“I’ve made a huge mistake“. When I was buying a secondary Android phone, I went with the 8 GB Moto G model. 8 GB will be more than enough I said to myself, it’s not my main device anyway. I was so wrong. Out of the 8 gigs, only 5 GB are usable. When you use many apps (for testing) and some media, that’s not a lot.
Clean residual cache system files left by uninstalled apps to free up Android phone or tablet disk space. Analyze and safely remove the junk files that take up your memory and storage space. Delete cache and residual files to free up phone, tablet and SD card storage space. Apple gives you 5 GB of iCloud storage with the purchase of one of its devices, and that can fill up fast. Most often, your iCloud storage goes towards backing up your photos, files, voice memos. Thus, you may not be able to install what you think you have room for, even after cleaning up the internal space. Next time, get a device with at least 32GB of internal storage. This is the crud that builds up in your phone's memory during day-to-day use, and cleaning it out once in a while is simply a good policy. If you tap on Cached data in the Storage settings menu, a prompt will appear asking you if you'd like to delete cached data for all apps on your Android device.
Clean Master - Cleaner - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apps.go.
![Clean up storage windows Clean up storage windows](/uploads/1/1/8/7/118768140/186295686.jpg)
It got so bad that this one time when I was trying to download a storage space analyzer app, I got an error saying I didn’t have enough space left. Oh, the irony.
But in the end I was able to persevere. Using a combination of different apps (yes, yes, adding insult to the injury), uninstalling apps, clearing caches, and being ruthless about downloaded files, I was able to clear more than 1 GB of data in a matter of minutes. To me, that’s a lot.
Read on to find out how I did it. And how you can too.
1. Look Up Storage in Settings
First, go to Settings -> Storage and take a look at what’s taking up so much space. Is it apps, photos, or videos? Tap on an option to see the complete list. Although, deleting files from here is not possible for some reason.
More importantly, tap the Misc option. This lists all the extra files left from apps you uninstalled, old backup files, or any other file type. I found over 1 GB of data taken up by such miscellaneous files. Deleting the old ROM backups, ROM images, and more was an easy way to free the space.
2. Analyze Storage Using Disk Usage & Storage Analyzer
Sometimes a visual representation of data helps. That’s where Disk Usage & Storage Analyzer comes in. Once the app scans your storage, it will show you a breakdown of your entire storage directory, folder by folder.
It displays this using a branched circle structure. You can use the Directory tab to go deeper into the folders. Tapping a folder/file brings up the Delete option.
3. Clean Cache and Temp Files
If you’re a fan of RSS readers or offline reading apps, app caches can build up pretty fast. I’m talking about a couple hundred MBs here. You can either go to Settings -> Apps, choose the app and clear the cache manually or you can use a cleaner app.
When it comes to cleaner apps, you can either use Clean Master or CCleaner (our review here), Clean Master being the choice of Android veterans.
When you launch Clean Master, you’ll see a Junk Files option. This will include system cache, app caches, system junk files, residual files from old apps and more. You can select what you want to delete. It freed nearly 300 MB using this feature. Not bad for literally 15 seconds of work. As caches build up with time, you’ll have to do this cleaning at set intervals.
4. Upload Photos to Dropbox and Delete Local Copies
Dropbox’s Carousel app has a “Free up phone space” feature (available in Settings) that deletes local copies of photos that are already backed up to Dropbox.
They can be accessed from the Carousel app anytime. Carousel will show thumbnails of all the photos. Tapping them will give you a larger preview. You can save photos from here to local storage as well.
![Windows Windows](/uploads/1/1/8/7/118768140/352470547.jpg)
If you want to do this manually, you can. Choose your cloud photo backup service of choice. Upload, then delete the local copies.
5. Do a Manual Sweep with ES File Explorer
There’s nothing better than just having a look around. Grab a full-featured file manager like ES File Explorer and start hunting. Explore the folders from top down. You’re bound to find files and folders taking up unnecessary space.
Check the Downloads folder: Everything you download on your phone will be on the Downloads folder. Over time, it gets easy to ignore this folder while it fills up. I found a couple of apk files and many wallpapers the last time I went looking in my Downloads folder, all of which I could get rid of.6. Use the Old Fashioned Way: Delete Via PC
If you’re looking for an easier way to manage/delete data from your phone that’s possibly the most reliable way, connect it to a PC. This will list your internal storage as well as external SD card. Browse around, rearrange, and delete anything you don’t need.
My Internal Storage
7. Batch Uninstall Apps
We’ve talked about the best ways to batch uninstall apps, including Titanium Backup for rooted users. But you can use a cleaner app like Clean Master to uninstall apps as well.
Apps like Facebook and Instagram can take up more than 100 MB of space (not to mention significant battery power). You can consider deleting them and using the website instead.
8. Do a Factory Reset
We’re talking about taking extreme measures here, but if necessary, you could just do a factory reset and start over fresh. Make sure all your personal data is backed up (to the cloud preferably) before you do this.
How Do You Free Up Storage Space?
What’s your workflow for getting rid of unwanted apps, photos, and files? Let us know in the comments below.
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.
Read Next
How to Delete All Photos from WhatsApp Group on Android and iPhone
Is storage space running out on your phone? Free up storage by clearing all media files from groups on #WhatsApp. Know how to do it on Android and iPhone.
If your Windows 10 device is running low on storage, here are a few ways to free up some drive space.
Delete files with Storage sense
- Open the Start menu and select Settings > System > Storage. Open Storage settings.
- Turn on Storage sense to have Windows delete unneccesary files automatically.
- To delete unnecessary files manually, select Change how we free up space automatically. Under Free up space now, select Clean now.
How To Clean Up Internal Storage On Galaxy S5
Uninstall apps you don't use anymore
- Open the Start menu and select Settings > Apps > Apps & features. Open Apps & features settings.
- Search for a specific app or sort them by size to see which ones are taking up the most space.
- When you find an app you want to delete, select it from the list, and then select Uninstall.
Move files to another drive
- Connect your removable media to your device.
- Open File Explorer from the taskbar and find the files you want to move.
- Select the files, go to the Home tab, and then select Move to > Choose location.
- Select your removable media from the location list, and then select Move. Firefox 51 download.