Few things in life are as annoying as not being able to take photos with your smartphone and seeing your Android phone refuse to install other app updates because the space is running out.
Like any computer, smartphones also require you to keep some space in the internal memory in order not to lose its functionality.
Fortunately, it is possible to easily eliminate hundreds of megabytes by deleting obsolete downloads, offline maps and documents, application caches and then removing videos and junk images, perhaps those that are received in Whatsapp.
In this article we see, therefore, how to manage the internal memory of an Android mobile phone, important for downloading application updates, and how to save space, including the SD card where program data and photos are saved.
READ ALSO: Solve insufficient space on Android
1) Checking the space available for data in an Android smartphone
Modern versions of Android have an integrated function to check the storage status, to know exactly how the memory is occupied on the device.
To find this tool, open the Settings and touch the storage one (on some smartphones such as Huawei and Honor it may have the name Memory which, in most cases, refers to the available RAM memory which is a different thing READ ALSO : All the ways to Free up RAM on Android).
From the storage summary screen you can see how much space is used by applications, photos, videos, audio files, downloads, cached data and other files.
For each category of elements, you can touch to manage it.
Touching App you enter the list of installed applications with the space occupied by each of them indicated.
You can therefore eliminate the larger ones and those not used or, for some, you can touch and delete the data (which means reset it).
For example, apps such as Facebook or Google Maps, app data can also reach a size of 1 GB (for this reason it is better to delete Facebook as an app and use only the mobile site)
Tapping on Video, Audio and images opens a kind of Explorer so you can see what these files are, to delete them (but see point 4).
By tapping on the cache data you can clear the cache (see point 4).
2) Storage settings of Android Oreo (Android 8) and later versions
Starting with the Android 8 Oreo version, there are additional tools for monitoring and managing storage memory.
By tapping inside the file sections, you will see a list of related apps and how much space they are using.
Touching again you can delete anything inside.
The storage manager in Android Oreo and Android Piei helps to see exactly what is taking up the free space of the phone and has a feature called Smart Storage just to activate.
With this Smart option, Android can automatically delete photos and videos that take up space after having backed them up.
This function is personalized and different in most smartphones, especially Huawei, Honor and Samsung.
3) Uninstall applications that you don't use
It may be obvious, but uninstalling apps is one of the best ways to free up space on Android.
Even the apps purchased by paying can be uninstalled because they can then be re-downloaded, free of charge, from Google Play (the former Android Market).
As written in point 1, it is always advisable to order the applications by size and find the ones that take up most space, especially the games.
In another article, how to remove apps on Android, even many together at one time.
For those that do not have the possibility to be uninstalled, it is still useful to disable the apps so that they do not update automatically increasing in size and that they do not have the possibility to add data.
4) Clear all cached app data
About how to clear the cache for each Android app we have already written a complete article that can be summarized here with two words.
Open the settings screen, in the App section.
Click on each individual app and note that each has its own archive of " cached " data which can be kilobytes or even hundreds of mega.
These data caches are essentially just unnecessary files and can be safely deleted to free up storage space.
To clear the cache from all applications at once, you can go to Settings > Storage or Storage > Cached data, tap and press OK.
If you want, for the less used apps, you can also delete the data of the applications even if, in this case, you would go to reset the app losing any saving, any customization or configuration.
5) Free up space occupied by photos and videos
Photos and videos should always be copied to a PC, when they exceed a certain number and take up a lot of space in the internal memory and the SD card of the mobile phone.
However, there is an automatic way to do this job, automatically freeing up space with Google Photos, capable of making a backup of all photos and videos in order to find them on the PC.
With the Google Photos app, in the settings, you must enable automatic backup in " High quality " mode.
Whenever the free space of the mobile phone runs out, Google Photos shows a notification that just touch to delete a certain amount of photos and videos from memory.
You can also do this manually, from the Google Photos menu, using the "Free Space" function.
These photos have already been saved in the Google cloud therefore always visible from PC and also from the smartphone itself if connected to the internet.
In another article, then, we explained how to free up space in Whatsapp, the main culprit of filling space on internal memory and SD card.
6) Empty the Downloads folder
Just like on a PC, the Android smartphone has a Downloads folder (or File some other smartphones), where files downloaded from the internet or other apps are saved.
The Downloads folder is located in the list of applications, so open it tap the three-line menu icon in the top corner of the screen and sort the list of downloads by size.
Select larger files by tapping and holding, then press the Trash button.
7) View folders and files that take up most space
To know exactly which files are taking up memory space until it is full, you can use the free DiskUsage application, very convenient and simple, which graphically shows the use of disk space.
The files and folders that appear to take up a lot of space can also be browsed and checked before proceeding with a possible elimination.
DiskUsage can also scan app storage space and view how much space they use.
8) Manage downloaded music and podcasts
The Google Play Music app allows you to check exactly how many megabytes or even gigabytes of memory space is occupied by music and podcasts.
From the app, tap the three-line menu button in the upper left corner of the screen, then go to Settings> Manage downloads .
The same thing can be done with Spotify, YouTube Music and Apple Music, in order to find and delete all the music that has been automatically downloaded from the use of these applications.
9) Clear areas offline in Google Maps
Downloading maps in Google Maps allows you to use the navigator even without an internet connection, especially when traveling.
The problem is that they take up a lot of space on the internal memory of the Android phone so, if you need to free up space, it is better to delete these downloaded maps.
To do this, touch the three-line menu button in the upper left corner of the main interface of Google Maps, go to Offline Maps to see what these maps are and how much space they take up.
Touch on one of these to delete it.
9) Move files and applications from internal memory to SD card (if possible).
By default, applications purchased or downloaded from Android Google Play are stored in internal memory.
For many apps (not all), from the Android version 2.2, however, there is the possibility of moving them to the SD card, freeing up space on the phone's memory to install additional applications.
Most applications work normally when transferred to the SD card even though there are three notes to keep in mind:
- Not all applications can be moved;
- The widgets, i.e. the interactive panels to put on the home screen, the launchers, the backgrounds and the apps that must remain in memory cannot be moved.
- the SD memory card is removed from the phone if it is connected to the computer.
Although there are several ways to move applications to the SD card, the standard one is to open the application screen from the Settings menu.
Touch on Manage applications to view the installed apps and touch an app and then use the key to move it, if it is enabled.
If this button is not enabled, it means that that app cannot move.
10) The best applications to automatically clean the Android phone memory are:
READ ALSO: Survive with Android with full internal memory or out of space on the phone
Like any computer, smartphones also require you to keep some space in the internal memory in order not to lose its functionality.
Fortunately, it is possible to easily eliminate hundreds of megabytes by deleting obsolete downloads, offline maps and documents, application caches and then removing videos and junk images, perhaps those that are received in Whatsapp.
In this article we see, therefore, how to manage the internal memory of an Android mobile phone, important for downloading application updates, and how to save space, including the SD card where program data and photos are saved.
READ ALSO: Solve insufficient space on Android
1) Checking the space available for data in an Android smartphone
Modern versions of Android have an integrated function to check the storage status, to know exactly how the memory is occupied on the device.
To find this tool, open the Settings and touch the storage one (on some smartphones such as Huawei and Honor it may have the name Memory which, in most cases, refers to the available RAM memory which is a different thing READ ALSO : All the ways to Free up RAM on Android).
From the storage summary screen you can see how much space is used by applications, photos, videos, audio files, downloads, cached data and other files.
For each category of elements, you can touch to manage it.
Touching App you enter the list of installed applications with the space occupied by each of them indicated.
You can therefore eliminate the larger ones and those not used or, for some, you can touch and delete the data (which means reset it).
For example, apps such as Facebook or Google Maps, app data can also reach a size of 1 GB (for this reason it is better to delete Facebook as an app and use only the mobile site)
Tapping on Video, Audio and images opens a kind of Explorer so you can see what these files are, to delete them (but see point 4).
By tapping on the cache data you can clear the cache (see point 4).
2) Storage settings of Android Oreo (Android 8) and later versions
Starting with the Android 8 Oreo version, there are additional tools for monitoring and managing storage memory.
By tapping inside the file sections, you will see a list of related apps and how much space they are using.
Touching again you can delete anything inside.
The storage manager in Android Oreo and Android Piei helps to see exactly what is taking up the free space of the phone and has a feature called Smart Storage just to activate.
With this Smart option, Android can automatically delete photos and videos that take up space after having backed them up.
This function is personalized and different in most smartphones, especially Huawei, Honor and Samsung.
3) Uninstall applications that you don't use
It may be obvious, but uninstalling apps is one of the best ways to free up space on Android.
Even the apps purchased by paying can be uninstalled because they can then be re-downloaded, free of charge, from Google Play (the former Android Market).
As written in point 1, it is always advisable to order the applications by size and find the ones that take up most space, especially the games.
In another article, how to remove apps on Android, even many together at one time.
For those that do not have the possibility to be uninstalled, it is still useful to disable the apps so that they do not update automatically increasing in size and that they do not have the possibility to add data.
4) Clear all cached app data
About how to clear the cache for each Android app we have already written a complete article that can be summarized here with two words.
Open the settings screen, in the App section.
Click on each individual app and note that each has its own archive of " cached " data which can be kilobytes or even hundreds of mega.
These data caches are essentially just unnecessary files and can be safely deleted to free up storage space.
To clear the cache from all applications at once, you can go to Settings > Storage or Storage > Cached data, tap and press OK.
If you want, for the less used apps, you can also delete the data of the applications even if, in this case, you would go to reset the app losing any saving, any customization or configuration.
5) Free up space occupied by photos and videos
Photos and videos should always be copied to a PC, when they exceed a certain number and take up a lot of space in the internal memory and the SD card of the mobile phone.
However, there is an automatic way to do this job, automatically freeing up space with Google Photos, capable of making a backup of all photos and videos in order to find them on the PC.
With the Google Photos app, in the settings, you must enable automatic backup in " High quality " mode.
Whenever the free space of the mobile phone runs out, Google Photos shows a notification that just touch to delete a certain amount of photos and videos from memory.
You can also do this manually, from the Google Photos menu, using the "Free Space" function.
These photos have already been saved in the Google cloud therefore always visible from PC and also from the smartphone itself if connected to the internet.
In another article, then, we explained how to free up space in Whatsapp, the main culprit of filling space on internal memory and SD card.
6) Empty the Downloads folder
Just like on a PC, the Android smartphone has a Downloads folder (or File some other smartphones), where files downloaded from the internet or other apps are saved.
The Downloads folder is located in the list of applications, so open it tap the three-line menu icon in the top corner of the screen and sort the list of downloads by size.
Select larger files by tapping and holding, then press the Trash button.
7) View folders and files that take up most space
To know exactly which files are taking up memory space until it is full, you can use the free DiskUsage application, very convenient and simple, which graphically shows the use of disk space.
The files and folders that appear to take up a lot of space can also be browsed and checked before proceeding with a possible elimination.
DiskUsage can also scan app storage space and view how much space they use.
8) Manage downloaded music and podcasts
The Google Play Music app allows you to check exactly how many megabytes or even gigabytes of memory space is occupied by music and podcasts.
From the app, tap the three-line menu button in the upper left corner of the screen, then go to Settings> Manage downloads .
The same thing can be done with Spotify, YouTube Music and Apple Music, in order to find and delete all the music that has been automatically downloaded from the use of these applications.
9) Clear areas offline in Google Maps
Downloading maps in Google Maps allows you to use the navigator even without an internet connection, especially when traveling.
The problem is that they take up a lot of space on the internal memory of the Android phone so, if you need to free up space, it is better to delete these downloaded maps.
To do this, touch the three-line menu button in the upper left corner of the main interface of Google Maps, go to Offline Maps to see what these maps are and how much space they take up.
Touch on one of these to delete it.
9) Move files and applications from internal memory to SD card (if possible).
By default, applications purchased or downloaded from Android Google Play are stored in internal memory.
For many apps (not all), from the Android version 2.2, however, there is the possibility of moving them to the SD card, freeing up space on the phone's memory to install additional applications.
Most applications work normally when transferred to the SD card even though there are three notes to keep in mind:
- Not all applications can be moved;
- The widgets, i.e. the interactive panels to put on the home screen, the launchers, the backgrounds and the apps that must remain in memory cannot be moved.
- the SD memory card is removed from the phone if it is connected to the computer.
Although there are several ways to move applications to the SD card, the standard one is to open the application screen from the Settings menu.
Touch on Manage applications to view the installed apps and touch an app and then use the key to move it, if it is enabled.
If this button is not enabled, it means that that app cannot move.
10) The best applications to automatically clean the Android phone memory are:
- Google Go Files, the best app to free up space on Android, recommended for everyone
- Clean Master to clean up the Android phone (Samsung, HTC, LG, Sony etc.) from the application cache data that leave traces of use, from too large applications, from the history.
- 360 Security, Antivirus and Cleaner for Android
- DU Speed Booster also capable of erasing the history of web browsers, temporary files and downloaded files.
- Ccleaner for Android
READ ALSO: Survive with Android with full internal memory or out of space on the phone
