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How to Free Up Space on an Android

Need to find some space for a cool new app or a game you really want to download? Read on.

Use Google Photos

Pictures can take up an enormous amount of space, but fortunately, Google Photos lets you back them up. How many? As many as you want, so long as they’re “high quality” resolution. You can back up every single picture on your Android to Google Photos and it won’t even count against your Google Drive space. Of course, once you do this, you can delete your pictures from your Android to free up space.

First, open the Google Photos app, go to Settings, then go to Back Up & Sync and turn that on.

When you back up your photos, choose “high quality” resolution to get unlimited storage. If you back up your pictures at their original size, they will count against your Google Drive storage limit.

Note: it’s best to perform your backups when connected to your home WiFi to avoid incurring cellular data overcharges.

Once all your pictures are backed up, go to Settings then Free Up Storage Device. Google Photos will delete any pictures and videos you’ve backed up.

Clear Your Cache

Chrome and other browsers keep data cached on your phone to make browsing faster. Other apps also cache data. However, this data adds up over time and it is wise to clear your cache now and again. To clear cached data, go to Settings, then Applications, and then Application Manager. From here, you can select the app. In the app’s information menu, you can select Storage and then Clear Cache to clear the app’s cache.

Clear Your Downloads

Your Andoid keeps all the files it downloads—including pictures, videos, and documents—in a downloads folder. Since this can build up, it pays to keep clean it up from time to time. Your downloads folder (which is sometimes called My Files) is found in your app drawer. Select files and then select the trash icon to get rid of them.

Manage Your Podcasts (And Music, Movies, and TV)

Play Music’s default setting auto-downloads the three most recent episodes of the podcasts you’re subscribed to. If you have a lot of subscriptions, though, these episodes can add up quickly. If you want to see how much data Play Music is using, select the three-line menu button in the top left corner, then select Settings, then Manage Downloads. You can delete a podcast from your Android storage by taping the orange downloaded button to the right of its title.

Note: You can do the same thing to delete songs, movies, and TV from your Android.

Sift Through Your Apps

Chances are, you have apps sitting on your phone that you either haven’t used in a long time or are far larger than you know. Go to Settings, then Storage, then Apps. You’ll see a list of all your apps, organised with the apps taking up the most space at the top. From here you can uninstall apps you’re no longer using.