How to free up Android space

Were you trying to download an application from the Google Play Store, but the download was unsuccessful because there is not enough space on your device’s memory? Have you made some videos in high definition and now you no longer have space to download music or games on your Android smartphone or tablet? Don’t panic. I assure you that, together, we will be able to find a solution to your problem.

All you need is some free time. Take a few minutes and I’ll show you how to free up Android space through some practical measures that will allow you to “clean” the memory of your device from apps, temporary files and other superfluous (or in any case no longer strictly necessary) content.

We will also see how to identify the files that take up the most disk space: photos, videos, songs, documents downloaded from the Internet, etc. and we will find out how to delete them easily and safely. In short, in one way or another we will solve your space problems. However, keep in mind that miracles cannot be done: if your Android device has a small memory and does not include a slot for microSD cards, you cannot expect to download hundreds of apps and games … but by putting into practice the advice that find below you should be able to improve the situation. Enjoy the reading!

Index

• How to free up space on Android
  • Uninstall unnecessary applications
  • Move applications and data to SD
  • Clear cache and temporary files
  • Organize Photos, Videos, Music and Downloads
  • Other tips for keeping Android “in shape”
• How to free up Android RAM space

How to free up space on Android

As I said at the beginning, to free up space on Android just put into practice some small, but very useful tricks … those that you find below! You don’t need to do anything particularly complicated, don’t worry.

Just keep in mind the fact that some of the indications relating to the items to be selected in the Android settings that I am going to provide you may differ slightly from what you see, depending on the version of the operating system in use and the make and model of the smartphone or Tablet.

Uninstall unnecessary applications

As trivial as it may seem, one of the most effective ways to free up Android space is to uninstall unnecessary applications. To find out which apps take up the most space on the memory of your smartphone or tablet, access the home screen and/or the Android drawer, tap the Settings icon (the one in the shape of a gear wheel ) and select the item Storage and USB from the screen that opens.

At this point, touch the word Internal memory, select the App item and you will be shown the list of all the applications installed on the device. If the list of apps is not already arranged in order of “weight” (ie from the app that takes up more space on the memory to the one that takes up less), press the button with the three dots at the top right and select the ‘ Sort by size option from the menu that opens (if you don’t see the above option, it means that the apps are already arranged in order of “weight”). As easily understood, if you have a device with expandable memory and you have moved the apps to the microSD, in the Storage and USB menu you must select the SD card item.

Once you have identified the apps that take up a lot of space and that you think are not essential), proceed to remove them. To do this, you can follow two different paths. Here they are

• Select the name of the app from the Settings> Android App menu and press the Uninstall button.
• Go to the drawer, keep your finger pressed on the icon of the app to uninstall and drag it to the trash icon that appears at the top left.

I recommend, however, not to uninstall system applications, such as Google Play Services or Google Play Store, as this could seriously compromise the stability and correct functioning of Android. If you are unsure of the identity of an application, do a Google search and find out what it is before deleting it from your device.

Move applications and data to SD

Are you using a smartphone or tablet with expandable memory? Then you can free up space on the device’s internal memory by trying to transfer some apps and some data to the microSD card.

More precisely, if your device supports the use of the SD card as main memory, you could solve most of your space problems by buying a large microSD and setting it as the main storage unit. But be careful, if you don’t buy a very fast and high quality SD card you will compromise the general performance of your device. If you are not very familiar with microSD cards and do not know how to evaluate their performance, take a look at my tutorial on which micro SD to buy.

To transform a microSD into the main memory unit of your smartphone or tablet and then transfer most of the apps and data to the latter, insert the card into the device and select the microSD item that appears in the Android notification menu (which you can call up by swiping your finger from the top of the screen to the bottom). If you do not see any item related to the microSD in the notifications menu, go to the Android Settings section, select the Storage and USB item, then the words SD card and answer Configure to the warning that appears on the screen.

At this point, put the checkmark next to the item Use as internal memory, press the Next button and tap the Delete and format button to start formatting the card (all the data inside it will be deleted) and set it as the main memory of your device. The operation could take a few minutes.

At the end of the process, you will be asked if you intend to move photos, documents and some apps to the SD card. Decide, therefore, whether to consent or whether to skip this step and press the Next button again. If you decide to move the data, you will have to confirm the operation by pressing the Move button and conclude the guided configuration of the SD card by tapping the Finish button.

If you don’t want to turn the microSD into the primary memory of your device, you can just move apps and data to it. To move an app to SD, go to the Android Settings section, select the App item from the new screen displayed, touch the name of the application to move and press first on the wording Memory and then on the Change button. Then put the checkmark next to the item relating to the SD card, press the Move button and you’re done.

However, keep in mind that unfortunately many apps do not allow direct transfer to SD. To move them to the external memory you have to root on Android and you have to contact applications to “force” the transfer of applications from the internal memory to the microSD, such as Link2SD. For more details on this, you can check out my tutorial on how to move apps to SD card.

As for photos, you should be able to transfer your photo gallery to SD by simply calling up the Camera app, accessing its settings and setting SD as the default destination drive for photos and videos. You can find more information about this in my tutorial on how to move photos to SD.

Clear cache and temporary files

Now let’s move on to cache files, that is to say all those temporary data that applications store to be more “reactive” and retrieve some information more quickly. Over time, the cache and other temporary files can accumulate on the memory of the smartphone or tablet and end up taking up a lot of space, on many occasions more than is actually necessary.

There are two ways to get rid of this information: the first consists in accessing the Android settings and “manually” clearing the cache of the apps installed on the device, while the second involves installing third-party applications whose task is precisely to “clean” the memory of the smartphone or tablet by automatically removing all superfluous data. But be careful, not all applications of this kind are reliable. Before downloading one, read carefully the comments of users who have already tried them and/or look for reviews online.

If you want to clear the cache of all the applications installed on your device (and all system services), go to the Android Settings section, select the Storage and USB item from the screen that opens and choose whether to clear the cache data from the internal memory or SD card (depending on whether you have installed apps on internal memory or SD card). Subsequently, touch the Cached data option and confirm your desire to clear the cache by tapping on the OK item in response to the warning that appears on the screen.

Would you like to clear the cache of a single app instead of all apps at the same time? No problem. Go to the Android Settings section, touch the wording App, select the application icon of your interest, select the Memory item and press the Clear cache button to complete the operation.

Keep in mind that some apps, such as Facebook and Spotify, tend to accumulate a lot of data: photos, songs, etc. If you want to delete them, go to the Settings> Apps> Android memory section and tap the Clear data button. But be careful, using this button not only the app data is deleted, but also the login information (therefore the data relating to your accounts). I advise you to resort to this measure only in “desperate” cases and if you know where you are putting your hands.

Temporary data that you can get rid of without too many hesitations are instead those of the Internet history. If you use Chrome as your main browser and want to delete Internet browsing data (cache, history, cookies, etc.), start the application, tap the button with the three dots located at the top right and select the History item from the menu that appears. Then press on the word Clear browsing data, choose which information to trash and tap the Clear data button. But be careful, if you have synchronized Chrome with your Google account, the data will also be deleted on the other workstations (computers, tablets, other devices associated with the same Google account). If you need more detailed instructions on how to clear browsing data from Android, read my tutorial on how to clear Android history.

If, on the other hand, you want to try to free up space on Android with one of the “handyman” applications that deal with deleting superfluous data, I suggest you take a look at the solutions belonging to the aforementioned category that I have listed below.

• Google Files– is the file manager for Android developed by Google itself, as easily understood from the name, which not only allows you to freely browse through the folders of the device in use, but also includes some ad hoc functions to free up disk space by removing the elements considered no longer useful. It’s free.
• SD Maid– has a decidedly spartan interface, but it is a very effective app. SD Maid, in fact, is without a doubt one of the best applications to “clean” the memory of Android devices. Basically it is free and allows you to delete the residual files of the applications removed from the smartphone, the system temporary files, the application databases and allows you to view the list of the “heaviest” files on the device, but by purchasing the paid version ( at a cost of 3.69 euros) it also becomes possible to delete the temporary files of third-party applications and to find duplicate files. It should be noted that some more advanced “cleaning” functions are only available on devices subjected to the root procedure.

For more details about the solutions I have reported to you just now and to find out what other solutions of this type you have from yours, you can consult my review dedicated specifically to Android cleaning programs.

Organize Photos, Videos, Music and Downloads

After deleting all the superfluous applications and after deleting the temporary data from your smartphone, you just have to focus on the other files on the device’s memory: photos, music, videos, files downloaded from the Internet, etc.

In this regard, the first step I recommend you to take is to go to the Android Settings section, select the Storage and USB item, then the drive on which you keep your files (internal memory or SD card) and check which contents occupy the most. space on your device’s memory. You should see various boxes related to Apps, Photos and Videos, Audio, Downloads and Miscellaneous Files with the number of MB or GB occupied by each content.

Once you have identified the files that take up the most space on your smartphone or tablet memory, proceed as follows to get rid of them.

• To delete photos and videos– open the Google Photos application (which is pre-installed on most Android devices) and activate the automatic backup function of videos and photos to Google Drive, deleting them from the terminal memory when necessary. To enable online backup in Google Photos, tap on your avatar that you find in the upper right part of the app screen, then on the Photo Settings item at the bottom, then on the word Backup and synchronization and check that the removal next to it the heading Backup and synchronization is moved to ON (otherwise activate it yourself). Also take steps to tap on the voiceUpload size and adjust the settings according to your needs. To delete all the photos and videos that have already been stored on Google Photos, go back to the main app settings screen, touch the word Free up space on the device and press the Free [amount of space] button that appears at the bottom.
• To delete music– open the audio player you use on your smartphone/tablet and delete single songs or albums from it. For example, if you use Spotify, you need to access the Your Library tab located at the bottom right, then you must select the album or playlist you want to delete from the device and you must disable the download option.
• To delete files downloaded from the Internet– go to the Downloads folder of your device using any file manager, select the files to delete and press the trash can icon located at the top right.

If before you want to delete photos, videos or songs from the smartphone memory you want to save a backup copy on your computer, connect the phone to the PC (via USB cable) and copy the files of your interest to it. If you need help, you can check out my specific guide on how to connect Android to PC.

Another tip that I can give you is to transfer PDF and other “bulky” documents on cloud storage services such as Google Drive, Dropbox and onedrive, which allow you to have your files always at hand without taxing the device memory.

Other tips to keep Android “in shape”

Always in order to keep smartphones and tablets as fit as possible, I think it is appropriate to suggest reading my guide on how to speed up Android, in which I have suggested some applications and some tricks that allow you to speed up Android, not only going to free up space, but also by optimizing the energy consumption of the device used.

If, on the other hand, you have problems related to battery autonomy, read my guide on how to save Android battery: here you will find some simple tricks to put into practice in the daily use of the smartphone or tablet that can allow you to solve the thing.

How to free up Android RAM space

Did you end up on my guide not because you are interested in clearing the storage space of your smartphone or tablet, but because you want to free up Android RAM space? Well, I’d say I can help you with that too.

If this is indeed the case, I inform you that there are some applications specially designed to meet this type of need and which could be of great help. For more information, see my specific guide on how to free up the RAM on your mobile.

 

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