How To See Which Apps Are Taking Up Space So You Know What To Delete

Modern Android phones typically have more than enough space for users, whether that’s for games, movies and videos, photos, or apps. Also, in many cases, storage is expandable via an SD or microSD card. But that doesn’t mean that there’s always enough space and some apps take up a lot more than others, so how do you know what to delete or uninstall?

That’s exactly the question this guide looks to answer. More importantly, we won’t just be looking at file sizes. There are several reasons you might want to uninstall an app or apps well beyond how much storage space they take up. So if you need to uninstall some apps that are taking up space but aren’t sure which apps those are, this guide can show you how.

How to see which apps are taking up the most space

As noted above, there are a lot of reasons to get rid of an app that’s taking up space, and that’s not just by file size. But also how often you actually need or use them.

There are, as of this writing and based on a quick review of various reports, well over 2 million Android apps in the Google Play Store alone. Most of those, you’ll never even stumble across, let alone download. But, with so many apps, there are those that effectively do everything. And any number of alternatives for everything too. So it’s easy to end up with apps taking up way more space than you’d like, and no easy way to remove them if you don’t know where to look.

Android offers a great solution to the problem too. It’s built right into the Google Play Store, alongside so many other useful features, where you’ve likely downloaded the overwhelming majority of your apps.

Additionally, as with many of our how-to guides, this will work on an Android tablet/phone or a Chromebook. So let’s take a look.

Finding which apps to uninstall

1. Open up the Google Play Store on the device you’d like to remove apps from
2. Select your profile image (this will be a circular image of the first initial of your username if you haven’t added an image) to open up the Google Play Store overflow menu
3. In the resulting card-like UI, select “Manage apps & device” from the list. That will be accompanied by a square-shaped icon, filled with rows and columns of dots
4. In the resulting menu, select the right-hand tab from the top bar, labeled “Manage”
5. Apps that are installed will be highlighted by default, so you won’t need to adjust that drop-down filter option. Instead, locate the filter option that reads “Recently updated” with three dashes of decreasing size next to it and select that option
6. The Google Play Store will display an array of options with radial buttons to select the ordering in which it shows apps. You’ll want to select the one that best suits you, as indicated below
   1. If you’re looking to save space by deleting your heaviest — largest file size — apps, sorting by “Size” will help you to do that. Apps will automatically be sorted from largest to smallest
   2. If you’re looking to save space by deleting apps you don’t use, this menu can help there too. Simply sort by “Least used” instead of “Size”
7. Regardless of your sorting option, the apps will now be displayed with their name and icon, as well as how large they are in terms of file size and when you last used them. Giving you all the information you should need to determine which are best to remove to free up space

Uninstalling through the Play Store

Now, after sorting your apps how you’d like in the Google Play Store, it remains to delete an app — or apps — to free up some space, but how, exactly, do you do that?

In fact, this process is relatively straightforward too, unless you’re unfamiliar with Android’s UI.

1. With your apps sorted based on what you want to remove from your phone to save space, learning how to delete the apps is fairly straightforward. Scroll through the list, as shown in the images below, and select the checkbox next to apps you’d like to delete
2. Selected checkboxes will feature a colored checkmark in the box. Along the top of the page, in the title bar, the Play Store will showcase how many items you’ve selected, as well as the overall file size for all selected apps
3. Continue selecting apps until you’ve chosen all that you want to remove
4. Now, select the trash can-shaped uninstall icon at the top right-hand side of the page
5. Confirm your choice to uninstall the apps, and then the Google Play Store will take care of uninstalling the apps for you

Through the Android UI

The abovementioned option is great if you’re looking to delete several apps at a time. There’s a quick and easy way to do so if you’re just looking to manage one app. It’s also more direct, so you’ll be able to avoid scrolling through your apps to find one.

In this example, we’ll be using Stock Android using a Pixel device. If you’re using a phone with an Android skin, the process might look a bit different. Chances are, however, that it will be the same for you.

1. Find the app on your home screen or in the app drawer
2. Hold your finger down. Then, you’ll see the little dropdown menu pop up. Tap on the App Info button. (If you don’t see the text for it, look for the “i” inside of the circle.)
3. On the resulting screen, scroll down to the Storage & Cache section. When you open that page, it will show you how much storage the app is taking. It will show you the size of the app’s downloaded file, how much user data has been created, and the cache. The user data is what typically takes up the most space.
4. If you want to uninstall the app, go back to the App Info screen, and tap on the Uninstall button. The system will confirm that you want to uninstall the app. Tap on the OK button to delete it.