How To Free Up Storage Space In Android Phone



The total available free storage amount on a phone is always less then the stated amount because the Android system partition takes up some space. So a 16GB phone will have around 10-13GB of total usable storage, with the Android system partition(s) taking up the remaining 3-6GB.

  1. How To Free Up Storage Space In Android Phones
  2. How To Free Up Storage Space In Android Phone Computer
  3. How Do You Free Up Storage Space On An Android Phone
  4. How To Free Up Storage Space In Android Phone Using
  5. How To Free Up Internal Storage Space On Android Phone
  6. Increase Storage On Android Phone

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. Move Apps to the SD Card Depending on your phone and version of Android, you can also move apps to the SD card to free up space. Users with Android Marshmallow and above can do this by formatting the SD card as internal storage. Then, the SD card will be seen as local storage on that device. If you’re lucky enough to have a device with Android 8.0 Oreo or later, you can look in Settings Storage and simply tap the Free Up Space (or Manage Storage) button at the top. 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.

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.

FreeNote: 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

How To Free Up Storage Space In Android Phone

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 In Android Phones

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.

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.


The above article may contain affiliate links which help support Guiding Tech. However, it does not affect our editorial integrity. The content remains unbiased and authentic.

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By Gina Barrow, Last updated: November 20, 2020

“How do I free up some space without formatting my device now that it says Internal Storage on Android is full?”

Most Android devices come in with internal storage ranging from 32 GB, 64 GB, and 128 GB. Although these storage sizes look big, Android Smartphones easily gets full. We often pile up our devices with lots of apps, games, photos, and more than eat up the storage.

When your phone is full, you will notice that it begins to slow down in performance and often freeze up upon opening apps and worse, apps crash. In order to make the most of your device, you tend to delete some files that usually come in big sizes without even backing it up.

The lesser space we have left on the device, the more we look for ways on how to free up without being guilty of erasing few memories, cool games, and fun apps. Today, we will go over 3 effective methods on how to free internal storage on Android when it gets full.

Part 1. Free up Space on Android Using Android Data Backup and Restore

We cannot exactly determine which phone contents take up a lot of space because it depends on each user. However, the majority of space-huggers are actual photos, videos, and other media contents. Next, would be the apps, depending on how much data was saved in it.

It would basically take more time, manually copying and transferring these media contents especially when you lack time and your phone is already acting up.

The easiest and fastest method you can use is FoneDog Android Data Backup and Restore. You can practically use this whenever you have the internal storage of your android full. This third party software lets you create a backup of the entire device so you can clear them off your phone.

It primarily backs up contents like your contacts, call history, messages, app messages, photos, videos, and many more. Once you have set up the backup, you can easily restore them at any time you need it back.

How To Free Up Storage Space In Android Phone Computer

How to Backup Android Data

Here is How FoneDog Android Data Backup and Restore Works:

  1. Open the software on your computer and plug in your Android phone
  2. Go to Android Data Backup and Restore Tool
  3. Choose from Device Data backup or One-Click Backup. If you want to use selective backup then you can choose the former option, but if you want to back up the entire device, you can choose the latter.
  4. If you selected the Device Data Backup, you will be asked to select the types of files you want and click next to continue.
  5. Wait until the software completes the backup process

How to Restore Android Data

To restore your Android backup:

  1. Connect the Android phone to the computer and launch FoneDog Android Data Backup and Restore
  2. Choose the Restore mode and select from the backup lists
  3. Optionally, you can selectively choose which files to restore
  4. Don’t forget to authorize the restoration process and wait until it’s finished

Highlights of FoneDog Android Data Backup and Restore:

  • 100% safe to use, with proven no data loss
  • User-friendly interface
  • Supports all types of Android Smartphones
  • Allows file preview
  • Selective file backup and restore option

You don’t have to worry anymore where and how to manage your device when android internal storage gets a full message appears again.

Part 2. Transfer Files to SD Card to Avoid Internal Storage Full Message on Android

Perhaps the quickest solution you will think about when you know that your Android internal storage is already full is to transfer some of your apps and files to the SD card.

Android SD cards also come in varying storage capacities ranging from 2GB up to 512GB. The price also varies depending on the storage capacity you want and the brand. You can move the photos to your SD card as well as some of your apps so your Android phone performance won’t be affected.

To move some of your apps to the SD card, follow these:

  1. On your android phone, navigate to Settings and then go to Internal Storage
  2. Locate Apps and begin with the heaviest app on your device
  3. Tap Change and then tap SD card in the storage location window
  4. Lastly, tap Move to confirm the changes
  5. Do this to all apps you wish to move to the SD card

You can also make the SD card the default storage location of your android phone, here’s how:

  1. From the phone’s Settings go to Storage
  2. Under the default storage location, choose SD Card

That’s it! All the files such as photos will be saved on the SD card by default so you don’t have to worry about slowing down your phone’s performance.

Part 3. 4 Other Methods on How to Clear Space on Android’s Internal Storage

Now that we have learned 2 main methods on how to free up some space, we have also listed some of the effective measures you can do to get rid of the storage full message.

1. For Android 8.0 Oreo Storage Menu

If your android phone is running on 8.0 Oreo, there is a great feature that was added which is the Storage menu where you can see the complete breakdown of apps installed on your phone.

How to free up storage space on android

It’s basically more advanced than the usual Storage menu in the settings. You can select and view which phone files actually take up a lot of space including any associated apps.

Clearing the apps is easy in this menu, you don’t have to dig deep in every app saved and delete them. Follow this guide on how to clear some space:

  1. Open the Storage Menu from your android phone
  2. Under the total space of your device, tap Free Up Space
  3. Scroll down and select the items you wish to remove

That is all you need to do! However, this method is only optional to those users with updated android version to 8.0 Oreo.

2. To Delete Old and Useless Apps

Well, many of us are actually guilty of downloading apps but never had the chance of using it. Often, we already forgot that these apps are installed on our phones until we experience some low memory issues.

What you can do is assess and check the apps installed on your phone. Categorize them based on the importance and usage frequency. Once you have determined that you no longer need these apps, uninstall them so you can gain some space.

  1. In Settings, go to your Apps and tap Manage Apps
  2. Find those less used apps and tap Uninstall
  3. Do this to other apps you want to remove

3. To Clear App Data

If for some reasons, you cannot just let go of your apps, you can also try to clear the data to retrieve some space. However, this is only a temporary solution and you might need to do this often every time you get the storage space full.

  1. On the same settings, open the desired app
  2. Tap Clear Data
  3. Wait until the system clears all data related to this app
  4. Repeat this process to all apps you wish to clear

Clearing data will not erase files off your android but rather, removes the saved information from that given app, including accounts and customized settings. So if you cleared the data off your Facebook app, you need to simply re-login start using the app again.

4. To Copy Photos to the Computer

How Do You Free Up Storage Space On An Android Phone

Another option to get rid of the internal storage full on android is to transfer your photos and videos to the computer. Media files as we all now take a lot of space and often the reason why we get the storage limit issue.

If you are not yet familiar with this process, follow this guide on a Windows PC:

  1. Plugin your android phone to the computer via USB cable
  2. Go to This PC and double click on your Smartphone
  3. Open the DCIM folder and highlight all the photos and videos you wish to move. Use the CTRL+C on your keyboard to copy the files.
  4. Create a new folder in the file explorer as your file destination, use the CTRL+V to paste all the media contents you just moved
Free

You can connect your Android phone to the computer again, in case you need to move the files back to your phone.

Part 4. Summary

In this article, we have learned the different ways on what you can do when you get the internal storagefull on your android phone. There are many ways to free up space and each option has its advantages and disadvantages.

Among these methods, the most efficient is by using FoneDog Android Data Backup and Restore program. It simply lets you manage all your files conveniently in one place so you can restore them faster and efficiently from the same source.

How To Free Up Storage Space In Android Phone Using

The rest of the methods we shared were all manual processes and basically needs your time and extra effort to redeem your storage back. However, the decision is up to your needs; if you need a fast and efficient way to free up space then use the first option. If you have time to spare then you can choose from the rest of the options we shared.

How To Free Up Internal Storage Space On Android Phone

>Backup >How to Free Up Space on Your Android When the Internal Storage Gets Full

Increase Storage On Android Phone

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