By Gina Barrow, Last updated: November 20, 2020
“How do I free up some space without formatting my device now that it says Internal Storage on Android is full?”
Basically, since very little but apps and their data is taking up space (pictures are backed up to the cloud, by default, so all that’s on your phone is thumbnails, which don’t take up much space), about the only way to free up an appreciable amount of space is to choose apps you want to get rid of, force-stop each one, clear cache, clear data, then uninstall the app. Keep doing that until you’ve freed up enough space. There are plenty of other things that will take up your storage space. We all love installing Android apps on our phones. They have advanced a lot, but all these advancements in apps mean they can take up a lot of space. Unless you buy a phone with enough storage. You’ll be constantly having to delete apps you no longer use to free up some space.
Most Android devices come in with internal storage ranging from 32 GB, 64 GB, and 128 GB. Although these storage sizes look big, Android Smartphones easily gets full. We often pile up our devices with lots of apps, games, photos, and more than eat up the storage.
When your phone is full, you will notice that it begins to slow down in performance and often freeze up upon opening apps and worse, apps crash. In order to make the most of your device, you tend to delete some files that usually come in big sizes without even backing it up.
The lesser space we have left on the device, the more we look for ways on how to free up without being guilty of erasing few memories, cool games, and fun apps. Today, we will go over 3 effective methods on how to free internal storage on Android when it gets full.
Press the ‘Free Up Space’ Button to Begin the Process. Go to: Settings Device Maintenance Storage. Please note: On some Android phones, instead of “Device Maintenance” it may say “Device Care.” You should see a button that says “Free up space” or “Free up storage space.”.
Part 1. Free up Space on Android Using Android Data Backup and Restore
We cannot exactly determine which phone contents take up a lot of space because it depends on each user. However, the majority of space-huggers are actual photos, videos, and other media contents. Next, would be the apps, depending on how much data was saved in it.
It would basically take more time, manually copying and transferring these media contents especially when you lack time and your phone is already acting up.
The easiest and fastest method you can use is FoneDog Android Data Backup and Restore. You can practically use this whenever you have the internal storage of your android full. This third party software lets you create a backup of the entire device so you can clear them off your phone.
It primarily backs up contents like your contacts, call history, messages, app messages, photos, videos, and many more. Once you have set up the backup, you can easily restore them at any time you need it back.
How to Backup Android Data
Here is How FoneDog Android Data Backup and Restore Works:
- Open the software on your computer and plug in your Android phone
- Go to Android Data Backup and Restore Tool
- Choose from Device Data backup or One-Click Backup. If you want to use selective backup then you can choose the former option, but if you want to back up the entire device, you can choose the latter.
- If you selected the Device Data Backup, you will be asked to select the types of files you want and click next to continue.
- Wait until the software completes the backup process
How to Restore Android Data
To restore your Android backup:
- Connect the Android phone to the computer and launch FoneDog Android Data Backup and Restore
- Choose the Restore mode and select from the backup lists
- Optionally, you can selectively choose which files to restore
- Don’t forget to authorize the restoration process and wait until it’s finished
Highlights of FoneDog Android Data Backup and Restore:
How To Free Up Storage Space On Android
- 100% safe to use, with proven no data loss
- User-friendly interface
- Supports all types of Android Smartphones
- Allows file preview
- Selective file backup and restore option
You don’t have to worry anymore where and how to manage your device when android internal storage gets a full message appears again.
Part 2. Transfer Files to SD Card to Avoid Internal Storage Full Message on Android
Perhaps the quickest solution you will think about when you know that your Android internal storage is already full is to transfer some of your apps and files to the SD card.
Android SD cards also come in varying storage capacities ranging from 2GB up to 512GB. The price also varies depending on the storage capacity you want and the brand. You can move the photos to your SD card as well as some of your apps so your Android phone performance won’t be affected.
To move some of your apps to the SD card, follow these:
- On your android phone, navigate to Settings and then go to Internal Storage
- Locate Apps and begin with the heaviest app on your device
- Tap Change and then tap SD card in the storage location window
- Lastly, tap Move to confirm the changes
- Do this to all apps you wish to move to the SD card
You can also make the SD card the default storage location of your android phone, here’s how:
- From the phone’s Settings go to Storage
- Under the default storage location, choose SD Card
That’s it! All the files such as photos will be saved on the SD card by default so you don’t have to worry about slowing down your phone’s performance.
Part 3. 4 Other Methods on How to Clear Space on Android’s Internal Storage
Now that we have learned 2 main methods on how to free up some space, we have also listed some of the effective measures you can do to get rid of the storage full message.
1. For Android 8.0 Oreo Storage Menu
If your android phone is running on 8.0 Oreo, there is a great feature that was added which is the Storage menu where you can see the complete breakdown of apps installed on your phone.
It’s basically more advanced than the usual Storage menu in the settings. You can select and view which phone files actually take up a lot of space including any associated apps.
Clearing the apps is easy in this menu, you don’t have to dig deep in every app saved and delete them. Follow this guide on how to clear some space:
- Open the Storage Menu from your android phone
- Under the total space of your device, tap Free Up Space
- Scroll down and select the items you wish to remove
That is all you need to do! However, this method is only optional to those users with updated android version to 8.0 Oreo.
2. To Delete Old and Useless Apps
Well, many of us are actually guilty of downloading apps but never had the chance of using it. Often, we already forgot that these apps are installed on our phones until we experience some low memory issues.
What you can do is assess and check the apps installed on your phone. Categorize them based on the importance and usage frequency. Once you have determined that you no longer need these apps, uninstall them so you can gain some space.
- In Settings, go to your Apps and tap Manage Apps
- Find those less used apps and tap Uninstall
- Do this to other apps you want to remove
3. To Clear App Data
If for some reasons, you cannot just let go of your apps, you can also try to clear the data to retrieve some space. However, this is only a temporary solution and you might need to do this often every time you get the storage space full.
- On the same settings, open the desired app
- Tap Clear Data
- Wait until the system clears all data related to this app
- Repeat this process to all apps you wish to clear
Clearing data will not erase files off your android but rather, removes the saved information from that given app, including accounts and customized settings. So if you cleared the data off your Facebook app, you need to simply re-login start using the app again.
4. To Copy Photos to the Computer
Another option to get rid of the internal storage full on android is to transfer your photos and videos to the computer. Media files as we all now take a lot of space and often the reason why we get the storage limit issue.
If you are not yet familiar with this process, follow this guide on a Windows PC:
- Plugin your android phone to the computer via USB cable
- Go to This PC and double click on your Smartphone
- Open the DCIM folder and highlight all the photos and videos you wish to move. Use the CTRL+C on your keyboard to copy the files.
- Create a new folder in the file explorer as your file destination, use the CTRL+V to paste all the media contents you just moved
You can connect your Android phone to the computer again, in case you need to move the files back to your phone.
Android Phone Storage Is Full
Part 4. Summary
In this article, we have learned the different ways on what you can do when you get the internal storagefull on your android phone. There are many ways to free up space and each option has its advantages and disadvantages.
Among these methods, the most efficient is by using FoneDog Android Data Backup and Restore program. It simply lets you manage all your files conveniently in one place so you can restore them faster and efficiently from the same source.
The rest of the methods we shared were all manual processes and basically needs your time and extra effort to redeem your storage back. However, the decision is up to your needs; if you need a fast and efficient way to free up space then use the first option. If you have time to spare then you can choose from the rest of the options we shared.