9 Ways To Free Up Memory On My Android Phone

After some time using your android phone, it might start lagging, and everything might slow down.

Sometimes the apps might crash and won’t respond, and the battery life might decrease too. Learn how to free up memory on my Android Phone.

It happens because of not having enough storage space on your phone. Due to this reason, a phone can start behaving badly a few months after unboxing. 

Free Up Memory on my Android Phone

Free up memory on my android phone. You must clean up your phone’s internal storage space and make space for other things to operate and store. 

If you ignore this and do not take the necessary steps, the storage space will start to fill up, and the software will start running slower.

The background processes will make it hard to use any application, and everything will start lagging and become slow.

It is normal for all phones to slow down as it is filled up with unnecessary files. That’s why it is advised to give your Android phone a good and thorough cleanup. Scroll down and read all the step-by-step cleaning instructions to make space in your android.

9 Methods To Free Up Memory On My Android Phone

  1. Deleting app caches
  2. Uninstall unwanted apps
  3. Get rid of the offline downloads folder
  4. By Backing up the pictures to the cloud storage or Google Photos
  5. Take advantage of Google Drive to make space on an android phone
  6. Use a microSD card
  7. Delete old messages from your device
  8. Delete old email attachments and downloaded photos and videos
  9. Transfer your apps and files to another device to make storage space on an android

1. Deleting app caches 

By clearing the device’s cached data, you can free up memory on my android phone. Cache files are created by applications to store data so it can be accessed more quickly. 

However, these files can take up a lot of space on your device.

  1. The Android operating system provides a way to clear the cache for each application through the Applications Manager.  
  2. You can also use a third-party application to clear the cache for all applications simultaneously. 
  3. When you clear the cache, you delete the cached files for all the applications on your device. 
  4. This can help if your device is almost full or if you notice that Junk files have accumulated a lot of space over time.

The steps to clean up the cached data and bring up more storage space are given below:

  1. Guide yourself to the settings app of your Android device 
  2. Scroll and click on the App management option. (This option might vary from phone to phone; hence look for options with “App” on it)
Location of App management option
  1. Click on the App list option, and you will see a list of apps on your screen
Location of app list option
  1. Choose and click on any app you wish to clean
  2. Then click on Storage usage (or any option that has the “storage” or “space” term on it.)
Location of storage usage
  1. Tap on the Clear Data or Clear Cache option to clean up the app cache data
  2. Check If you can free up memory on my android phone.
Location of clear cache

(in the screenshot below, there’s only 26.7MB cache for this specific app, but over time, more gets accumulated along with the rest of the apps on your device).

2. Uninstall unwanted apps

If you’re running out of storage on your Android device, a good way to free up memory on your android phone is to uninstall apps you no longer need.

Some apps can take up a lot of space, especially if they’re constantly running in the background.  

If you don’t need an app, it’s best to uninstall it to free up memory on your android phone. You should also delete any unwanted files from your phone or tablet. 

The steps to uninstall unnecessary apps are given below:

  1. Guide yourself to the settings app of your Android device 
  2. Scroll and click on the App management option. (This option might vary from phone to phone; hence look for options with “App” on it)
Location of app management
  1. Click on the App list option, and you will see a list of apps on your screen
Location of app list
  1. Choose and click on any app you wish to remove
  2. You will notice the uninstall option somewhere on the screen. Click on that
Location of uninstall
  1. A prompt dialog box will appear on the screen asking for confirmation 
Confirmation to uninstall
  1. Click on “ok,” and the app will be successfully removed along with its files.
  2. Check if you can free up memory on my android phone.

3. Get rid of the offline downloads folder

If you want free up memory on my android phone, you can delete offline content. Offline contents are contents you’ve saved on your device so you can access them without an internet connection.

You also might have downloaded it for some specific purpose but forgotten about it after the purpose.

Here are a few examples of offline content that you might look for on your smartphone:

Spotify:

This music media app allows premium users to save songs on their devices to listen to them offline.

Deleting offline content can help if you need to free up memory on your android phone or if you’re having trouble downloading new content because your device is full. 

To delete offline content, you may guide yourself to the Settings menu in the app where the content is stored and look for an option to delete or remove the content. 

  1. You can go to Settings > Storage and tap the “Delete cache” button. This will delete all of the offline content stored on your device. 
  2. You may need to do this in multiple apps if you have a lot of offline content. Some apps also let you choose how much storage space they use on your device. 
  3. For example, on WhatsApp, you can go to Settings > Data and storage usage > Storage usage and select how much storage space you want the app to use on your device.

Podcasts: 

If you are a daily podcast listener, you might have loads of podcasts downloaded on your device from different apps.

A folder of hour-long podcasts can consume a lot of storage space on your device.  You might as well still have the podcasts you have already listened to.

Hence it is advised to go through the downloaded podcast collection on your device and delete the ones you do not need anymore or have already listened to. 

YouTube:

If you are a Premium user of YouTube, you will benefit from downloading videos for offline usage.

But some videos can be downloaded without the premium subscription but in a lower quality. 

The steps to do so are given below:

  1. Open the YouTube app on your device 
  2. Click on the library options at the bottom right corner of the screen
  3. Click on the Downloads section, and you will find the list of videos that have been saved on your device for offline usage
Location of the three dots option
  1. Simply click on the three vertical dots on the right of the specific video, and you will see the delete option.
  2. Click on the delete option, and the video will be successfully deleted.
  3. Check If you can free up memory on my android phone.

Offline Maps: 

You can delete offline areas from your phone to free up memory on your android phone.

Some people prefer downloading maps while traveling but forget to delete them after their use is done. 

If you have a lot of offline maps taking up storage on your phone, you must delete them from your phone to free up memory on your android phone. 

To do this, the steps are given below:

  1. Guide yourself to the Google Maps app
  2. Tap on the profile button at the top right corner 
  3. Then click on the “Offline maps” option and select the maps you want to delete.
Location of offline map
  1. Check If you can free up memory on my android phone.

When using the Google Maps app, cached data is stored on your mobile phone. 

If you need to clear app caches to free up memory on my android phone, follow these steps:

  1. Guide yourself to the Settings app on your Android phone.
  2. Scroll and click on the App management option. (This option might vary from phone to phone; hence look for options with “App” on it)
Settings app on your Android phone.
  1. Click on the App list option, and you will see a list of apps on your screen.
Click on the App list option
  1. Search for the Google map app and click on it
  2. Then click on Storage usage (or any option that has the “storage” or “space” term on it.)
  3. Tap on the Clear Data or Clear Cache option to clean up the app cache data.
  4. Check If you can free up memory on my android phone.

4. By Backing up the pictures to the cloud storage or Google Photos

Backing up your data to the cloud or Google Drive is a great way to keep your files and photos safe and free up memory on my android phone or tablet.

When you delete pictures and videos from your device, they’re backed up in Google Photos, so you can always restore them if necessary. 

Your Google photos will even count against your Google Drive storage quota so that you can save even more space on your phone or tablet.

To use this amazing feature offered by Google Photos, you will need to turn on the Google Photos Backup and Sync Feature to gain access to the free cloud storage space. 

To do so, the steps are listed below:

  1. Guide yourself to the Google photos app and click on the profile icon at the top right corner of the screen
  2. Select the “Photos settings” option
Location of photos settings
  1. Click “Backup and sync” and turn the option on by sliding the toggle.
Location of backup and sync
Toggle turned on for backup and sync
  • You can also back up your images in your preferred quality or resolution. 
  • You can back up high-quality pictures (which will increase the original quality to 16 megapixels) or the store’s original normal quality. 

If you have run out of space and reached the storage limit of Google Photos, you may free up memory on your android phone. The steps to do so are mentioned below:

  1. Guide yourself to the Google photos app and click on the profile icon at the top right corner of the screen
  2. Select the free-up memory on my android phone option
Location of free up space option
  1. In doing so, Google Photos will delete any videos or photos that have already been backed up.
  2. Check If you can free up memory on my android phone.

5. Take advantage of Google Drive to make space on an android phone

Google Drive is a cloud storage service that you can use to store your files online. You can download the Google Drive app for free from the Google Play Store.

  1. Once you have installed the app, you can create a new folder and upload your files to the folder. You can also delete files from the folder if you no longer need them.
  2. If you run out of free space on your device, you can use the Google Drive app to free up memory on your android phone
  3. The app will automatically backup your media files and save them in the cloud. This will free up memory on my android phone.

6. Use a microSD card

Apps are the only thing that takes up most of the storage space on your device. Inserting a microSD card adds extra storage space to your device but externally. 

Insertable port for Micro SD Card

You must check if your Android device has the mechanical design or space for you to insert a microSD card into it. If so, you can move big files, videos, and storage-sucking applications to that microSD card.

The detailed step-by-step process to insert and benefit from a micro SD card is mentioned below:

  1. Guide yourself to the settings app of your Android device 
  2. Scroll and click on the App management option. (This option might vary from phone to phone; hence look for options with “App” on it)
  3. Click on the App list option, and you will see a list of apps on your screen
  4. Choose and click on the app you want to move from your device storage to your microSD card.
  5. If the app can be moved, you will be able to see an option that says “Move to SD card.” 
  6. Click on that option, and the specific application will be successfully moved to the microSD card.

You must know that only a portion of the application will be moved to the microSD card. How much of the app will be transferred cannot be determined as it depends on the application.

Sadly many big-size apps, specifically that games, will not move a significant portion of their data to the microSD card. 

Insertable port for Micro SD Card

However, a microSD helps transfer data and makes space in your phone storage.

7. Delete old messages from your device

You might not believe it, but messages take up much space on your phone. Be it the default messaging app or other apps like Messenger, WhatsApp, telegram, or more. 

Text messages and media in the chat like videos, images, stickers, gifs, and emojis can take up about 10-20GB of storage on your phone’s internal storage. 

  1. Guide yourself to the WhatsApp app and click on the three vertical dots at the top right corner of the screen
  2. Click on the Settings option
  3. Click on the Storage and Data option
  4. Then tap on the Manage storage option, and you will be shown a bar at the top showing the amount of free space left on your WhatsApp storage, followed by the amount of storage occupied by each chat.
  5. You can even view the big-size items that might be considered deleted as they occupy huge space on your device. 
  6. You may click on specific chats individually and delete their media 
  7. You may even clear the chat of specific contacts by opening the chat window of a contact
  8. Then click on the three vertical dots at the top right corner of the screen and click on the More option
  9. Then click on the clear chat option, and everything in the chat will be deleted except the starred messages(if you choose).

Similarly, you may delete the chat messages for other applications and free up memory on my android phone.

Location of managed storage
Location of storage and data

8. Delete old email attachments and downloaded photos and videos

If you want to free up memory on my android phone, one thing you can do is delete old email attachments and downloaded files. 

You must try deleting loaded emails in your spam, socials, promotions, and other unnecessary primary emails. 

Hundreds of emails get stacked up in the email storage and take up hundreds of MB of the storage space. 

Hence deleting them all will make your device swifter to use and make more space for other data.

  1. To delete a file, just go to your email app and look for the attachment icon next to each email. 
  2. Tap and hold on to the icon until the trash can icon appears. Tap on the trash can icon to delete the file. 
  3. You can also delete offline temporary files by going to Settings > Storage > Other and tapping on the “Delete” button.

9. Transfer your apps and files to another device to make storage space on an android

To transfer your apps and files to another device, you’ll need to connect your device to a PC or Mac via its USB port. Once connected, you can transfer files between your device and computer. 

  1. If you’re looking to transfer mobile data, you’ll need a SIM card compatible with the new device. 
  2. For media files, you can either use a backup service like iCloud or Google Drive or store them on your computer.
  3. If you’re running out of storage on your device, there are a few ways to free up memory on my android phone
  4. You can delete unused apps, clear your cache, or move files to an external storage device. 
  5. All you need to do is simply plug in your android phone’s charging cable into your smartphone and plug in the other end of the USB into your computer’s USB port. 
Location to insert USB Port
  1. Now from your computer, you will get full access to all the files on your phone. 
  2. You can browse your phone’s different files and storage space on the computer screen. 
  3. You may select any specific file or application and right-click on it.
  4. A drop-down menu will appear, showing the “Move to” option.
  5. Then you may move the data to your computer or even a separate USB drive.
  6. Transferring files from your phone to a hard disk has the same process as that of a computer using the same charging cable.
  7. Check If you can free up memory on my android phone.

Wrapping up

Running out of storage memory space can negatively impact your android smartphone in numerous ways.

Hence it is advised to free up memory on my android phone. It is suggested to follow the steps mentioned above regularly (not once a year, though) and delete unnecessary apps, pictures, or videos that are no longer needed or serve any purpose.

If you go through your phone and check all the parameters repeatedly, you can prevent your smartphone from getting clogged up and enjoy smooth performance, hence reap more productivity.

FAQs

What Is The Best Way To Free Up Memory On My Android Phone?

There are many ways to free up memory on my Android phone. One of them is mentioned below:
Open the Settings app on your Android device. 
Visit the settings for apps (or apps and notifications). 
Ensure that All applications are chosen. Select the app by tapping it. 
To get rid of the temporary data, choose Clear Cache and Clear Data.

Why Is My Phone’s Internal Storage Decreasing For No Reason?

There are many reasons why your phone’s internal storage is decreasing for no reason. The overabundance of data stored on your phone’s internal memory can occasionally be the root of the “Android storage space running out, but it’s not” problem. 
Your phone’s cache memory may become clogged if you have a lot of apps installed and utilize them all at once, leaving your Android smartphone with insufficient storage.

What Is A MicroSD Card?

A microSD card is a small removable variation of the SD card used in small portable electronics. 
An adapter can insert a microSD card into any SD card slot. Because of their size, they are limited to offering the space of 1 TB only, while SD cards offer more.

Does Updating Apps Take Up Storage Space On Phones?

You must know that every time you download and install a new update, it decreases or occupies your phone’s internal storage. 
With each update, the size of the app increases. Like this, all the apps on your device update and take up more space on your phone, thus leaving it with a decreased internal memory storage.