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8 smartphone storage hacks you need to know

Good to know!

Author: Anna Sky MagliolaPublished 14th Nov 2017

Is your phone always saying it's run out of storage and deleting a photo here and there isn't giving you the space you need? Here are eight hacks that will free up much needed storage on your phone thanks to Andy Cartledge, a mobile expert at e2save.

1) Clear out your apps

It’s a simple one, but there is no easier way of freeing up memory on your phone than scrolling through all your apps and binning off the ones you no longer use.

Gaming apps in particular take up a lot of space, so if you’ve still got an old game you don't play anymore, it's time to delete it! Try going into your phone’s settings and look at your storage. There you’ll be able to see which apps are hogging the most space. The average app is between 10-100MB, but can be anywhere up to 2GB, so they do add up.

2) Back up your photos

There's nothing more frustrating than being unable to take more photos because your phone is full. If you have thousands of photos on your phone maybe it's time to back them up and delete them from your phone?

Perhaps try storing them online on iCloud (if you have an iPhone), Google Drive or Dropbox. Remember most smartphones take high-res photos unless you change the settings, so clearing out a handful of photo albums can free up load of GB.

3) Delete your messages

Text messages build up over time, so deleting old conversations is a good way of freeing up a few MB.

Try deleting the conversations with a lot of photos in them or clearing out your group chats.

Woman looking at messages on her phone

4) Use a microSD card

Unfortunately this isn’t an option for iPhone users, but many Android handsets come with an option to expand your memory with a microSD card.

Depending on what your handset is compatible with, you can beef up your storage by 16, 32, 128 or even 256MB.

5) Delete app data you don't need

Downloading TV programmes is becoming more and more popular, but try to remember to delete the ones you've watched, otherwise they could be taking up precious space. TV and movies take up loads of space, with a HD Netflix movie usually taking up at least 1GB of space!

6) Delete downloaded playlists

Streaming services such as Apple Music and Spotify give you the chance to save playlists to your phone so you can listen to them on the go, with or without 4G. Whilst these are really handy they can eat up your storage so if you have some you don't think you'll listen to again then it's time to delete them.

The average Spotify track in standard quality is around 3MB, so with over 300 songs downloaded you’ll be approaching 1GB storage.

7) Download a film

This is a tip for iPhone users, but it's a great little trick which can help you to free up over 500MB of storage!

See how much storage you have left on your phone, then head to the iTunes store, and download a film which exceeds your storage capacity. Dismiss the notification saying you need more memory, then check how much storage you now have available.

If successful, it should have freed up a few MB of memory without deleting the things you love!

We're unsure of why this works, but it’s likely that your iPhone has cleared out some unnecessary cache items.

8) Update your phone

Updating your phone may seem like an annoying task, however these updates occasionally contain features that can help free up memory, without deleting any of your important files.

Tips provided by e2save.

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