When I bought my phone, 128 GB of internal space felt plenty. What I didn’t realize was how quickly shooting in 4K and installing my favorite Android apps would eat away at it. Before I knew it, I was left with two choices: live with those annoying storage warnings or pay for cloud storage.
I wasn’t ready for either, so I decided to try a third option. I went through all the possible ways to free up as much space on my Android phone as possible without deleting any photos, videos, or apps. It took a bit of time, but it was worth it, because I ended up reclaiming almost 30 GB of storage space.
Uninstall bloatware and archive apps you rarely use
Goodbye bloat, hello breathing room
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Yes, everyone tells you to remove unwanted apps and games. That advice works great, but it’s also obvious. What most people overlook are those pre-installed apps from Google, phone manufacturers, and sometimes even carriers. Together, these apps can end up taking far too much storage space on your phone.
The problem is that most of these apps aren’t removable by default. However, it’s still possible to get rid of them with a bit of effort. And no, you don’t need to root your device or use your computer. I recently removed all the bloatware from my Android phone and freed up a ton of space.
Besides pre-installed apps, you probably also have a few apps you don’t use daily but also don’t want to lose. These could be games, shopping apps you need occasionally, and tools like voice recorders and document scanners. But rather than let them sit on your phone and take up storage space, it’s better to archive these apps.
Archiving apps removes most of the app’s data but keeps important stuff like your login details, progress, and settings. Archived apps can take up around 60-70% less space on average, which can add up quickly if you have a lot of rarely used apps. And the best part is that,you can always reinstall these apps and pick up where you left off.
Clear app caches
The hidden junk you probably ignore
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Even the apps you use daily and don’t want to remove or archive can still help free up a surprising amount of space. And that’s by removing something called app cache.
Cache plays an important role in how smoothly your favorite apps run. It’s basically a collection of thumbnails, previews, recently viewed pages, and bits of video that the app saves so it doesn’t have to reload the same content over and over again.
Over time, though, cache data can grow far beyond what’s actually necessary. This is especially true for apps like Netflix, YouTube, Instagram, Chrome, and the like. If you don’t want to remove these apps, you certainly should clear their cache every once in a while.
Note that this is something Google doesn’t want you to do often, as it can impact your phone’s performance. Still, if you’re low on storage space, clearing app caches is one of the easiest wins. On certain Samsung phones, you can clear all app caches at once by heading to Settings > Device care > Storage > App cache.
Remove files stored for offline use
Ditch what you don’t need
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This may not apply to everyone, but if you have a habit of saving content for offline use for those “just in case” scenarios when you might not have the internet, it’s time to review those files.
Most streaming services and navigation apps let you save data for offline use. This is great when you’re away from Wi-Fi, on a long flight, or traveling to a place where the internet connection might be spotty. But it’s also easy to forget about those downloads once you’re done.
All that offline data can take gigabytes of space on your Android phone, and you might not even realize that unless you check the storage breakdown menu. So make sure to check apps like Google Maps, Spotify, Prime Video, YouTube, and any other service that allows offline downloads and remove anything you don’t need.
Get rid of duplicate files, old downloads, and large items
Don’t ignore these space wasters
When storage runs low, deleting old photos and videos is something that most of us do out of habit. But some of the biggest space hogs on your phone are often in places you rarely check. This could be temporary files, duplicates, old downloads, and such.
The easiest way to clear all this junk is to use the Files by Google app and head straight to its Clean tab. It’ll immediately show all the junk files, old screenshots, large files, and downloads on your phone.
You can go through each of them one by one and remove the items you don’t need. If you have a Samsung phone, heading to Device care > Storage shows similar suggestions.
Empty the trash
Deleted doesn’t always mean gone
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Deleting unwanted files, photos, and videos is great, but doing that alone won’t reclaim any storage space. At least, not immediately. That’s because, by default, your phone moves anything you delete inside the Trash folder for 30 days before removing it permanently.
It’s a good safety net, but if you want to reclaim storage instantly, you can empty the Trash folder manually. You can do this by heading to the Storage menu or opening the Trash folder inside the Files and Gallery apps.
The most satisfying thing about freeing up storage with these tricks is that I didn’t have to sacrifice anything you care about, buy cloud storage, or move anything to my PC. Of course, this doesn’t mean I won’t get storage warnings ever, but when I do, I can always repeat these steps and get some breathing room.
