Do you have a smartphone with Android and little memory? No more space for photos or music, and are apps and games running slower and slower? Yes, buying a new phone with more gigabytes seems to be the simplest way out, but we know that not everyone can afford it.
A microSD card can help a lot in the fight for space for applications and files on your smartphone. Make sure that your smartphone has a microSD slot.
Do applications block memory – how to deal with it?
Save and recover space by putting your photos and files in order and then harnessing the power of the cloud.
If you have bought one of the budget smartphones with Android with a small amount of memory for data (and this is no wonder because these are the models enjoying enormous popularity – mainly because of the attractive prices, starting from about 200 zlotys. Then most probably you complain about the insufficient amount of space for photos or applications and slower, than at the time of purchase, the operation of the device.
We suggest eight steps that will allow you to recover some space. And will let for a few more months as your smartphone is comfortable to use, especially since even spending a much more extensive amount (phones with 16 GB of memory can also cost almost 2000 PLN) does not guarantee that there will be no problems with the space for data.
First of all, an SD card
This way, for obvious reasons, is intended for the owners of smartphones with microSD slots. That means that if you have even more expensive S6 Samsung Galaxy than most phones with 8 or 16GB of memory and 32GB on board, then the lack of a microSD slot will still prevent you from expanding the consciousness. The same is true for the hybrid dual SIM slot, where you can insert either two SIM cards or a SIM and MicroSD card. If you select dual SIM, you must forget to extend the memory. Other users, if they can install a memory card on their phone, should do so because the first three steps are for them. If you do not have a microSD slot, go straight to step four.
Add the SD card to the phone memory
To format the SD card as the internal memory of your smartphone, go to Settings/Memory settings/SD card and select format as internal memory. Remember to use an empty SD card so that you don’t lose data! If the main problem is to room all the necessary applications and less crucial games on your phone, there is no better solution than that.
Move apps to the memory card
Step one may be unacceptable for many Android users who appreciate the convenience of copying files to and from the microSD card. For them, there is an option of transferring the application to the memory card. After entering the Settings/Applications menu, select the program you want to transfer to the SD card. Then click on Memory and change from internal to external. After a while, the application will be moved.
The most natural thing you can do to have more room for games and applications is to format an empty microSD card as your phone’s internal memory. This solution was introduced in Android Marshmallow, and it is based on the fact that the gigabytes from the SD card are integrated into the internal memory of the smartphone and become its inseparable part.
This eliminates the problem of application space but prevents the memory card from being used on another device. We must, therefore, stop treating the SD card as a data carrier from the telephone to the telephone, and so on. Connecting the smartphone to the computer will not result in a simple recognition of the SD card itself as a data carrier. Any copying of files will have to be done through the manufacturer’s software.
To format the SD card as the internal memory of your smartphone, go to Settings/Memory settings/SD card and select format as internal memory. Remember to use an empty SD card so that you don’t lose data! If the main problem is to room all the necessary applications and less essential games on your phone, there is no better solution than that.
Move apps to the memory card
Step one may be unacceptable for many Android users who appreciate the convenience of copying files to and from the microSD card. For them, there is an option of transferring the application to the memory card. After entering the Settings/Applications menu, select the program you want to transfer to the SD card. Then click on Memory and change from internal to external. After a while, the application will be moved.
Choosing the second step, you will retain the ability to copy files to your SD card freely. Importantly, applications moved to the external memory stop working when you remove the SD card, so pay attention to which apps you select to relieve the internal memory.
Automatically save photos to the memory card
In case you don’t have games when the apps fit you, but like me, you take a lot of pictures, the third step is obligatory. Firstly, by saving your photos to an SD card, you make it much easier for yourself to copy them to your computer, both via USB and by inserting your SD card into the reader. Secondly, in the event of a smartphone failure, often the first step for service technicians is to format the internal memory. In this case, all photos, documents, and other relevant files will be lost, and you can only remove the SD card from your phone before you return it to the service center – your data will be safer. You will find the option of automatically saving your photos to the memory card in the Camera settings.
In summary, if you have a smartphone with a separate microSD slot or hybrid dual SIM slot and only use one SIM card. Or you are a happy owner of devices that have both sockets for two SIM cards, such as the one costing about $1.5 billion and the one costing about $1.5 billion, then you can use a smartphone with a separate microSD slot. With a 500 zloty Motorola Moto E4+, offered at a similar price of Nokia 3 or the slightly more expensive Nokia 5, just get your microSD card and insert it where you need it and enjoy it.
Without a memory card? You can still advise
What if you can’t use the memory card? We have some ideas.
Get rid of unnecessary and unused applications
Two months ago, did you need to read the QR code to get a discount on your new shoes? Perhaps you no longer need a QR code scanner? Do you have two applications to take notes on? Maybe one thing is enough?
From time to time it is worth to take a look at the content of your smartphone. Starting with the list of applications, you can be quite surprised how many of them you do not use at all. Don’t you believe it? Go to the Play Store, select My Apps, then Install and finally sort them according to the time of last use. How many of them have you used in the past than a month ago? Consider downloading these applications again when you need them.
Clean the cache for the other applications.
The applications swell, although they do not make evening trips to the fridge. They’re merely designed to give you the information you need most at your fingertips. Your phone supports the installation of the application, the user data and files stored in the app, and cache. The latter one, the so-called cache, can be safely cleaned once in a while, without losing data.
When I was using my smartphone Honor 7, after a week the cache memory of all applications could take about a gigabyte. It is best to clean it with a suitable tool for all apps at once. In the popular in Poland Huawei smartphones (from which this handbook was created) this tool is called Memory Manager, and you can find it in the menu Settings/Memory Memory/Post Memory. For most other brands of devices, similar options are also available from the Settings level. In other cases, you can search in the Settings for memory release options.
If you decide to remove the cache manually (for each application separately, which is done via the Settings/Applications menu), you will quickly notice that the problem is most acute in a few applications with a genetic tendency to brush. After a while, it is enough to clean only those that hold water in your body for the phone to breathe.
If for various reasons, you don’t feel like cleaning your cache yourself, you can use an app to do so for you. To do this, you should use the Files Go application, which works very well.
“Download the Files Go application
Order your folders
Once I accidentally looked into the Documents folder and found a 200 megabyte PDF file that I downloaded a few months ago and forgot about. Slow analysis of several folders can release tens of megabytes and in extreme cases even more than a gigabyte of space. Which folders should be placed on the viewfinder? Documents, Downloads, Music, Photos, Films, Podcasts. Picture of the timetable from the place visited on holiday, PDF with a smaller report, which lost its importance, rarely listened to music, the movie with the kitten. Well, you know for yourselves what I mean by the data. Do not be afraid to remove yourself!
Move photos to the cloud
If automatic storage on a memory card is not an option because… there is no memory card, there is always a cloud left. That means outside the computer, of course. Even during the journey, you can send a few or a dozen photos to the cloud, and in this way, you can get space for the next images. OneDrive and Dropbox are quite good solutions for synchronizing pictures, but the best option is Google Photos.
This option frees up space on your device, which removes photos already archived on Google servers from your phone. When selecting this solution, however, you must remember to choose the size of the transmitted images in the application settings, in the Backup and Synchronization tab. Google provides unlimited space, but for truncated models. If you want to preserve the quality of your photos, it is essential that you change the default setting to Original Size (although Google will restrict the space available). In short: good quality and limited space or limited quality and unlimited space.
Take pictures of a slightly more mediocre quality
When very high-resolution images are not a priority, it is worth considering a compromise in quality in favor of space. A photo with a resolution of 5120 x 3840 can weigh up to 8 MB, while in an excellent 3264 x 2448 resolution it can weigh only about 2 – 3 MB. Saving up to four times space at the expense of quality, this is no concession for some photos, and the benefit is significant.
Smaller photos can be sent to the cloud easier and faster, archived and take up less space, and slower to fill the precious memory of the phone. This setting can always be changed back to the highest quality – e.g., on holiday.
Summary
At a time when a cheap phone can paradoxically offer you a lot of features, I understand people who are determined to spend seven hundred zlotys on the phone instead of a few thousand. Not everyone needs the latest fountain sprays or facial recognition.
Some people want a large, replaceable battery, the ability to use two SIM and memory cards at the same time, and all this on a smartphone that still has an entirely sufficient capacity. Often, however, the victim of such a compromise is the memory, and it is its lack that is more troubling than the absence of the recognition as mentioned earlier of the face or the latest animated smileysms.
Thanks to a few tricks, your older or cheaper smartphones will again take a bit of wind in the sails, or maybe someone will find that they don’t need to spend their entire salary on the other phone?