Have you ever tried to record a video at a family gathering or download a new app only to discover that your mobile device is fresh out of storage space? Here’s how you can clean your device of anything you don’t need to make room for the things you really want to keep. Get the most out of your device in no time!
1. Identify what’s eating up space.
Everything you put on your device eats away at its storage space, but certain things – like apps, photos, videos, music, and even text messages – can eat up significantly more space than others. You can find out what apps are taking up the most room on your device by going to your settings. Most devices have a “Usage” or “Sort by Size” option that ranks your apps by how much space they take up.
2. Back up, uninstall, delete.
Once you’ve identified what’s what, it’s time to trim, trim, trim. Sort through your photos, videos and music. Determine if there’s anything you should back up to your personal computer, a cloud storage service or an external hard drive, like a batch of photos from an old vacation. This should immediately free up a large chunk of your device’s space.
Next, go through your apps one by one and uninstall any that you don’t need. Finally, delete anything you won’t miss, like duplicates of photos, out-of-date contacts in your address book and text message threads that are older than a month.
3. Update your apps.
Apps are constantly being updated, and often many of these updates are designed to make them run faster and smoother while taking up less space on your device. If you tend to forget to check your app store for updates, consider setting your device to automatically install new versions of your existing apps when they become available.
Repeat these steps every few months to keep your device humming along and clutter-free.