It’s a bit of a paradox. In a world of cheap, ubiquitous storage, most smartphones don’t have a lot of storage, and what’s available to you can fill up quickly. If you don’t keep a close eye on it, you could find yourself running out of room almost before you know what hit you. Fortunately, there are some quick and easy ways to free up badly needed space for the things you care about most. We’ll hit the high spots just below:
Photos and Videos
For most people, their photo and video collections are the single biggest space stealing culprit. It’s just so easy to shoot a short video clip or snap a photo of something interesting. These days, we do it reflexively. The good news here is that there are lots of great cloud-based options you can use to minimize the number of files you’ve actually got to keep on the phone itself. In fact, Google offers a fantastic service called Google Photos, which allows you to store an unlimited number of pictures on the cloud, free of charge.
Before you move your photos though, you’ll probably want to take the step of going through them to delete duplicates or ones you ultimately don’t want or need. It makes the process of keeping them organized much easier.
Apps
Consider doing some “spring cleaning” where your apps are concerned. We’re all guilty of seeing something that looks interesting at first blush, try it for a day or two, and then never actually get around to using it regularly. You’ve probably got a dozen or more of these taking up space on your phone right now. Every few months or so, do a quick audit, see what you’re not actually using and get rid of them. Quick, easy, and it will save you quite a lot of space.
Invest in a Memory Card
If you’re dead set on keeping most of what you’ve got, buy a memory card and store as much as you can on that, preserving your phone’s native storage for the things that matter most. This isn’t a perfect solution, because some smartphones don’t have memory card slots, but it might work for you, depending on how much extra storage space you need and what model you have.
The day will probably come when smartphones have more storage than we’ll need, but that day is not yet here. Until it is, these types of tricks are necessary.
