How To Clear Up Space On Your Android Phone

Every smartphone comes with limited storage space for your files, whether we’re talking about pictures, videos, or any other type of file. You may want to pay attention to those, as you can fill up your storage really fast, especially if you don’t have plenty of it. Luckily, clearing up space on your Android phone is easy, and in this article, we’ll show you how to do it. Do note that this procedure does vary a bit from one phone to the next.

How to clear up space on your Android phone

In this particular case, we used the Vivo X60 Pro+, though the procedure is quite similar on other phones, that includes stock Android. Below, you’ll see a step-by-step guide on how to clear up storage, and we’ve also attached some images there, so that you can follow along on your smartphone. That being said, let’s get started.

The first thing you’ll need to do is open up your Settings. In order to do that, you’ll need to open up your app drawer. On most Android phones, you can swipe up on the home screen, and that’ll do the trick. Once you do that, find the ‘Settings’ app there.

Once you’ve opened the settings, you’ll need to find the storage section there. On Google’s Pixel phone’s it’s simply called ‘Storage’, while on the Vivo X60 Pro+ (screenshot below) for example, it’s called ‘RAM and storage space’. It shouldn’t be hard to find regardless of what phone you use.

In the next menu, you’ll likely see different types of files that take up space on your phone. In my particular case, most space is taken by photos and videos. That will be the case for most of you as well. From this point on, you can do several things. You can either type a specific file type, like photos and videos, for example.

Your phone will show you how much storage each files type category takes

If you do that, you’ll be able to see how much storage space each up takes in that category. In my case, 534MB is marked for the Gallery app, while PicSay Pro takes 13.78MB, as I recently edited some pictures in that app, and stored them in a separate folder. Do note that the app storage, in general, is counted. Tap on an app you’d like to edit, let’s say the ‘Gallery’ app.

As you can see, from the next menu, you can clear storage in general. If you choose that option, not only will you lose all your app settings, but all your images stored there. So, be careful with this one.

‘Manage storage’ is the way to go

Now, going a different route is the way to go. Let’s revert back to the main storage section in the settings. Instead of selecting a specific category from there, you could have just opted for ‘Manage storage’.

Once you choose that option, your phone will ask which file manager would you like to use to proceed. In my particular case, it’s Google’s. From there, you will be able to clean out junk files, temporary files, unused files, and so on. You’ll also be able to open folders for separate apps, and delete files one by one, just to make sure you don’t lose something you need.

The best way to clear up space for images and video is to open the app directly, actually. So, for example, your Gallery app. You’ll have the best look at your images and video from there, and you’ll be able to delete them manually. Though, as already mentioned, you can do the same from your file manager app, whichever you use.