How To Free Up Storage Space In Android Phone



Anyone with a smartphone will be veryfamiliar with seeing the dreaded “storage almost full” message flash up on the screen.For those who have ignored these warning signs long enough, it may even read“storage full”. Running out of memory can be quite annoying and disruptive,particularly if it happens just before you need to do something which requiresstorage space.

For most Apple or Android users, this message will first appear when you are very close to reaching your storage limit, usually about 500MB before. It often shows after you’ve tried to download a new app, that album you’ve been looking forward to or while shooting a video. If the file size is larger than what’s remaining, the prompt will appear and indicate that you need to make room.

The good news is that you don’t have to putup with it. There are simple steps you can take to help stretch your phone’sinternal memory and make use of every megabyte you have.

How to free up space on your Android phone or tablet. No more room at the inn, and no expansion slot for adding more? Here are some strategies for reclaiming precious Android storage. To move files to the extra SD card to free up space on android without deleting apps, you need to use the application manager Link2SD since cannot move apps to SD card directly. Install the Link2SD in your android device, run the application, it will ask for root permission. Then, it will ask for.ext partition that you created before. If you are getting notifications like this on your android phone or tablet or your phone is unusually slow and freezing from time to time, then is likely that your storage space is running out. Below are 7 possible ways to free up storage space on your android phone or tablet and get your phone running smoothly again. The best way to free up space on your Android phone is to add more of it. Once you select the size you want, installing it is a snap. There’s no formatting to worry about, just pop open your SIM. Upload Files to Google Drive to Free Up Device Storage If you have important files on your Android device, but they take up to much storage space, you can upload them to Google Drive, then delete them from.

Transferphotos and videos out of internal storage

We’re all guilty of taking photosand recording videos, and then forgetting to delete them. Over time, thesefiles can accumulate and take up a lot of storage.

By offloading these files to a cloud-basedsystem, it can make a huge difference. If you’re using an iPhone, go toSettings > Apple ID > iCloud > Photos and tap the iCloud Photo Librarytoggle to turn the service on. Once you’ve enabled iCloud Photo Library, yourphotos and videos will automatically upload to iCloud so you’re free to deleteany locally stored files. Apple provides a certain amount of storage for free,with more available for a small fee.

Android users can set up Google Photos toautomatically back up files by launching the app and going to Settings >Back Up & Sync. Google lets you back up unlimited photos and videos forfree, up to 16MP and 1080p HD. You can then access them from any phone, tablet,or computer on photos.google.com.

Beyond iCloud and Google Photos, there arevarious apps you can use to upload your photos and videos to an online account,including Dropbox and Flickr.Alternatively, you could always go through your albums and delete what you donot need.

Getrid of those unwanted apps

Another habit that we all get into isdownloading apps for a specific purpose (or amid a gaming fad – who remembersFlappy Bird?) and then forgetting to delete them. These apps take up asurprisingly large amount of space and if left without updates, can cause yourphone to slow down.

To see how much space each app occupies,iOS users can go to Settings > General > iPhone Storage. On an Androidsmartphone, open Settings > Storage > Apps.

By deleting a handful of apps, you couldpotentially free up as much as 500MB with little or no effort.

Removeunnecessary downloads

Unlike a few years ago, our phones nowcontain lots of downloaded content. From podcasts to Netflixepisodes, to music, eBooks and documents. Much like unwanted apps, these areoften downloaded and forgotten about. If you no longer need or use them, deletethem and free up space for new content.

Deleteold text message threads

When you send and receive text messages,your phone automatically stores them for safe keeping. If these texts containimages or videos, they can take up a considerable amount of space.

Fortunately, you do not need to go back andmanually delete all your old text messages. Both Apple and Android phones allowyou to auto-delete old messages.

To enable this feature in iOS, go toSettings > Messages and scroll down until you see Message History. Then, tapKeep Messages and change Forever to 30 Days or 1 Year. Immediately after,you’ll be prompted to delete older messages.

For other devices – like Samsung phones– you simply need to head to Settings and make sure “delete old messages” is toggledon.

By following these tips, you will besurprised at how much storage you can save and in turn, how little you begin tosee those pop-ups again.

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Imagine not being able to download a new song shared by your friend or an email attachment. Why? You get a notification saying that the Internal storage space is running out. Woah!!!

That’s not the end of the story. If you try to close the notification by swiping on it, it won’t go away. Faced a situation like this? You are not alone. Android devices with internal storage of 16GB or less than that usually face this problem. So what do you do?

Well, the easiest solution is to hide the notification but that’s not a proper solution. You have to get to the root of the problem. And the problem basically is that your device is running out of internal space, which is evident from the notification. All Android devices require at least 500MB-1GB free internal space to function properly.

So to fix it, you need to free up some internal storage. Once you do that, the notification will vanish automatically. Here are some of the ways to do it.

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Clear Device Cache

Step 1: Open device Settings on your phone and navigate to Storage.

Step 2: Under Storage, look for Cached data. Tap on it. You will get a confirmation pop up. Tap on Ok.

Note: Clearing cache will only delete temporary files on your device. It will not remove any data.

From Android 8.0 Oreo onwards, Google removed the option to clear device cache. However, you can still do it. All you need to do is clear the cache individually for every app. Painful but the only safe option for now.

To do so, under Settings, go to Apps and notifications. Then tap on each app and hit Storage. Under Storage, tap on Clear Cache. You can follow our guide to clear cache in Android 8.0 Oreo phones.

Disable Bloatware

Most smartphones other than those running stock Android come preinstalled with many additional apps which are commonly called bloatware. For instance, I recently purchased a device from Amazon. Guess what? The device has an Amazon app preinstalled on it.

Apps like these occupy storage space. Even though we cannot uninstall them, we can always disable them. Here’s how.

Step 1: Go to device Settings and tap on Apps and notifications > App Manager > Installed Apps.

Step 2: Tap on the app name that you want to disable. On the next screen, you will get the option to disable it. Tap on it.

Sometimes, you will find the Uninstall updates button instead of Disable. So first uninstall the updates and then disable the app.

Delete Unwanted Data

If you use WhatsApp a lot, I’m pretty sure your phone must have collected a massive dump of videos, photos, and other files. Maybe you forgot to disable auto-download option for the WhatsApp groups. Similarly, your device will have unused data from other apps too. So, it's better to delete such files regularly.

To do that, you will need a File Explorer app. Once you have it, launch the app and navigate to the folder that has the maximum amount of data. Usually, you will find it in the subfolders like Media, Audio, Video, etc.

Pro Tip: Check the Downloads folder too. You will find a heap of unused files there.

Use an App to Find Biggest Folders

How To Free Up Storage Space On Android Phone

While it’s easy to identify WhatsApp and media apps for taking up space, but difficult to figure out which other apps or folders also hog a lot of space.

To find such folders, you need to download an app that shows your storage usage. One such cool app is DiskUsage, which takes just 180KB. The app shows folders that occupy maximum space. Once you know the biggest folders, you can easily delete data from them to reclaim the internal storage.

Download DiskUsage
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Switch to Lite Version of Apps

If you have a device with 16GB of internal storage or less than that, you should try switching to Lite or Go versions of the apps. Most of the popular apps now have the lite versions which occupy very less space.

You can try Facebook Lite, Messenger Lite, Maps Go, etc. Just search for the name of an app followed by either Lite or Go in the Google Play Store. Of course, these apps will have some features stripped off.

Disable Notification

If you are fine with your device having low space and don’t want to remove anything except the notification itself, you can do that too by hiding the notification.

To disable the notification, long press (hold) on it. Then tap on App Info. On the next screen, you will get the option Show notifications. Uncheck it.

Space

Get rid of the junk!

These were some of the best ways to manage the internal storage and get rid of the storage space running out error. Do let us know if you were able to fix the problem.


Increase Storage On Android Phone

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