How to Reclaim Storage Space on Your Smartphone

Even if you have unlimited data on your smartphone, nobody has unlimited space. Gone are the days when all manufacturers would include an SD card slot to allow you to expand your phone’s storage (though a couple still do). Many of us use cloud services to back up our photos, but we rarely remove them from our phones unless we have to. Every time I check, I’m surprised at how cluttered my folders are with memes and screenshots I only needed for a moment. Let’s not even start with all of the PDF documents that need to be downloaded before viewing. Digital clutter is just so easy to ignore until you get a warning that your storage space is low. Or worse, that awesome video you just took can’t be saved.

General Considerations

No matter which brand of smartphone you have, there are a few general suggestions that can help free up space.

  • Do you need all of the apps you have on your phone? If not, go ahead and uninstall them. If you only need an app occasionally, you can uninstall it and download it again later.
  • Are some of the apps you use available as a website? If so, you can bookmark them or add shortcuts to your phone that takes up a lot less space than an app.
  • If you regularly create screenshots or download memes to post, image files are a great place to find content that is easy to delete.
  • If there are files you need, but you don’t need them on your phone, consider transferring them to a computer or hard drive. Cloud storage is wonderful, but some of the platforms will delete a file from the cloud when it is deleted from your device, so it can be tricky.
  • Are any of your images or videos duplicated? I often have to resize things before sending, so my phone is full of duplicate copies. I save a ton of space by culling the extras.
  • Remember, any image or video you post on social media is saved there and can be downloaded in the future.
  • High-resolution images take up a LOT of space, and you rarely need an image with that sort of resolution unless you are a professional/hobbyist photographer whose images will go to print. Optimize your images to keep them on your device at a smaller size. See your phone’s section below for instructions.
  • Are you saving music on your phone? If you don’t like the idea of paying for streaming services, YouTube Music will let you upload up to 100,000 tracks from your computer that you can stream as long as you have an internet connection. Only things you need to hear when offline would need to be saved to your phone storage.
  • Old text messages and voicemails take up space, too. Delete anything you don’t need to free up additional space.
  • Like a browser, your phone has a cache that collects information and takes up more and more space over time. How-to for iOS | How-to for Android
  • Don’t forget to clear your browser cache.
  • Both app stores have apps that claim to clean up your phone for you. In general, it is a good practice to avoid these apps. At best, that’s giving an app a lot of control over data you care about. At worst, you could lose your data and your phone could be bricked.

Cleaning Up iPhone Storage

To do a deep dive into your iPhone’s storage, open Settings>General>iPhone storage. The color-coded bar chart shows file categories and how much space each file type is using. Under the chart, your iPhone will offer suggestions for cleanup. Below the suggestions, you can find detailed information about how much space each type of file is taking. The app section will allow you to delete apps with a single tap.

In the section above, I mentioned that high-resolution photos can take up more space than needed. Navigate to Settings > Photos, where you can enable the “Optimize iPhone storage” option to get those files under control.

You can also reclaim space by clearing your browser cache. For Safari, go to Settings > Safari > Clear History and Website Data. You can do this in other iPhone browsers, such as Chrome, too.

Cleaning Up Android Phone Storage

To do a deep dive into your Android’s storage, open Settings > Storage. If you have a Samsung Galaxy phone, you may find it under Settings > Battery and device care>Storage. Your storage usage is broken down by categories. Click on a category for details. As you drill down, you will find you can long-press on individual files to delete or tap an app name to uninstall it. If your phone has a “free up space” button, you can tap it to view a list of files that may be likely candidates.

To optimize your photos, open the Google Photos app and go to the settings. Select “free up space” to back up your photos to your Google account and free up space on your phone.

Android allows you to not only clear your browser histories, but also the cache and data from every app on your phone. To do this, go to Settings > Storage > Apps and tap an app name. I chose Adobe Acrobat for this example.

Screen shot showing the storage screen for Adobe Acrobat  with options to clear the storage and cache

Choose “clear cache” to delete temporary files and history.

Clear storage will remove all information, including account login, and return the app to a like-new state.

It won’t make or break your storage size, but regular maintenance will save some space and make your apps run more smoothly.

Summary

With a little effort, you can reclaim enough space on your phone to avoid storage warnings and tough file-saving choices without resorting to shady apps in your device’s app store. Do you have any additional space-saving strategies? Let us know about them in the comments.

Windows Update Does It Again

Yesterday, Microsoft put out a warning that the latest update for Windows 11 is causing some apps that use the .NET 3.5 framework to crash. [citation] If you have installed KB5012643 and are experiencing crashing apps, Microsoft advises that you uninstall it to restore app performance.

Some users are also experiencing issues with Start, the taskbar, and USB connections in addition to app crashes. If you have problems with those functions but your apps are fine, uninstalling the update may also clear up those issues.

Manually Uninstalling the Update

To uninstall the update:

  • Click on the Start button and search Windows Update Settings.
  • Windows Update settings window, select View Update History.
  • Select Uninstall Update.
  • Find KB5012643 in the list.
  • Select the patch and click on Uninstall.

Summary

Because this update is optional and not all apps require .NET 3.5 to function, we’re hoping you were able to avoid this issue. If not, try uninstalling the update and let us know if it helped in the comments.

Service Alert

upgrade

On Tuesday, October 28th, the library’s public computers and printing system will be out of service from 9am until approximately 3pm for a planned software upgrade.  Wi-Fi will still be available, and laptops are available for checkout from the Reference Desk with a signed agreement for use within the library.  Thank you for your patience as we continue to improve our public computing system.

MakeUseOf Has the Answers to Questions You Didn’t Know You Had

makeuseofStaying current with IT news, trends, and tips is a fundamental part of my job in the library.  While I get this information from a variety of resources, there is one website that keeps surprising me with helpful information on a variety of subjects of interest to me and the patrons I assist.  I’d like to take this opportunity to give a shout out to MakeUseOf, a free online resource with timely articles, reviews, and help guides for all things tech.  What really makes this resource shine is its ability to speak to both new and veteran users at the same time without confusing or boring either!

The home page at MakeUseOf displays headlines and teaser text for their most recent articles.  I find this layout somewhat chaotic, so I prefer to sort the articles by category before browsing.  Selecting “Topics” in the header menu will display the articles by category.  The “Answers” section leads to a user forum where registered members can ask and answer questions from the MakeUseOf community.  Check out the “Top List” section for “best of” lists for a variety of software and services on multiple platforms.  For in-depth technology guides, have a look at their “E-books” area.

As a registered user of MakeUseOf, you can earn points for sharing their content on social media, as well as participating in the forum, polls, and other activities.  Those points can be redeemed for rewards, such as entries in drawings for free hardware and software.  My favorite benefit of membership has been receiving the newsletter.  Each email has a few headlines with teaser text that can be easily scanned, with more information just a click away.  I have happened upon lots of very useful information in these newsletters that I didn’t even know I needed!  You can opt-in to the newsletter by selecting the social media icons at the top of any MakeUseOf page, and then selecting the blue “Email” button.

subscribeWhat do you think of MakeUseOf?  If you have another tech info source you love, please share it in the comments.

What Is My Computer Doing?

Have you ever used a computer that was running suspiciously slow?  This is a notoriously difficult problem to diagnose.  If you’ve been keeping up with your regular maintenance, then it’s probably not just a matter of a cluttered browser or hard drive.  Chances are, there is a program running behind the scenes that is consuming your resources.  It could be an anti-virus scan, or it could be something more sinister.  How can you tell for sure?

1.  Windows Task Manager:  If you are on a Windows PC, hit control-alt-delete (three keys at the same time).  On the resulting screen, select Task Manager.  The Process tab is the most telling.  If you click CPU (top of the column), it should put the process using the most memory at the top.  If not, click it again.  DO NOT stop a process without knowing what it does.  This can cause major damage if the process is necessary for normal computer operation.  Instead, look up the process name on a reliable site like ProcessLibrary.com.  The site will give you an idea which program is associated with the process, what it does, and whether it can be shut down safely.

2.  If the Task Manager doesn’t tell you what you need to know, try What’s My Computer Doing.  It’s free software that gets more in-depth than Task Manager.  The paid version will dig even deeper.

Happy hunting!