depending on the make and operating system of your phone, your instructions may vary slightly.
Use Android’s “Free up space” tool
Android has a built-in tool to help you increase the amount of available storage on your phone. It’s easy to find:
- Go to your phone’s settings and select “Storage”. You will see information about how much space is being used and a list of file categories.
- Tap the “Free up space” button.
- You will be taken to Google’s Files app, specifically its “Clean” feature, which offers suggestions on how to free up space by getting rid of junk files, deleted screenshots, large photos, backed up media and unused apps; There may be other suggestions as well.
There are other useful tools in the “Storage” section. For example, you can find out how much space each of your apps takes up:
- In Storage, tap on Apps. You will get a list of all your apps along with how much space each of them takes up.
- Tap the app name. You can now see the app size, how much of the available storage is used by user data, and how much is used by the cache. Two buttons allow “Clear storage” or “Clear cache”.
(Note for starters: Clearing the cache is generally safe. However, check what your user data is before you hit “Clear storage”. You don’t want to accidentally delete important media or documents.)
Finally, there’s a hidden toggle for a feature called “Smart Storage” that allows you to automatically remove photos backed up to your phone after 60 days. It also automatically removes backed up photos and videos if your device has less than 25 percent of storage space left. You open (or close) it through Google’s Files app.
- Open the Files app and tap the three parallel lines in the upper left corner.
- Select settings.
- Find and open the Storage Sense setting.
Check your apps
A good way to save space is to make sure you don’t clutter things up with apps you haven’t used in months. It’s easy to download an app, try it out, and then let it wait while you get on with other things.
If you’re wondering how long it’s been since you’ve used certain apps, here’s how to find out:
- Tap your Play Store app.
- Tap your personal icon in the upper right corner and select “Manage apps and device”.
- Select the Manage tab. In the row below that, the Installed button should be highlighted; if not, tap on it.
- To the right of the Applications heading, you will see the sort icon. Tap that and select the “Least used” option.
- You can now see apps that you only use occasionally (if any) at the top of the list. You won’t necessarily want to get rid of them – sometimes it’s good to have an app just in case – but you may catch some that you don’t really need anymore.
Store your photos online
Photos and videos can be some of the most space-consuming items on your phone. Luckily, if you have an Android phone, you probably already upload your photos to Google Photos, so you can remove them from your phone.
First, check to make sure has Back up your photos to your Google account.
- Open the Photos app.
- Tap your personal icon in the upper right corner. If you’re backing up your photos, you should see the “Backup complete” entry in the drop-down menu.
- If you are not backing up your photos, select “Photo settings” > “Backup and sync”.
- Make sure the “Backup & sync” switch at the top of the page is set to “On”. You should also check which account is listed under “Backup Account”. If you have more than one account, you can switch to the one you want to use.
There are other options. For example, you can choose the quality of the photos you want to upload and whether you want the phone to upload photos when using cellular data.
Now that you are sure your photos are backed up, you can delete them from your phone. It is very likely that there is a notification at the top of the front page of the Photo app suggesting to free up memory on your device; If not, it’s easy to do.
- In the “Photo settings” menu, tap “Free up device storage”.
- You will see a window telling you how much memory and how many items to remove. Select “Release XX” at the bottom of the page.
Still running out of space? Then, unfortunately – or luckily, if you’re looking for a good excuse – it might be time to start thinking about a new phone, one with more storage, and maybe that also gives you a chance to dump your data on a microcomputer. Memory card.
Update October 21, 2021 at 2:15 pm ET: This article was originally published on August 9, 2019 and has been updated to account for changes in Android.