Space is at less of a premium in newer phones than it was in years past, but in a world of 4K video files, mobile games getting more and more elaborate with higher resolution graphics, and so on, it’s still something to keep your eye on. If you’re running out of device storage, apps that need large amounts of temporary space may start malfunctioning. There are various ways to get that space back, but before you try any of those, it’s best to get a better idea of what’s using up the most space:
- Open the Settings app.
- On most Android phones, scroll to Storage and tap that. On Samsung Galaxy phones, scroll to Battery and device care, tap that, and then tap Storage.
This will diagram out what kinds of files are using the most space, and tapping on a file type will bring you a listing of that kind of file. From there, you can — if it hasn’t already been done for you — sort by file size to figure out which items are taking up the most space. For apps, if there are big ones that you don’t use anymore, you can just select those and uninstall them.
Take note that some apps wall off media files within the app’s storage instead of letting them exist individually. You need to delete old files from within the app to clear them out if you’re not getting rid of the app itself.
For audio, video, and image files, you can delete them here, but for your personal photos and videos, it’s probably best to use the “free up space” feature in Google Photos’ main menu, which only deletes what’s already been backed up.
