1. Clear Up Internal Storage Android Galaxy S7
  2. Computer Internal Storage Devices
  3. Internal Storage Definition
  4. Android Internal Storage Cleanup

Some apps come with a recycle bin or trash folder where the deleted files stay up to 7-30 days depending on the app, after which they are deleted permanently, and internal storage is increased. Android 7.0 Nougat and Below Once you’re in the Storage menu in any version of Android below Oreo, just tap an option to see exactly what’s using up space and delete it. For example, you could tap Apps to see a list of apps using up the most space and remove them. If you're running Android 6.0 Marshmallow on your device, like my Huawei Android 6.0, simply click on Files and then Clean up. This only can clear your app's cache, your app residual trash, unused app packages will also be detected and, on the advanced management of storage, you can check all your data usage exhaustively, and select certain contents to clean up.

Summary :

Is your Android phone giving you the insufficient storage available error when you are using it? When this issue happens, do you know how to deal with it? Here, you can read this post from MiniTool to learn how to handle it effectively.

Quick Navigation :

My Phone Says Insufficient Storage But I Have Space

Now, let’s start with a real-life example as follows:

Clear Up Internal Storage Android Galaxy S7

The total space of my app is 10 MB, and after installation, it will take less than 20 MB. In Galaxy Note I, while updating my app, it's saying Insufficient Storage Available, where there is 214 MB of free space in device memory (internal). It happens even trying to download a new app.stackoverflow

This is definitely an error relating to Insufficient Storage Available. What do you think about it?

As it is well known, the internal memory of an Android device is never as ample as it appears. For a device with 32GB of storage, a lot of storage is occupied by the operating system, preinstalled apps, as well as the wasted space based on how the OS formats the storage medium.

As a result, when trying to install or update an app on your Android, you could be told that there is insufficient storage available even though the app takes less space than what is actually available on your Android device. (Sometimes an alternative version of a similar error such as 'this device doesn't have enough space to download' may appear when downloading an app.)

However, there is actually enough storage space available to update or install your required app but not enough space to execute the process.

This is also the answer to the question – “why does my phone say memory full when it isn't”.

Have you encountered this issue: SD card not full but says full and nothing on it in a camera? Now try to recover data from the target SD card and fix it.

Is your Android phone also suffering from insufficient storage error? If yes, don't worry! You are not the only one and we also receive many feedbacks saying Android storage space running out but it's not. Here, we will walk you through 7 simple solutions to quick fix this issue.

Insufficient Storage Android Fix

Solution 1: Clear App Cache to Free up Space on Android

In general, the lack of working space is probably the main cause of having insufficient storage available for Android users. Usually, any Android app uses three sets of storage for the app itself, the app's data files and the app's cache.

If the cache is too large in size, it will occupy a huge part of the space although it is reported that the occupied space is the free space on Android device. In this case, emptying your app cache is a useful way to fix the Android insufficient storage error.

How to clear the app cache? Follow the steps:

  1. Open Settings firstly from the home screen and then go to the Applications or Applications manager
  2. Then you can see all the downloaded apps on your Android device are listed as well as how much storage space they are taking up.
  3. Tap Menu or More to sort these apps by size so as to check which one takes up the most storage.
  4. Tap the specific app to see the storage space occupied by the app, its data (the Storage section) and cache (Cache section).
  5. Tap Clear Cache to empty cache to free up some space.
  6. Repeat the same process for each app.
Tip: Here, you can also tap Clear Data to remove all the app files.

Additionally, you can also delete all the cache files for all your Android apps together. To do this, navigate to Settings > Storage > Device Memory. Then tap Cache data and Delete to wipe all cached data from all your apps.

After finishing the operations above, you won't complain to us 'my phone says insufficient storage but I have space'.

Solution 2: Transfer Photos/Videos from Android to Computer

If you find that your Android device is having insufficient storage available, one of the best solutions is to move some large files including photos, videos, audios, etc. to your computer so as to free up Android storage. To do this, you need a piece of third-party data transfer tool.

Luckily, this free Android data recovery software - MiniTool Mobile Recovery for Android which is developed by MiniTool Team is worthy of being recommended. This free tool can be not only the Android data recovery software to recover deleted files but also the data transfer tool to save the existing files to a computer.

Besides, it can be used in all Windows OSs including Windows 10/8/7 and supports multiple Android phones and tablets, for example, Samsung, Huawei, Sony, LG, Google, etc. Now, it's up to you to download this freeware for data transferring to fix the insufficient storage available issue.

Computer Internal Storage Devices

Step 1: Open MiniTool Mobile Recovery for Android Free on your computer.

Which one module you need to choose from the main interface, Recover from Phone or Recover from SD-Card? Both of them are OK. If your photos, videos or music files are saved to Android internal memory, please click the first section.

Internal Storage Definition

Step 2: Connect the phone having the Android storage space running out issue to the computer via a USB cable. Then, analysis operation to your Android device will be performed.

Note: Don't start any other Android phone management software when using this freeware.

Step 3: To save your photos, videos or other data to a computer successfully, you need to enable USB debugging by following the instructions based on corresponding Android version.

And then you should allow USB debugging on the computer. We suggest checking the Always allow from this computer option to avoid authorization next time.

Tip: To scan the files on your Android device, you need to root your device. This help document - How to Root Your Android Device shows you some details.

Step 4: Choose one scan method.

  • Quick Scan can be used to scan your Android device in a fast way but it only allows moving contacts, short messages and call records to a computer.
  • Deep Scan is designed to scan the entire device so that more files can be transferred but this way costs much time.

Here you should choose Deep Scan to scan and save photos, videos, and audios to your computer in case of insufficient storage available.

Step 5: Then, MiniTool Mobile Recovery for Android will start scanning your device. Afterwards, you can see all the found file types are marked in blue. Just choose the file type you want to extract, check all items and click Recover.

Tip:
1. In order to move photos from Android to a computer, you can respectively hit Camera, Screenshot, App Picture or Picture file type and then perform a file migration.
2. Not only the deleted files but also the existing files can be displayed.
3. You can click the show folder button to show data according to the folder classification.

MiniTool Mobile Recovery for Android Free Edition has a limitation: it only allows saving 10 files of each type each time. When phone storage is full, we suggest using its advanced edition to transfer more files.

After getting the license, click register in the scan result interface and register this freeware.

Step 6: Click Browse to specify a storage path or directly save your selected files to the default place in your computer by hitting Recover.

After finishing all the above steps, enter the Android phone and delete all the files you have saved to the computer. Then, the insufficient storage error can be solved.

If lots of pictures or videos are stored on the SD card, causing insufficient space on external storage, you can also use the Recover from SD-Card feature to save deleted and existing files to your computer.

  1. Connect the Android SD card to your computer.
  2. Select the target card to scan.
  3. Choose the pictures or videos to save them to the specified path.

Or you can connect your SD card to a computer and directly move files on the SD card to it.

Solution 3: Save Pictures & Videos to External SD Card Instead of Internal Memory

Photos and videos consume a lot of storage on the Android device. In addition to moving them to a computer, you can fix the issue of Android storage space running out by saving your pictures or videos to an SD card.

Is it possible to recover deleted Instagram photos? Now, in this post, we will tell you how to use MiniTool software as well as other two ways to do this job.

If you have already stored photos and videos on the phone's internal storage, you should firstly remove them to the SD card. After that, change the default storage for the pictures and videos to the SD card.

To do this, go to Settings > Camera Settings. Then, select Storage location to change it to SD card or Memory card if the default storage path is Device.

Clear Up Internal Storage Android

Solution 4: Uninstall Unwanted Apps

Sometimes the 'Android storage space running out but it's not' issue is caused by the overwhelming amount of data stored on your phone’s internal memory. If you have many apps on your Android device and use them simultaneously, cache memory on your phone can be blocked, which leads to Android insufficient storage.

In this case, you can choose to uninstall some unwanted or unused apps to free up storage space. This operation is very simple.

To uninstall an app, go to Settings in your Android phone, and enter the Apps section to get a list of all apps that have been installed on your device. Also, you can sort them by size. Then choose the app you don't need and click Uninstall to remove it.

If you have many apps need to be deleted, repeat the above steps to free up some space to fix insufficient space.

Solution 5: Move Apps from Internal Storage to SD card

Some of you may not want to uninstall any app and would rather search for insufficient storage available Android fix without root. Here, simply moving some apps from the internal storage to your SD card is a good option. This can add space to the internal memory of your phone and solve the “can’t install app insufficient storage available” problem.

  1. Go to the Settings menu on your Android device.
  2. Tap on Apps.
  3. You can still arrange all apps in order by taping Sort by size. Then, choose the app and tap Move to SD card.
  4. Repeat the operation to remove the apps which are taking up much storage space.
Tip: Note that not every app can be moved to your SD card.

Solution 6: Use an Cleaning App to Free up Android Space

Sometimes some junk files occupy much Android space, causing insufficient space on the device. In this case, you can use a cleaning app for Android to clean some junk files and optimize your device.

The app can be MobileGo, CCleaner, etc. Just download one from Google Play Store to remove some cache, junk or unwanted files.

Android Internal Storage Cleanup

Solution 7: Factory Reset Your Device

If you have tried all the above solutions but still encounter the insufficient storage available error, you may fix the problem by factory resetting.

  1. Go to Settings.
  2. Tap System > Reset or Backup & reset.
  3. Tap on Factory data reset and Reset phone or Reset tablet. If there is a need, input your PIN, pattern, or password.
  4. At last, tap on Erase everything.

Note that this method can wipe all data stored on your Android device. Thus, you had better back up your important data firstly. If you forget to make a backup beforehand and lost many important files after factory resetting, what should you do?

MiniTool Mobile Recovery for Android can still be your good assistant. As professional Android data recovery software, it can help to effectively recover deleted files including contacts, messages, videos, photos, music files and more to your computer.

How can you recover deleted videos Android? This post will introduce you different ways to get deleted Android videos back with third-party software.

Verdict

Are you encountering the insufficient storage available issue on the Android phone or tablet when installing an app? Now, it is the time to try the above seven simple ways to fix Android storage space running out and optimize the performance.

Have some problems when using MiniTool Mobile Recovery for Android to move files or recover data? Or have any suggestions to fix the insufficient storage error? Please let us know by sending an email to [email protected] or leaving your idea below.

Last week on our Android customization post, you got to play with image files and change up your wallpaper on your Android device. After messing with all those image files, you may be finding that your internal storage space is strangely low, so we should try to fix that.

There are many things you can do to clear up the internal storage of your Android device. Uninstalling apps, deleting files, moving apps and files to your microSD card, if you’ve got one, are all great places to start, and when things get really bad, you can always perform a full system reset.

Before you go so far as to wiping your entire device, there is something else you might try, clearing your system cache.

Before we get started

We do not require anything special today, clearing system cache can be done right from your Android operating system. As always, you’ll find that we are working on a vanilla Android device, your device may have slightly different steps, but it should offer the same functionality.

Why should you clear your system cache

Let us start with a basic understanding of what your system cache is exactly, and why you might not want to clear it. Cache files on an Android device are a collection of all of the images, videos, text files and more that are required to display things like web pages, advertisements and more.

You may have noticed that the very first time you load certain apps or web pages it takes much longer to do so than the next times you load them. This is where cache comes into play. That first time around, the images and other elements have to be downloaded from the internet, or extracted from compressed app files or even have to be manually generated on the fly, as with photo thumbnails. These files are then saved into your system cache, so the next time around your app or webpage can pull the file from a local store, which makes it load much faster.

For the apps and web pages that you frequent, cache is a wonderful tool. But what about all those images for those web pages that you will never visit again, social media posts that you’ve already read or files for apps that you’ve uninstalled? They take up valuable space on your device, and it’s probably a good idea to make them go away.

Don’t fret, clearing system cache is easy. We’ll start out by heading into your main system Settings.

Choose Storage.

Choose Cached data.

In the popup confirmation box, choose OK.

Clear Up Internal Storage Android

That is all there is to it.

As you might imagine, this cleared all cache on your device, so the next time you start up your apps and websites they may take an extra little bit to reload the elements into cache again. This is OK, just remember to come back here again as frequently as needed to clear things up again.

If clearing cache for everything on your device is too invasive for your needs, Android offers a method to clear cache on an app-by-app basis.

In your main system Settings, tap on Apps.

Tap on each app that you wish to clear cache.

Tap on the Clear Cache button.

It can be very time consuming to go through your entire list of apps, clearing cache for each as you go, but if it is worth the hassle for you, it is great that the option exists.

What’s next

You’ll find that many apps can handle their own cache settings. Myself, I have both Dolphin browser and ES File Explorer automatically clear their own cache each time I exit the app. If you’ve been following me for long, I am sure you can imagine that my image thumbnail cache for my screenshots folder gets pretty big in no time, having ES clear that cache automatically is a life saver.

However, there are certain system app cache that do not get cleared with the above steps. The absolute worst offender in my experience, your camera/photos cache.

To clear your camera/photos cache, which I try to do after every couple hundred pictures taken, or photos viewed in the Photos/Gallery app, you’ll need a file explorer installed that is capable of viewing hidden files. Of course, I turn to ES File Explorer, but you should be fine with your app of choice.

Head into your files, look for DCIM, then .thumbnails. I usually just go ahead and delete all of the files in here, but you may wish to transfer them to SD card or other as a backup, just in case. Either way, you can see that my Christmas day photos on the phone ran up a thumbnail cache almost 600MB. Since I have removed the photos from the phone for sharing and further processing, I don’t need these cache files at all. Delete!

Next week

With all this extra space now available on your Android device, we will use next week’s Android customization post to load you back up again. How would you feel about a little home-grown device security? I’d like to show you how to use Tasker to discreetly take and store a photo from the front camera of your device every time an intruder turns on your display.

Are there any other hidden cache or thumbnail stores on your device that you regularly delete?

Happy New Year!