You may have faced this situation at some point. You went to download an application, or you were recording a video with your mobile, and you received a warning message indicating that there is no space available in the phone memory; or that this space is about to run out. Do you want to solve this problem?
Although it is becoming less and less common, far from the first Android phones (it also happens in iOS), it can still happen. A symptom of continued phone use and all the “junk” and junk files that we accumulate. That is why it is good that, periodically, free up space on the mobile, for which we can follow very accessible steps.
Delete apps you don’t use
We start with the obvious step which is none other than deleting apps that we have installed at some point and that we no longer need or have not used. They take up precious space in our phone’s memory and we can finish them in the “Settings” menu, and in the “Applications” section, click on the one we want to “Uninstall”.
Another option is to do it from Google Play, at which step we need to open the Google Play application and, once inside, click on the avatar that appears in the upper right area of the screen.
We are looking for the option “My applications” and games, we tap on it and it will take us to a screen to manage apps that have been purchased, installed, or those that have been installed at some point.
Click on the tab “Installed” to find out which applications are currently on the mobile. We will see above a window called “Storage” which shows the percentage of storage occupied by applications and the amount in GB of space you have available.
If we click on this window we will see a menu for free up mobile space choose multiple applications to uninstall.
Thundering data and cache
If you do not want to delete the applications because of the famous “just in case”, you can always opt for two intermediate solutions, also from the “Applications” menu. When you enter the desired application, we can either clear data or clear cache busy.
With the first option we quit the application as if we had just installed it, by eliminating data, accounts, games, etc. while with the clearing of the cache, we will delete the data that the application has stored since the first use in order to speed up and improve its operation.
In this case, it should be noted that while this is a commonly used application, this cache won’t take long to refill. What is also true is that between the two options we can save quite a bit of megabytes.
Check the downloads folder
As on the PC, on Android we end up accumulating a “Downloads” folder which can be quite large. If we regularly download content, and if it is media files, this folder can be quite large.
That’s why it’s worth going to the folder using file explorer corresponding to your phone (each brand can be assigned a different name). This is to find the “Downloads” or “Downloads” folder and delete any files that have accumulated and are no longer needed.
WhatsApp is very greedy
And closely related to downloads, there is also files sent and received by WhatsApp. Make it clear that it is always convenient to have a backup, terminating WhatsApp files that we don’t want is as easy as going to file explorer and finding the folder “WhatsApp”.
Inside we will see three folders and we watch the call “Media”, in which we have to press to access a series of folders with files we sent and received. We can delete all the files in bulk from a folder or select the ones we are not interested in and delete them.
As a warning, some phones have a trash can option in the file explorer, so that the content can be stored there when deleting it and not leave any free space until we have emptied the recycle bin.
Use Google Files
A good option that facilitates the optimization of space is use third party applications. And one of the most interesting is Files by Google, a tool that we can download for free from the Google Play Store.
Files by Google: Free up space on your phone
Among the “Files” options we find how the application itself warns us that we have a series of junk files which qualifies as trash and which we can delete at the push of a button; Or, if we want to make sure, we can also “click” on “View junk files” to see the full list.
The other options proposed are to delete the local copy of photos that have already been backed up to Google Photos (which can add up to several extra megabytes) and remove duplicate files: Files is responsible for checking the file size and date to determine that two files are the same even if they have different names.
In addition, it offers information for delete files from WhatsApp, Telegram and other similar applications; or browse for the largest files in the phone memory, to finish them with a stroke of a stylus.
Move applications to the memory card
Another formula to gain a few extra megabytes is through move applications from the mobile’s internal memory to the microSD card, a valid alternative for those who have a high capacity micro SD on their mobile.
The steps are still simple: you have to go to the menu “Settings” To access “Applications” and, within them, choose the one we want to move to the mobile’s microSD card.
Click on the Memory category and we will see a new screen with the option “Memory in use” which informs about the storage in which the application is installed.
With the exception of the fact that not all applications allow it (some applications and games that have the option to switch to SD blocked), only you have to click on “Change” to switch from internal memory to SD or vice versa.
Extra: remove apps that cannot be uninstalled
This last trick is quite tricky since it is very easy to mess up the functioning of a phone if you delete a much needed system app. Even so, it is very useful to get rid of unnecessary apps that the manufacturer installs, as well as games that are not needed and cannot be removed.
Android allows you to remove installed packages from all apps, whether downloaded by the user or preinstalled by the manufacturer. You need to be proficient in ADB and go through a thorough process. It is described in the following tutorial.
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