How to free up space on Android in 60 seconds

How to free up space on Android in 60 seconds

Compared to even a few years ago, we now spend refreshingly little time mulling over mundane matters like megabytes. On a mobile device in particular, we’re far more likely to just go about our business without giving a single thought to the file system beneath the surface or how much space our virtual stuff requires.

That’s all well and good—until you suddenly realize your Android is running dangerously low on storage. 

But there’s an easy way to free up space on Android in a matter of seconds, no matter what Android device you’re using (or how old it might be).

Clear storage on Android with Files by Google

In my Android Intelligence newsletter, I wrote about Google’s fantastic free app for Android storage scrubbing. It’s called Files by Google, and if you’re using a Google-made Pixel phone, it probably came loaded on your device out of the box. But you can download it from the Play Store and install it on any Android device.

Files by Google—or Google Files, as I’ll call it from here on out—is an Android file manager. That means it lets you view and interact with all the virtual files on your device, which is something you may or may not ever actually need to do.

The file management screens on Files by Google

But Google Files also has a bunch of space-freeing tools. Here’s how it works.

  1. Open the Google Files app.

  2. Tap the three-line menu icon in the upper-left corner, and select Clean from the menu that pops up.

  3. Look through all the suggestions on the screen, and follow the steps within each box to clear out any files you don’t need.

Google Files will show you everything from duplicate downloads to random old screenshots, blurry photos, and other storage-sucking space hogs you might be able to eliminate. It’ll even tell you exactly how much space you stand to free up with each round of deleting. And it’ll give you a simple way to sweep all that stuff away in a few fast taps.

Clearing storage on Android with Files by Google

Be sure to give everything a once-over before you actually delete anything—just in case Files suggests something you still need. With the alleged unused apps Files surfaces, for instance, you’ll sometimes see apps that you might not have explicitly opened in a while but do still rely on in some way, with what they do in the background on your device. So give it all a quick scan before you confirm and send anything packing.

And that’s it! Set yourself a reminder to do it every six months or so, and you can go back to blissfully keeping megabytes out of sight and out of mind the rest of the time.

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by Zapier