Have you been receiving the “Phone storage is full” notification on your iOS or Android phone? You can easily free up space with a little spring cleaning on your smartphone. Here’s a breakdown of what you can safely delete to give yourself some more space.

• How Can I Free Up Storage On My Android Phone
• Android Phone Storage Is Full

Go to your phone’s settings, and select “Storage.” Among other things, you’ll see information on how much space is in use, a link to a tool called “Smart Storage” (more on that later), and a list. To see how much space each app occupies, iOS users can go to Settings General iPhone Storage. On an Android smartphone, open Settings Storage Apps. By deleting a handful of apps, you could potentially free up as much as 500MB with little or no effort. Android lays out your storage situation in clear terms. However, check out a new tool by selecting Manage Storage at the top of the list. You’ll see an option for Smart Storage, which when toggled.

How to free up space on your phone

We use our phones for everything these days, from our music player and camera to ordering groceries. So it’s easy to find yourself with a lot of unused apps and cached data taking up space on your phone that you could really use to take more pics of your beloved pet. Every day, Asurion Experts help our 300 million customers (and counting!) to get the most out of the tech devices they love and rely on, including how to free up space on their smartphones. We’ll walk you through what you can do to get more device storage, from how to clear cache on your phone to how to back up your data to the cloud.

How to check your phone storage

The first thing you’ll want to do is check to see which apps on your smartphone are the biggest users of space and delete the ones you can live without. On your phone’s usage screens, you will see your available storage, along with a list of your apps ranked from top to bottom based on how much space they’re occupying. With a little luck, you’ll find an app that’s taking up a lot of space that you never use, so you’ll have no problems saying goodbye to it.

On Android

Android has built-in tools to check your storage.

1. In Settings, select Device Care (may also be Battery and device care).
2. Then, click on Storage.
3. From there, you can see what’s taking up space on your phone.

On iPhone

iPhone also has a built-in system check.

1. Tap on Settings.
2. Then, choose General.
3. From there, select iPhone Storage.
4. At the top of the screen, you can check out how much storage is used on your iPhone, what content takes up the most space, and how much memory is left.

What apps should I delete to get more storage on my phone?

Consider whether the apps that you rarely use really and truly need to be on your smartphone. Ask yourself, “Does this app provide a function that I cannot get by going to the company’s website?” If it does, then by all means, let it be. If not, delete the app and bookmark the company’s website instead.

For Android users who wish they could remove some of the apps pre-installed by Google or their wireless carrier, you’re in luck. You may not always be able to uninstall those, but for newer Android devices, you can at least “disable” them and reclaim the storage space they’ve taken up. Simply long press the app icon in the apps menu and choose Disable from the pop-up window.

For many social apps on your iPhone, you can choose the Offload App option to help free up space. Settings > iPhone Storage > choose an app > then enable Offload App. This feature will automatically offload your unused apps when you’re low on storage, while saving your related documents and data for future access.

How to clean my files and delete unwanted documents

File manager apps can help you to easily clean up your phone and create more storage space. These apps can scan your device to remove duplicate files, clean up your contact list, and identify apps you don’t use that are hogging needed space. Here are a few worth checking out.

Best file manager apps for iPhone and Android​

Files by Google

Available for Android devices

Files by Google easily scans your device and gives recommendations for freeing up your phone’s storage space with just a few taps. The app also helps you to keep your device free of clutter, sending you prompts from time-to-time to remove junk or temporary files that impact your phone’s performance.

Smart Cleaner

Available for iOS devices

Smart Cleaner scans your iPhone storage and allows you to easily remove duplicate contacts, screenshots, and similar photos from your gallery. Its Smart Cleaning function makes the process simple, taking care of freeing up space with just a single tap of a button.

KeepClean

Available for Android devices

KeepClean is a powerful all-in-one solution for your phone storage cleanup needs, offering everything from junk file and device cache cleaning to antivirus security. It also helps keep your phone performing at its best with its built-in battery saver and quick charging functions.

Back up photos, videos, music from your smartphone to the cloud

If you’re still in need of additional storage wiggle room, check out your photo and video albums. Deleting duplicate photos will be a huge help – and you’re likely to have a lot, since it typically takes 10+ tries to get that perfect selfie. But the biggest space saver will be deleting video files. Video files tend to be huge, so the more you can get rid of, the better. Post them on social media or a cloud storage account, or save them to your home computer before deleting them from your smartphone. You should also consider enabling automatic uploading from your camera roll to Dropbox or another cloud storage solution – check out our easy guide to backing up your phone photos.

Keeping music downloaded on your device can also take up room on your device. Consider keeping only the music you really love and want to be able to listen to if there’s no WiFi or wireless service available. Otherwise, stick to music streaming apps like Pandora or Spotify, since they take up much less space than a big music library.

Best cloud storage for Android​ and iPhone

1. ​Google Photos offers 15 GB of free storage, which is more than most cloud services offer. With features like tagging for faces and places, plus it being backed by Google’s powerful search, Google Photos makes locating the particular photo or video you’re looking for simple and keeps your phone photos organized.
2. iCloud offers 2GB of free storage and allows you sync files between your iOS devices as well as your PC, but take note: there’s currently no iCloud option for your Android devices. A bonus feature is the Family Sharing option, which allows family members to share access to music and App Store purchases and a family photo album. Check out our guide on how to use iCloud.
3. Dropbox offers 2GB of free storage and is a simple solution if you’re just looking to back up files and sync them between your devices. The Dropbox app allows you to automatically back-up photos or videos as they are taken, making it even easier to keep the storage space on your phone uncluttered.

Do emails, text message and voicemails take space on mobile phones?

You’d be surprised at how much space old text messages and voicemail take up on your device. Sure, there are certain exchanges you keep for the sake of cherished memories, but the photos of your dogs in their Halloween costumes you text to your spouse a year ago probably aren’t the best use of storage space on your phone. Take a few minutes to go through these and delete where necessary.

Clear your phone cache

What is phone cache?

Phone cache is information—like files, scripts or images—that is saved on your device after visiting a website or opening an app for the first time that speeds up your experience when returning to them in the future.

If you’re like most people, you use your phone for just about everything, which means over time your phone will collect a large amount of cached data that you just don’t need and that will put a strain on your phone’s memory. Clearing out your phone’s cache occasionally will help to free up a little storage space on your device and will likely improve your device’s overall performance.

How to clear cache on your phone

If you have an app that’s running slowly or crashing, clearing the app’s cache can solve a lot of basic issues. Clearing app cache will erase unnecessary files, but you won’t lose any of your app’s saved passwords or data.​

How to clear cache on Android:​

1. Go to your device Settings.
2. Choose Apps.
3. Click on an often used app, like Chrome. Then, click on Storage.
4. Click on the Clear Cache icon in the bottom right corner.
5. Repeat these steps for the other apps on your device.

How to clear cache on iPhone:​

Instructions to clear app cache on an iPhone varies from developer to developer. If you suspect a particular third-party app is causing performance issues, go to Settings > General > iPhone Storage. There, you’ll see your apps listed in order of size. You can click on an individual app to see if there are options available to clear cache data. If there is no cache clearing option available, try uninstalling and reinstalling the app.

Protect your phone now.

For more than 25 years, Asurion has helped 300 million customers protect, connect, and enjoy the tech they love most. And smartphones are no exception. Your life is on your device, make sure it’s protected. Learn more about coverage and enroll in a phone insurance plan today.

The Asurion® trademarks and logos are the property of Asurion, LLC. All rights reserved. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Asurion is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by any of the respective owners of the other trademarks appearing herein.

Summary :

Is your Android phone giving you the insufficient storage available error when you are using it? When this issue happens, do you know how to deal with it? Here, you can read this post from MiniTool to learn how to handle it effectively.

My Phone Says Insufficient Storage But I Have Space

Now, let’s start with a real-life example as follows:

The total space of my app is 10 MB, and after installation, it will take less than 20 MB. In Galaxy Note I, while updating my app, it's saying Insufficient Storage Available, where there is 214 MB of free space in device memory (internal). It happens even trying to download a new app.stackoverflow

This is definitely an error relating to Insufficient Storage Available. What do you think about it?

As it is well known, the internal memory of an Android device is never as ample as it appears. For a device with 32GB of storage, a lot of storage is occupied by the operating system, preinstalled apps, as well as the wasted space based on how the OS formats the storage medium.

As a result, when trying to install or update an app on your Android, you could be told that there is insufficient storage available even though the app takes less space than what is actually available on your Android device. (Sometimes an alternative version of a similar error such as 'this device doesn't have enough space to download' may appear when downloading an app.)

However, there is actually enough storage space available to update or install your required app but not enough space to execute the process.

This is also the answer to the question – “why does my phone say memory full when it isn't”.

Have you encountered this issue: SD card not full but says full and nothing on it in a camera? Now try to recover data from the target SD card and fix it.

Is your Android phone also suffering from insufficient storage error? If yes, don't worry! You are not the only one and we also receive many feedbacks saying Android storage space running out but it's not. Here, we will walk you through 7 simple solutions to quick fix this issue.

Insufficient Storage Android Fix

Solution 1: Clear App Cache to Free up Space on Android

In general, the lack of working space is probably the main cause of having insufficient storage available for Android users. Usually, any Android app uses three sets of storage for the app itself, the app's data files and the app's cache.

If the cache is too large in size, it will occupy a huge part of the space although it is reported that the occupied space is the free space on Android device. In this case, emptying your app cache is a useful way to fix the Android insufficient storage error.

How to clear the app cache? Follow the steps:

1. Open Settings firstly from the home screen and then go to the Applications or Applications manager
2. Then you can see all the downloaded apps on your Android device are listed as well as how much storage space they are taking up.
3. Tap Menu or More to sort these apps by size so as to check which one takes up the most storage.
4. Tap the specific app to see the storage space occupied by the app, its data (the Storage section) and cache (Cache section).
5. Tap Clear Cache to empty cache to free up some space.
6. Repeat the same process for each app.

Additionally, you can also delete all the cache files for all your Android apps together. To do this, navigate to Settings > Storage > Device Memory. Then tap Cache data and Delete to wipe all cached data from all your apps.

After finishing the operations above, you won't complain to us 'my phone says insufficient storage but I have space'.

Solution 2: Transfer Photos/Videos from Android to Computer

If you find that your Android device is having insufficient storage available, one of the best solutions is to move some large files including photos, videos, audios, etc. to your computer so as to free up Android storage. To do this, you need a piece of third-party data transfer tool.

Luckily, this free Android data recovery software - MiniTool Mobile Recovery for Android which is developed by MiniTool Team is worthy of being recommended. This free tool can be not only the Android data recovery software to recover deleted files but also the data transfer tool to save the existing files to a computer.

Besides, it can be used in all Windows OSs including Windows 10/8/7 and supports multiple Android phones and tablets, for example, Samsung, Huawei, Sony, LG, Google, etc. Now, it's up to you to download this freeware for data transferring to fix the insufficient storage available issue.

Step 1: Open MiniTool Mobile Recovery for Android Free on your computer.

Which one module you need to choose from the main interface, Recover from Phone or Recover from SD-Card? Both of them are OK. If your photos, videos or music files are saved to Android internal memory, please click the first section.

Step 2: Connect the phone having the Android storage space running out issue to the computer via a USB cable. Then, analysis operation to your Android device will be performed.

Step 3: To save your photos, videos or other data to a computer successfully, you need to enable USB debugging by following the instructions based on corresponding Android version.

And then you should allow USB debugging on the computer. We suggest checking the Always allow from this computer option to avoid authorization next time.

Step 4: Choose one scan method.

• Quick Scan can be used to scan your Android device in a fast way but it only allows moving contacts, short messages and call records to a computer.
• Deep Scan is designed to scan the entire device so that more files can be transferred but this way costs much time.

Here you should choose Deep Scan to scan and save photos, videos, and audios to your computer in case of insufficient storage available.

Step 5: Then, MiniTool Mobile Recovery for Android will start scanning your device. Afterwards, you can see all the found file types are marked in blue. Just choose the file type you want to extract, check all items and click Recover.

MiniTool Mobile Recovery for Android Free Edition has a limitation: it only allows saving 10 files of each type each time. When phone storage is full, we suggest using its advanced edition to transfer more files.

After getting the license, click register in the scan result interface and register this freeware.

Step 6: Click Browse to specify a storage path or directly save your selected files to the default place in your computer by hitting Recover.

After finishing all the above steps, enter the Android phone and delete all the files you have saved to the computer. Then, the insufficient storage error can be solved.

If lots of pictures or videos are stored on the SD card, causing insufficient space on external storage, you can also use the Recover from SD-Card feature to save deleted and existing files to your computer.

1. Connect the Android SD card to your computer.
2. Select the target card to scan.
3. Choose the pictures or videos to save them to the specified path.

Or you can connect your SD card to a computer and directly move files on the SD card to it.

Solution 3: Save Pictures & Videos to External SD Card Instead of Internal Memory

Photos and videos consume a lot of storage on the Android device. In addition to moving them to a computer, you can fix the issue of Android storage space running out by saving your pictures or videos to an SD card.

Is it possible to recover deleted Instagram photos? Now, in this post, we will tell you how to use MiniTool software as well as other two ways to do this job.

If you have already stored photos and videos on the phone's internal storage, you should firstly remove them to the SD card. After that, change the default storage for the pictures and videos to the SD card.

To do this, go to Settings > Camera Settings. Then, select Storage location to change it to SD card or Memory card if the default storage path is Device.

Solution 4: Uninstall Unwanted Apps

Sometimes the 'Android storage space running out but it's not' issue is caused by the overwhelming amount of data stored on your phone’s internal memory. If you have many apps on your Android device and use them simultaneously, cache memory on your phone can be blocked, which leads to Android insufficient storage.

In this case, you can choose to uninstall some unwanted or unused apps to free up storage space. This operation is very simple.

To uninstall an app, go to Settings in your Android phone, and enter the Apps section to get a list of all apps that have been installed on your device. Also, you can sort them by size. Then choose the app you don't need and click Uninstall to remove it.

If you have many apps need to be deleted, repeat the above steps to free up some space to fix insufficient space.

Solution 5: Move Apps from Internal Storage to SD card

Some of you may not want to uninstall any app and would rather search for insufficient storage available Android fix without root. Here, simply moving some apps from the internal storage to your SD card is a good option. This can add space to the internal memory of your phone and solve the “can’t install app insufficient storage available” problem.

1. Go to the Settings menu on your Android device.
2. Tap on Apps.
3. You can still arrange all apps in order by taping Sort by size. Then, choose the app and tap Move to SD card.
4. Repeat the operation to remove the apps which are taking up much storage space.

Solution 6: Use an Cleaning App to Free up Android Space

Sometimes some junk files occupy much Android space, causing insufficient space on the device. In this case, you can use a cleaning app for Android to clean some junk files and optimize your device.

The app can be MobileGo, CCleaner, etc. Just download one from Google Play Store to remove some cache, junk or unwanted files.

Solution 7: Factory Reset Your Device

If you have tried all the above solutions but still encounter the insufficient storage available error, you may fix the problem by factory resetting.

1. Go to Settings.
2. Tap System > Reset or Backup & reset.
3. Tap on Factory data reset and Reset phone or Reset tablet. If there is a need, input your PIN, pattern, or password.
4. At last, tap on Erase everything.

Note that this method can wipe all data stored on your Android device. Thus, you had better back up your important data firstly. If you forget to make a backup beforehand and lost many important files after factory resetting, what should you do?

MiniTool Mobile Recovery for Android can still be your good assistant. As professional Android data recovery software, it can help to effectively recover deleted files including contacts, messages, videos, photos, music files and more to your computer.

How can you recover deleted videos Android? This post will introduce you different ways to get deleted Android videos back with third-party software.

How Can I Free Up Storage On My Android Phone

Verdict

Android Phone Storage Is Full

Are you encountering the insufficient storage available issue on the Android phone or tablet when installing an app? Now, it is the time to try the above seven simple ways to fix Android storage space running out and optimize the performance.

Have some problems when using MiniTool Mobile Recovery for Android to move files or recover data? Or have any suggestions to fix the insufficient storage error? Please let us know by sending an email to [email protected] or leaving your idea below.