Is your phone low on storage? If you don’t have enough space on your phone, you may no longer be able to download apps or even take videos and pictures.
Furthermore, if there isn’t a lot of available storage space, your phone will be a lot slower. Apps may crash or lag.
You might have tried everything possible, including deleting apps you no longer use. However, when you go to your storage settings, you see that a massive chunk of storage space is being used up by “Other” storage.
In this article, I will explain what files fall under the “Other” category and how to delete them.
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What Is “Other” in Android Storage?
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When you go to your storage settings on your Android device, your phone will tell you exactly which file categories are taking up what percentage of your total storage space. The top categories usually include:
- Apps
- Images
- Videos
- Documents
- Audio
- Installation packages
- Archives
The specific categories can vary from one device to another, depending on your phone’s manufacturer. However, you may also find a category named “Other.”
Anything that doesn’t go into any of the other categories will go into this category. That can include:
- App data (such as downloaded maps from navigational apps or downloaded in-app movies/videos)
- Cached app data from apps like Spotify or Netflix
- Downloaded software updates that you never installed (whether you downloaded the entire update or the download got interrupted and couldn’t finish)
- System files
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Ways to Get Rid of Other Storage
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Many people are surprised to see just how much storage this “Other” category can take up. It can often be as high as 50-100 GB!
What’s so frustrating is that you can’t just delete these files directly. Instead, you have to use a roundabout method to delete them.
Here are the top ways to eliminate unwanted files in the “Other” category.
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1. Delete Unnecessary Apps
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A lot of the data in the “Other” category is downloaded app data. When you delete apps you don’t need, you will also delete app data you don’t need.
However, you’ve likely already done this if you’re short on space, so let’s move on to the next step.
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2. Delete Cached Data From Each App
Go to your Android phone settings and find your Apps. Go to each app and delete its cached data individually.
This method takes some time, but you’ll likely find that a lot of storage taken up by “Other” files will have been deleted. Unfortunately, your phone won’t tell you exactly which apps have cached data using up your space, so you’ll need to go through each app one by one.
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3. Delete and Reinstall Your Apps
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Sometimes, clearing an app’s cache won’t delete all unwanted files. However, deleting the app entirely and then reinstalling it usually will.
This will take even more time, but it’s worth a try. Delete all of your apps, one by one, and then reinstall them.
You can reinstall each app after deleting it to ensure you don’t forget which apps you have, or you can simply go to Google Play Store and see the list of your recently deleted apps and reinstall them.
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4. Backup and Reset Your Phone
A perhaps faster option is backing up your phone and restoring it to factory settings. You can then use your Google Drive backup to reinstall all previous apps you downloaded.
This way, you don’t have to go through each app one by one. Not only will this delete cached data and unnecessary app data, but it will also delete other files you might have, such as old stickers and GIFs that got automatically downloaded from WhatsApp.
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5. Use Storage Analyzer and Disk Usage
You can also use a third-party app to find out exactly which files are under the “Other” category. This method doesn’t work for everyone, simply because if your phone is indeed full, you won’t have any space to download additional apps.
However, if you do have space, it’s an excellent method.
Start by downloading Storage Analyzer and Disk Usage from the app store. Then, give it permission to access your internal storage (otherwise, it won’t be able to analyze and clear your files).
Once you do that, open the app and head to “File Categories” on the left side of the top menu. There, you will find a category named “Other.”
Click on it to open up additional sub-categories, which may include:
- Temporary files
- Cached files
- Various other files with weird names
Fortunately, Storage Analyzer and Disk Usage allows you to delete these individual files one by one. To speed things up, bulk-select multiple files and delete them all at once.
It also shows you which app (if any) has downloaded the specific file in question.
Note that there is a risk of downloading files you actually need and want, especially as it’s often hard to understand what precisely a file contains. You can open it in your file manager, but many files will be in unsupported formats.
The app also gives you other information about your available storage space, and it has an easy “Clear Cache” button that will help you clear up a lot of space.
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Other Ways to Clear Up Storage Space
There are likely other ways to free up space on your phone that you haven’t yet tried. Here are some ways to delete files and free up phone storage.
6. Backup Your Photos
Did you know that you can back up your photos and videos to Google Photos? While it now only offers 15 GB of free storage space for each Google account (that includes other storage, such as Gmail storage), higher-storage plans start at just $1.99/month for 100 GB in the United States.
You can also have Google Photos automatically back up new photos you take and even photos you download (you get to control which photos to back up automatically). Then, you can go to Google Photos and use the “Free Up Space” tool to delete all images you have already backed up.
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7. Use an App to Clear Junk Files
There are many apps that will analyze your storage, find junk files, and allow you to delete them all at once. CCleaner is a popular app, but Avast (the antivirus company) also has an app called Avast Cleanup.
Files by Google is also an excellent app, as it breaks down your downloads by app (WhatsApp, WhatsApp Business, etc.). It also has fantastic cleanup suggestions, giving you a lot of control over what you delete.
For example, it might suggest you delete old screenshots, but it gives you the option to select which files to delete.
Depending on your phone model and manufacturer, your phone may also come with a built-in cleanup tool.
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8. Delete Unnecessary Downloads, Apps, and Videos
Go to your Downloads folder. You might be surprised at how many documents, memes, GIFs, and other media you have that you haven’t opened in a long time.
Apps and videos, in particular, can take up a lot of space. Go to your Videos folder and find old videos that you don’t need – for example, you might have been taking multiple videos of an event or party but only liked one.
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9. Download an Antivirus Software
There is also the possibility that a virus or malware is taking up space undetected. A good antivirus scanner will be able to find hidden viruses and malware and clear them.
I recommend Avast Mobile Security, but Malwarebytes is also a good app. Make sure to run deep scans once in a while, as they are more comprehensive than the quick scans.
Wrapping It Up
Not having enough space can be frustrating, but some phones allow you to expand your storage space with an external SD card. That can allow you to store photos and other media on the SD card instead of your phone’s built-in storage.
However, SD cards are becoming less popular, and fewer phones support them. That’s because more and more people are turning to cloud storage options like Google Photos and Dropbox, which allow you to access your media from any device.
I hope this article helps you to get some storage space back on your Android device.
