How To Clean Up Storage On My Phone



Why Storage Disappears So Fast?
How to Check Storage Condition on Android?
How to Free up Space on Android Phones?
  1. How To Clean Up Storage On My Phone Without
  2. How To Clear Up Storage On My Iphone
  3. Clean Up Phone Storage
  1. On your iPhone or iPad, navigate to Settings - General - iPhone Storage. Here you will get a breakdown of the storage space used on your iPhone by various installed apps, the OS itself, and more. You should also see the space occupied by ‘Other’ data here. As per Apple, the ‘Other’ data is occupied by the following files.
  2. An issue in iOS or iPadOS 13 might prevent the system from freeing up storage for you. To fix this issue, update your iPhone or iPad to iOS or iPadOS 13.6.1 or later. If you don’t have enough available storage to update wirelessly, update your device to iOS or iPadOS 14.1 or later using a computer. Published Date: December 07, 2020.

With these simple tips and tricks, you can free up plenty of space on your Android device, and keep your phone's storage neat and tidy a bit longer. Step 1: Delete Unwanted Downloaded Files Android devices running 4.0 or higher come with a handy storage management interface.


Android devices are fantastic for their ease of use and customization options, however eventually all your precious space is filled. We will look at ways to effectively free up Android phone storage. This problem is particularly acute for phones more than a year old; performance is impacted if the user does not release Android phone storage. We will look at ways to effectively free up Android phone storage.


Why Storage Disappears So Fast?

The storage is not a live creature that can run away itself, so check whether you match any of the following conditions:

Lots of pre-installed apps: some manufacturers are notorious for bloatware (e.g. Asus and Samsung), so their pre-installed apps, along with system-level Android OS, both take their toll immediately – literally right out of the box.

Install apps in built-in phone space: sometimes you didn't notice that the app installation location was set as the built-in phone space not the SD card. The limited phone space is easier to be filled with apps.

Limited storage capacity: even though you can address limited internal storage (e.g. 16GB) with external storage, the low storage warning will also appear with the microSD card if you are a heavy multimedia user.

Phone trash accumulates: temp files, duplicates files, cache, and other unnecessary files are produced all the time. This is a natural by-product of apps, system files, and the OS itself. Over time, this is cumulative and can have a major impact on phone responsiveness if you do not clean the junk regularly.


How to Check Storage Condition on Android?

Before to start a storage release, we should figure out what takes the most space on our phone for solving this problem effectively.

1. Go to your phone main menu, and find out the 'File' icon inside to tap in. Clearly you will see different options there - Category, Storage, and Cloud. Simply tap the 'Storage', your phone space using condition is clearly presented here.

Here you are allowed to view total space and available space on both phone and SD card. Also, simply tap the two locations individually, all the folders inside will show up for your checking.

2. Enter your Android 'Settings' to look for the 'Power and Storage' option. Tap to access it, the 'Storage Space' is there showing the ROM and SD card available space. Tap the button, a circle graph presents you the space that each type of data takes up, for both phone and SD card as well.


How to Free up Space on Android Phones?

There are four ways to reclaim your storage:

1. Clean out junk items regularly

Always use a good mobile management app to clean/remove your phone junk. Examples of junk includes outdated cache, installation packages (APK), uninstalled app remnants, and app cache. This is an effective way to release Android phone space.

Note: Most Android phones already feature pre-installed management app, e.g. Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO, Meizu, etc. If your phone doesn't already have one, simply download one from the Play Store (for example, Tencent WeSecure)

For our example, we will use the OPPO FIND 7 built-in app.

• Launch your app of choice.

• Tap 'Scan' to commence scanning – this will search for viruses, potential dangers, and junk items using up space. Reverse image search facial recognition.

• Once scanning finishes, the app will automatically delete the junk.

• Or enter the 'File' menu to use the 'Clearup' feature to clean the useless cache.

• Tap 'End all' to wipe them out.

2. Expand external storage (if available)

Add a large capacity Micro SD card, the card storage better starts at 32GB.

3. Files transfer

If you don't want spend money on a SD card, you can do like these to release plenty of space:

• Transfer large files like videos, images, and music to your computer.

• Alternatively, upload the big files to the cloud like Google Photos, Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive, Flickr, etc. You can download the apps to backup your files and delete the copies on your phone or just upload on the website.

4. Uninstall rarely used apps

Fast uninstall:

• Long press the app icon until a small 'x' appears near the icon.

• Tap the 'x' to commence uninstalling.

• Tap 'Delete' to confirm app deletion.

On some Android phones, long press the app icon and drag it to the trashcan at the screen top instead.

Direct uninstall:

• Enter the phone 'Settings'.

• Enter 'Application management'.

• Choose 'Installed' category.

• Select the apps you rarely use and tap 'Uninstall'.

• Tap 'Uninstall' to confirm the selection.

Note: Following app deletion, use the phone management app to clean any residual files from the uninstallation process to free more space.

5. App transfer

Transfer pre-installed to the external SD card. (Only available to Android devices with external storage)

• Enter the phone 'Settings'.

• Enter 'Application management'.

• Choose the 'Installed' or 'All' category including the pre-installed apps.

• Select all the apps individually and tap 'Move to user space' to transfer to the SD card.

• Use the phone management app to clean the trash.

If your Android device is more than 3 years old, we would strongly suggest changing to a more up-to-date device with more advanced features and storage. You've though about it as well? Then both OnePlus 3T and UMI Super are pretty good choices that not only sport large storage but also fast process speed - 6GB RAM+128GB storage and 4GB+32GB (256GB expansion). Therefore, you won't be bothered by the storage limitation again. Want more affordable premium Android phone choices? You can have a look here on Gearbest.

Before I forget, there is currently a top phone brand sale at that with up to 68% off for a limited time only. Have a look before it's too late! Hope this article does work for you :)


You may also want to read:
Android Masterclass | Easy steps to fix frozen or dead Android phones
7 sure-fire ways to speed up your Android smartphone
Android / iOS Guide | 3 easy ways to save your mobile data

With high-resolution photos and console-quality games, your iPhone storage fills up in no time. Even with a 128 GB model things can get out of hands fast. And if you’re using a 32 or 64 GB iPhone, chances are you’ll see that pesky “Storage Almost Full” alert much sooner.

Luckily, there are lots of things you can do to clear storage on iPhone, both manual and app-powered, so let's take a look.

What you'll need:

  • Your iPhone
  • A photo cleaner app Gemini Photos
  • Your Mac
  • A macOS cleaner app CleanMyMac X
  • Internet connection

Why is my iPhone storage so full?

Your iPhone may be full of things you don’t really need. Since they take up a lot of valuable space, it’s important to find out what they actually are. Here’s how to check and manage storage on your iPhone:

  1. Go to Settings > General > iPhone Storage.
  2. At the top, you’ll see a color-coded bar showing how much space you have left, how much is taken up, and what's taking it up. The biggest categories are usually Photos and Apps, but that depends on your usage.
  3. Below there is a list of your apps sorted by how much space they take. You can tap on each app to see how much of that space is the app itself, and how much of it is the app’s Documents and Data.

Depending on how you use your iPhone, you might have a huge and bloated Photos app, bursting with photos and videos. Or it might be games and social media apps that are hoarding the most storage. Below are five easy steps you can follow to free up storage on iPhone regardless of your iPhone use.

How to clear storage on iPhone

Chances are, there’s a lot of unneeded clutter on your iPhone. And that’s actually good news. It means you can free up a significant chunk of space without deleting the things you want to keep. Here’s how to free up storage on your iPhone, step by step:

  1. Clean up your photo library
  2. Clear browser cache
  3. Clear app cache and other app data
  4. Delete attachments in Messages
  5. Delete offline content

How To Clean Up Storage On My Phone Without

Step 1. Clean up your photo library

If you’ve checked iPhone storage like we suggested above, you already know who the main space hogger is (looking at you, Photos). Of course, wiping your whole photo library clean is not an option, but there’s probably stuff you can get rid of:

  • duplicate photos, like those you downloaded twice
  • similar shots (like the five selfies you took so you can pick a good one)
  • photos of whiteboards, notes, checks, and things like that
  • screenshots you don’t need anymore
  • large videos you don’t like

You can go through your library and weed out these photos and videos manually, but a quicker and more convenient alternative is an iPhone app like Gemini Photos. Here’s how to free up some space with it:

  1. Download Gemini Photos and launch it. It will automatically start scanning your library.
  2. Go to Notes, Blurred, and Screenshots. This is where you’ll see screenshots, photos of text, and other useless stuff. All photos will be pre-selected, but you can deselect the ones you still need.
  3. Tap Delete All.
  4. Go to Similar. Sets of similar photos will be grouped and pre-selected, with the best photo in each set remaining.
  5. Review a set, select other photos if you want to, and tap Move to Trash to trash selected photos.
  6. When you’re done reviewing sets of similar photos, tap Empty Trash.
  7. Go through Duplicates, Videos, and Other to sort out the rest of your photo library.
  8. Finally, go to the Photos app, and scroll down to Recently Deleted.
  9. Tap Select, and then Delete All.

After a cleanup like this your library will shrink by a few gigabytes and become way easier to navigate.

Step 2. Clear browser cache

If you often use your iPhone to browse the web in Safari or Chrome, keep in mind that your phone may be storing caches and other data that you don’t need. And you'd be surprised how much space you can free up just by clearing your browser cache.

Storage

Here’s how to clear Safari cache:

  1. Go to Settings.
  2. Find Safari.
  3. Choose Clear History and Website Data.

If you use Chrome, follow these steps to clear its cache:

  1. Open Google Chrome on your iPhone.
  2. Tap Options > Settings.
  3. Scroll down and tap Privacy.
  4. Tap Clear Browsing Data.
  5. Choose which browsing data you want to clear (browsing history, cookies, cached images and files) and tap Clear Browsing Data.

Step 3. Clear app cache and other app data

Unlike browsers, most apps don’t give you access to their cache and other data they store, such as login data. And if you tap on each app at the top of that list in iPhone Storage, you’ll notice it has several gigabytes of so-called Documents and Data. Here’s how you clear that app data to get more iPhone storage:

  1. Before you start, make sure you remember your logins to various apps or have them saved somewhere.
  2. In Settings > General > iPhone Storage, tap on an app at the top of the list. This will often be a social media app like Facebook or Snapchat, a messenger, or a content app like YouTube or Spotify.
  3. Tap Delete App.
  4. Go to the App Store and reinstall the app.

Yup, unfortunately, this is the only way to clear cache and other app data for the majority of apps.

How To Clear Up Storage On My Iphone

Step 4. Delete attachments in Messages

Texting isn’t just about text, right? You’re sending and receiving memes, GIFs, selfies, little videos of your cat falling off the couch in her sleep. All that content is stored on your iPhone even if you don’t save it to Photos, and if you text a lot it quickly adds up.

Here’s how to delete all your attachments in Messages to clear some iPhone memory:

  1. Go to Settings > General > iPhone Storage.
  2. Scroll down and tap on Messages.
  3. You’ll see a list: Top Conversations, Photos, GIFs and Stickers, and Other. Tap on the category that occupies the most space. Keep in mind that in Top Conversations, you’ll be deleting entire threads, not just the attachments. If you don’t want to do that, stick to Photos and other content.
  4. Tap Edit in the upper-right corner.
  5. Mark all attachments you want to delete.
  6. Tap the Trash icon.

That’s it! Space-hogging attachments are gone.

Step 5. Delete offline content

You probably consume a lot of content every day — music, videos, podcasts and what not. Cell number location finder pakistan. And if you save that content offline to be able to play it on the subway or during a long flight, you have quite a lot of leftovers piled up.

As a result, apps like YouTube, Netflix, and Spotify can take up several gigabytes of iPhone storage each. So why waste space on those Stranger Things episodes you downloaded back in 2017 and a long-forgotten playlist you never listen to anymore?

Let’s start with Netflix. Here’s how to delete Netflix movies and series you saved onto your iPhone:

  1. Open the Netflix app.
  2. Go to Downloads.
  3. Tap on the pencil icon in the top right corner.
  4. Tap on the red X to delete the video.

Next up, YouTube. To delete offline YouTube videos, follow these steps:

  1. Launch the YouTube app.
  2. Go to Library > Downloads.
  3. Tap on the three dots next to a downloaded video.
  4. Tap “Delete from downloads.”
  5. Repeat for each video.

Finally, to delete offline playlists or podcasts in Spotify, do the following:

  1. Open Spotify.
  2. Go to Your Library > Music > Playlists.
  3. The playlists you downloaded will be marked with a green arrow. Tap on a playlist like that.
  4. Tap on the green arrow icon below the name of the playlist.
  5. When a confirmation popup appears, tap Remove.
  6. Repeat for podcasts, if you have any saved offline.

You should also rummage around in Podcasts, Apple Music, and other entertainment apps you’re using. Once you’ve cleaned up all the offline content you don’t need anymore, you’ll see how much iPhone memory you’ve managed to recover.

How to prevent iPhone storage from getting full again

Clean Up Phone Storage

Just like your closet, iPhone storage will get full again, and you will have to go through the steps above every once in a while. But there are things you can do to manage your oh-so-limited storage more wisely and not have to do that major cleanup quite as often.

Store photos and videos elsewhere

Even after you’ve trimmed some fat off your library, chances are Photos still hogs a lot of iPhone space. What to do? Transfer your photos and videos to your computer or to the cloud

If you have a Mac, the easiest way is to connect your iPhone and sync all media files to the Mac. Then you can delete the originals from your phone.

Note that when you sync photos with your Phone, some of them stay cached on your Mac. This cache occupies space on your disk after the sync is done, so it’s better to clean it up. A utility like CleanMyMac X is an easy way to clear iOS photo cache (and it’s free to download). In just two clicks you’ll remove all the junk files from your Mac.

Alternatively, you can upload your iPhone photos to an online storage like iCloud. It’s pretty convenient, because iCloud Photos automatically syncs every photo and video you take to the cloud, so you can access your library from any device, as long as it has internet connection. You do have to pay for iCloud storage, though, because the free 5 GB won’t be enough for your whole photo library.

Here’s how to upload photos to iCloud:

  1. Sign in to your iCloud.com account. It’s the same as your Apple ID.
  2. Go to Settings on your device and select Photos.
  3. Turn on iCloud Photos.

Now your photos are automatically synced to iCloud, which means they'll be taking up space in iCloud, not on your iPhone.

Disable saving duplicate photos when shooting in HDR

On iPhones that don’t have Smart HDR, when you take photos in HDR, your iPhone saves two shots: the original picture and the processed one. You will save a lot of iPhone storage if you disable saving these duplicates. Just do the following:

  1. Go to Settings and select Camera.
  2. Disable Keep Normal Photo.

From now, only the HDR versions of your photos will be saved. That said, the previous HDR and non-HDR copies of your photos will remain, so do run your photo library through Gemini Photos to find those similar shots.

Stop storing messages forever

By default, your iPhone stores all the messages you send and receive … forever. This is convenient if you want to read your 2-years-old conversations, but not so convenient when you run out of storage because your brother sends you fifteen memes every single day.

To stop your phone from saving messages forever, follow these steps:

  1. Go to Settings and tap Messages.
  2. Scroll down to Message History and tap Keep Messages.
  3. Change Forever to 30 days or 1 year.
  4. You’ll see a pop-up message asking if you want to delete older messages, tap Delete to proceed.

Bonus tip to help you clean iPhone storage

In iOS 11 and later, Apple brings storage management tools to your device. This means that you get unique storage saving suggestions based on your iPhone. They include things like Reviewing Large Attachments and Conversations, Offloading Unused Apps, Saving Messages to iCloud, and others. Therefore, if you’re running iOS 11 or later, go to iPhone Storage and check out the recommendations.

We hope you found our troubleshooting guide helpful in tackling that annoying “Storage Almost Full” message. Enjoy taking new photos and never have to worry about lack of iPhone storage again.