You can do this individually for each app via Settings Apps Your app Storage (or Storage and Cache) Clear Cache. There’s also an option that allows you to delete all your cached data at. SD Maid is probably the most underrated phone cleaner app. The app is known for in-depth cleaning of junk files on Android. For that purpose, it offers a wide range of tools to manage extra files. “On Android, Google Photos offers free cloud storage for all your photos with a small compromise in image quality. In Google Photos, just tap the hamburger menu on the left and choose ‘Free up. I have a Samsung s9 plus and the app that was taking up all my storage was My files (ironically). I went to settings/apps/My Files/Storage and the data was a whopping 6GB. I hit Clear Data and freed up the space. I'm not sure why a file browser would need to hold.

Android devices are fantastic for their ease of use and customization options, however eventually all your precious space is filled. We will look at ways to effectively free up Android phone storage. This problem is particularly acute for phones more than a year old; performance is impacted if the user does not release Android phone storage. We will look at ways to effectively free up Android phone storage.

Why Storage Disappears So Fast?

The storage is not a live creature that can run away itself, so check whether you match any of the following conditions:

Lots of pre-installed apps: some manufacturers are notorious for bloatware (e.g. Asus and Samsung), so their pre-installed apps, along with system-level Android OS, both take their toll immediately – literally right out of the box.

Install apps in built-in phone space: sometimes you didn't notice that the app installation location was set as the built-in phone space not the SD card. The limited phone space is easier to be filled with apps.

Limited storage capacity: even though you can address limited internal storage (e.g. 16GB) with external storage, the low storage warning will also appear with the microSD card if you are a heavy multimedia user.

Phone trash accumulates: temp files, duplicates files, cache, and other unnecessary files are produced all the time. This is a natural by-product of apps, system files, and the OS itself. Over time, this is cumulative and can have a major impact on phone responsiveness if you do not clean the junk regularly.

How to Check Storage Condition on Android?

Before to start a storage release, we should figure out what takes the most space on our phone for solving this problem effectively.

1. Go to your phone main menu, and find out the 'File' icon inside to tap in. Clearly you will see different options there - Category, Storage, and Cloud. Simply tap the 'Storage', your phone space using condition is clearly presented here.

Here you are allowed to view total space and available space on both phone and SD card. Also, simply tap the two locations individually, all the folders inside will show up for your checking.

2. Enter your Android 'Settings' to look for the 'Power and Storage' option. Tap to access it, the 'Storage Space' is there showing the ROM and SD card available space. Tap the button, a circle graph presents you the space that each type of data takes up, for both phone and SD card as well.

How to Free up Space on Android Phones?

There are four ways to reclaim your storage:

1. Clean out junk items regularly

Always use a good mobile management app to clean/remove your phone junk. Examples of junk includes outdated cache, installation packages (APK), uninstalled app remnants, and app cache. This is an effective way to release Android phone space.

Note: Most Android phones already feature pre-installed management app, e.g. Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO, Meizu, etc. If your phone doesn't already have one, simply download one from the Play Store (for example, Tencent WeSecure)

For our example, we will use the OPPO FIND 7 built-in app.

• Launch your app of choice.

• Tap 'Scan' to commence scanning – this will search for viruses, potential dangers, and junk items using up space.

• Once scanning finishes, the app will automatically delete the junk.

• Or enter the 'File' menu to use the 'Clearup' feature to clean the useless cache.

• Tap 'End all' to wipe them out.

2. Expand external storage (if available)

Add a large capacity Micro SD card, the card storage better starts at 32GB.

3. Files transfer

If you don't want spend money on a SD card, you can do like these to release plenty of space:

• Transfer large files like videos, images, and music to your computer.

• Alternatively, upload the big files to the cloud like Google Photos, Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive, Flickr, etc. You can download the apps to backup your files and delete the copies on your phone or just upload on the website.

4. Uninstall rarely used apps

Fast uninstall:

• Long press the app icon until a small 'x' appears near the icon.

• Tap the 'x' to commence uninstalling.

• Tap 'Delete' to confirm app deletion.

On some Android phones, long press the app icon and drag it to the trashcan at the screen top instead.

Direct uninstall:

• Enter the phone 'Settings'.

• Enter 'Application management'.

• Choose 'Installed' category.

• Select the apps you rarely use and tap 'Uninstall'.

• Tap 'Uninstall' to confirm the selection.

Note: Following app deletion, use the phone management app to clean any residual files from the uninstallation process to free more space.

5. App transfer

Transfer pre-installed to the external SD card. (Only available to Android devices with external storage)

• Enter the phone 'Settings'.

• Enter 'Application management'.

• Choose the 'Installed' or 'All' category including the pre-installed apps.

• Select all the apps individually and tap 'Move to user space' to transfer to the SD card.

• Use the phone management app to clean the trash.

If your Android device is more than 3 years old, we would strongly suggest changing to a more up-to-date device with more advanced features and storage. You've though about it as well? Then both OnePlus 3T and UMI Super are pretty good choices that not only sport large storage but also fast process speed - 6GB RAM+128GB storage and 4GB+32GB (256GB expansion). Therefore, you won't be bothered by the storage limitation again. Want more affordable premium Android phone choices? You can have a look here on Gearbest.

Before I forget, there is currently a top phone brand sale at that with up to 68% off for a limited time only. Have a look before it's too late! Hope this article does work for you :)

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.

How To Clean Storage On Android

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.

How To Clean Internal Storage Android

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 To Clean Phone Storage Android

Clear Space On Android

Verdict

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.

Android Internal Storage Full

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.