Our phones are multi-functional. The camera snaps birthday photos and the alarm clock gets you up in the morning. Then there’s the calendar that helps you plan your day, the recipe book, the fitness routine, mediation practice, and tons more.
If your device begins to malfunction because it’s run out of storage space, it can cause untold disruption to your routine. Here we’ll look at how to get more storage on your Android device and restore peak performance.
How to Get More Storage on Android Phone
Running out of storage on your Android phone is no fun. It will prevent you from downloading videos, make it difficult to take photos, and basically stops your phone from functioning optimally. If you find yourself in this predicament, there are a few things that you can do to remedy the situation.
How to Get More Storage on Android Without SD Card
Modern smartphones come with lots of storage space, with many models having up to 128GB of memory. However, running out of space is still possible, especially if you tend to download videos and other media content. While there are phones out there that allow you to expand storage using a microSD card, others don’t offer this option.
Here’s how to free up space on your Android phone if it doesn’t support expansion.
Delete WhatsApp Media
WhatsApp is a great platform that allows millions of users to exchange messages and share content. While receiving an endless stream of memes from your favorite cousin is fun, these files can take up a lot of space. There’s an easy way to limit WhatsApp’s impact on your storage. You can prevent the messaging app from automatically downloading content to your phone.
- Open WhatsApp and click on the three-dot menu in the top-right corner.
- Press “Settings,” then go to “Storage & data.”
- Scroll to “Media Auto-download.”
- Tap on “When using mobile data.”
- Deselect all selected options in the pop up.
- Tap “OK” to apply the changes. The same with “When Connected to Wi-Fi,” and “When Using Mobile Data.”
You can now proceed to deal with the other content sent over the messaging app. Follow the steps below to manage your messages:
- Launch WhatsApp and tap the three-dot menu in the top-right corner.
- Go to “Settings,” then “Storage and data.”
- Click on “Manage Storage.”
- Tap on the conversation you want to delete under the “Chats” option.
- Check the box on the “Select All” option.
- Once it selects all the media messages taking up the most space, press the “Trash” icon in the upper-right corner to eliminate them.
Note that you can always save content you don’t want to get rid of by deselecting it from the list.
Delete Unwanted Apps
It’s pretty common to download apps and forget about them. It could be a game you couldn’t put down but got bored with after a few weeks. Or maybe it was a theme app you only used once and never opened again. Whatever the case may be, many of us have apps lurking on our phones that we don’t use anymore.
Here’s the best way to find and delete them:
- Open “Settings” on your phone and click on “Apps.”
- Scroll through the apps, and select an app you want to delete.
- Tap on the app you want to delete and press the “Uninstall” button at the bottom of the screen.
The unwanted apps on your phone will now be deleted, creating more space on your device.
Delete Downloads
Downloads are sneaky files that often remain forgotten in obscure folders. Once you’ve viewed a downloaded document, you’ll close it and never think about where it’s stored. It’s essential, therefore, to go through the Download folder every once in a while and clear away files that you no longer need. This folder is usually located in your Android device’s “My Files” section.
How to Get More Storage on Android Without Deleting Anything
Your storage is probably full because of the number of precious photos and documents you don’t want to let go of. For that reason, deleting these important items is probably not an option. Fortunately, there are methods you can use to free up some space on your device without having to expunge your vacation photos or that video of your baby’s first steps.
Move Photos and Videos to Cloud Storage
Photos and videos take up a significant amount of space on your device. What makes the situation worse is that we often take more than one photo of the same thing to ensure we get the “money shot.” There are, therefore, tons of images that probably need to be pruned from the stack.
These photos can quickly fill up your memory if you don’t have an SD card. Moving them to cloud storage like Google Photos would be best to free up that valuable space. Another advantage of using the cloud service is that it’s a safer place to store these treasured memories. You can download Google Photos following the steps below:
- Open Google Photos and navigate to your “Profile” icon in the upper-right corner.
- Tap on “Photos Settings.”
- Scroll to “Backup & Sync,” and tap it.
- Make sure the toogle is on.
Once your important images are safely in your cloud storage, you can delete them from your phone, freeing up valuable space.
Move Files to Google Drive
Your Android device runs on a Google-owned OS. It would make sense, therefore, to store some of your files on Google Drive. This will free up space on your phone, increasing the available storage. Files might not be as bulky as photos but moving them still helps sort out the memory situation.
- Open Google Drive and press the “Plus” button.
- Tap “Upload” and click on the files you want to move.
Your file will now be uploaded to Google Drive. You can then delete the document from your phone to create more space.
Use Android’s Free-Up-Space Tool
To help users better manage their storage space, Android has developed an in-built tool known as Free-Up-Space. It helps get rid of unused apps, junk files, backed-up media, and other items that are no longer useful. Here’s how to use it:
- Open your “Settings” and head to “About Device” on your phone.
- Tap on “Storage.”
- Press “Clean” to get rid of the file.
Your junk files have now been deleted, creating more space on your phone.
Shoot Lower Resolution Videos
Today’s high-end phones can capture videos in 4K. With the explosion of social media, it’s understandable why people would want to capture the best quality videos possible. They want to look their best on Instagram or TikTok. However, these videos take up a lot more space than even full HD content. If 4K videos aren’t absolutely necessary for your purposes, you should consider shooting at a lower resolution to save on storage.
How to Get More Storage on Android Phone Free
There are many fantastic apps on Google Play Store, each serving a different purpose. You could have downloaded some of them to keep you entertained, teach you a new language, track your spending, and so on. Although many of these programs are free, the good ones often cost a few dollars. While a $5/month subscription might not look like much, the costs can add up if you have multiple paid apps. To save some money, you might be looking for ways to increase your Android storage capacity for free.
Here is a sample program that will allow you to do so.
Files Go
Google’s Files Go app lets you quickly find and free up space on your device. It will suggest which files should be erased before reaching your storage limit. Check out how to use it.
- Go to the Google Play Store and download the Files Go app and “Open” the app.
- Scroll to find “Apps” and tap on it.
- Find “Unused Apps” section.
- Find the apps you want to delete.
- Select the three dots on the apps you want to delete.
- Then hit “Uninstall.”
Files Go will now remove the apps and free up some storage space.
Make the Most of Your Phone
Freeing up space on your Android device will allow you to use your phone for longer. Ultimately, your device will function more efficiently when unused apps don’t bog it down. It will also be able to store more of those beautiful memories that you want to keep for future reference.
Have you ever freed up space on your Android device? What method did you use? Let us know in the comments section below.
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