How to Free Up Space on Android 1

How to Free Up Space on Android

Android phones and tablets are powerful devices with tons to offer. Users can quickly fill their storage limit as they download apps or games and add music or videos. Additionally, many low-end devices are almost empty the day you buy them. No one wants to micromanage their phone storage so here we will explain how to free up space on Android.

Storage limits will be an issue if you shoot lots of high resolution photos, 4k videos, or download large games like Asphalt 8. Even on phones like the Galaxy S7 that only have 32GB of internal storage. Of course it is useful to have a microSD slot for expansion and you can move apps to the SD card at any time.

With all that said, below are some tips on how to free up space on your Android smartphone or tablet. Whether it’s using Android’s built-in tools, moving apps to SD card, or using cloud storage apps. We’ll cover this and more below.

Free up space with a microSD card

As Android evolves, so do built-in tools and capabilities. These days, modern versions of Android have special settings for viewing and managing your storage. Not to mention seeing what’s being used the most, clearing the cache, or moving apps to an SD card. This is the first step for many for owners.

Use Android’s Built-in Tools

Our first recommendation would be to take advantage of the many tools built into stock Android. Google’s Nexus devices have storage managers, and most other devices from Samsung or LG have actual “File Manager” apps. Additionally, every Android device has a “Storage” option in the settings, so we’ll start there.

To do this, swipe down the notification bar and tap the gear-shaped settings button at the top. Or find the “Settings” app and icon in the app tray. Go to the “Storage” section in the settings. You will see something similar to the screenshot below.

Android storage

From here, users will see how much space is used by apps and their data, pictures and videos, audio files, downloads, cached data and various other files. Samsung devices may list storage in a different format. Tap any dump to see more information about a particular item.

For example, try tapping “Apps” to see which apps are using space and delete anything that’s too big. Especially if it’s an obsolete app. Many forget about the “Downloads” folder, which after months or years of use can often be filled with images and other stuff.

storage onIt’s a good idea to delete old files in the Downloads folder or clear the cache from apps that are taking up too much space. The best example is Facebook or Instagram. Download both photos and videos in advance and it can usually use around 1GB of space. Apps take up space and are cached on our devices by the app data itself.

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Above, we cleared about 500MB of space by deleting the cache on Instagram. That’s half a gigabyte. This means that only photos or videos of people we follow are temporarily saved. The app pre-loads them for enhanced performance but wastes precious space on our devices. Another good example is Google Music or Spotify, which will cache music for offline playback. Clearing the cache of any of the four apps mentioned above can save users tons of space in a matter of minutes. Not to mention many other apps.

Get a MicroSD Card and Transfer Any Data

The easiest way to free up tons of storage on your Android smartphone or tablet is to get a microSD card. As long as your phone supports it, microSD cards are extremely inexpensive and an easy way to expand storage. Almost all major smartphones released in 2016 have a microSD slot.

Users with a lot of photos, music or more important videos will want to transfer everything to a microSD card and internal storage.

Galaxy-S7-microsd1

Insert a microSD card and restart your phone or tablet. Now use the built-in file manager to export all the content to the SD card. Additionally, those with Android 6.0 Marshmallow or newer can connect it to a computer via micro USB and manually click and drag files.

We recommend moving all documents, downloaded files, photos or videos and much more to the microSD card. Music is also a big thing. Those who do not use a streaming solution will want to put all their music on the SD card. Next, let’s also move some apps to free up space on our device.

Move Apps to SD Card

Another extremely easy way to free up space is to move apps to the SD card. However, there are a few limitations. Anything installed on the phone right out of the box usually cannot be moved to the SD card. Additionally, the apps you use the widget will not work unless they are in internal storage.

We also recommend that any application that needs the best performance, such as games, should be installed on the internal storage for the best performance. For everything else, move it.

To get started, pull down the navigation bar and tap the gear-shaped settings button. Or find it in the application tray. Navigate to the column or then find the labeled option. It can also be called. Now owners will see a list of all their apps on their smartphones. I’m moving Clash Royale to SD card.

S7-apps2d

Once in the application manager, scroll and find any app or game downloaded from the Google Play Store. Select the app, tap on the first option called storage and tap on the big icon below where it is set to internal storage as shown below. Then select and continue.

Screenshot 2016-03-10, 2.07.41 PM

The full instructions and steps are here.

  1. Settings
  2. Applications
  3. Appilacation leader
  4. Select “Downloaded Application”
  5. Click “Storage”
  6. Select “Change storage” and choose “SD card”
  7. Confirm you want to move the app to SD, tap “Move” and let it export
  8. Repeat 4-7 for any downloaded app.
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These steps may vary slightly for different phones not manufactured by Samsung, but should be relatively easy for all owners to understand. On certain phones, there may be a “Move to MicroSD” button inside the app about the screen shown above. If so, click that and move each app. It only takes a few seconds.

With Android 6.0 Marshmallow, an SD card can also be formatted so the OS thinks it’s “internal storage” rather than removable. This is called adaptive storage. Although it will format the SD card and delete all data to complete, we recommend you choose this. Then the phone will show internal and external storage as a large amount.

Use Cloud Storage

Cloud storage is another great way to save space on our smartphones and tablets. Whether you upload all your images and videos to Google Photos or save the video and files to a program like Dropbox. They’re convenient, easy to use, and often free.

The way cloud storage works is that anything uploaded goes to the servers and is stored somewhere else instead of on your phone. As long as you have internet (4G LTE or WiFi) it can be accessed in seconds. Many don’t understand the “cloud”, but you should still use it. We recommend Google Photos, as images and videos take up most of the space on most smartphones these days.

google-photos

With Google Photos, users can instantly back up all photos and videos to the cloud. You get unlimited free storage if you choose “High Quality” backups. Which is still excellent in terms of photos. Or, choose the original quality that counts against a limit as you may run out and have to buy more cloud storage. We recommend using the free solution. I have thousands of photos that I have uploaded to Google Photos.

Also, under the settings menu of Google Photos, there is an option to “Free Up Space”. This allows you to find and manually delete duplicate photos or upload new images to the cloud and delete them from your device. Potentially freeing up 2-5GB or more of space. Everything is accessible from the photos app or online from a desktop.

other thoughts

It’s the same idea behind Google Photos and storing things in the cloud works for music too. Instead of wasting 10GB of space on your phone with music, upload it to Google Music and stream the songs over the internet. Alternatively, owners might consider trying popular apps like Dropbox, BOX.net, or even Microsoft OneDrive. The solutions are endless and they all work great. also give apps like cleaning master a try. It will clear the cache, delete old apps or clear duplicates of anything on your phone.

At the end of the day, all of this will just be so helpful. Be sure to be careful when downloading large files or games. Delete apps you no longer use and if you’re really worried, make sure the next phone you buy has 64GB of storage or a microSD slot. Some that come to mind are the Galaxy S8, LG G6 and more. When it comes to it though, the tips above will give most users enough room to continue using their device without worry. Leave a comment below for any questions or concerns.

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