Your Android's storage is likely filled by large apps, media files (photos, videos, especially in group chats), accumulated app cache, downloaded offline content (movies, music), and a growing "Other" storage category holding temporary system files or leftover data; check your device's Settings > Storage to see a breakdown and identify the biggest space hogs like social media apps, browser data, or games.
To free up storage, start by deleting unused apps and clearing app caches in settings. Move photos and videos to cloud storage or an external SD card if supported. Check the Downloads folder for unnecessary files. For disabled phones due to full storage, a factory reset may be necessary but back up data first.
Cached Data
Also, messaging apps auto-download media files, including images, videos, and voice messages, into the cache. Eventually, cached data accumulates and occupies storage space. Clearing the cache can improve device performance as it removes outdated files and, therefore, frees up space.
How to see how much space is take up by “Other”
Messages and the attachments that come with them, can quickly use up your storage space. So it's important to go through your text messages, as well as instant messaging apps like WhatsApp. Go to Settings → Messages → Keep Messages → Select 30 Days or 1 Year. This will automatically delete older messages.
Here are the apps that typically use the most storage without you realising:
How to Clear “Other Storage” on Android
You can use Google Photos to save space on your device when you delete photos that are safely backed up. Before you use this feature, you must ensure that you've already backed up your photos properly. Learn how to back up photos.
How often this happens can change depending on what you do online and how often you visit the same websites. However, for a typical internet user, our suggestion is to empty your cache approximately once or twice every month.
Delete personal files or move them to an external storage device. Personal files such as videos, music, photos, and documents can take up a lot of space on your device. To see which files are using the most space: Select File Explorer from the taskbar and find the files you want to move.
Clear Cache and Temporary Files
Clearing cached data removes temporary files that take up space but aren't essential. This is a quick and effective way to free up storage. On an Android device: Go to Settings > Storage, select specific apps, and clear their cache.
Manually clean up your Android
Clear app caches: Cached data helps apps load faster, but can accumulate over time and slow down your device. To clean the cache on your Android, go to Settings > Apps > select an app > tap Storage > Clear Cache.
Move or delete files to free up storage space
Delete music, movies, podcasts, or other media, especially if it's media that you can stream or download again as needed. Delete files in your Downloads folder.
Clearing app data is a more drastic step than clearing the cache, as it resets the app to its default state. IT admins should consider this option when an app is facing significant issues that cache clearing does not resolve.
Clear your junk files
Typical browsing uses about 300MB to 400MB per hour, but data usage can spike to 1GB per hour for video streaming or live broadcasting. Turn off video autoplay in the app's settings, and limit its ability to run in the background. These changes will help reduce unnecessary data usage.
Deleting means completely removing an app from your device along with all of its data. This frees up the most storage space on your device. Later in this article, we'll talk about an alternative to deleting. Offloading means removing an app, but keeping its data on your device.
How do I track which apps are using the most data? Most phones will allow you to check your data usage in the settings menu. On iOS, go to Settings > Cellular. On Android, navigate to Settings > Network & internet > Internet, tap your mobile network, then App data usage to see a breakdown per app.