What is system memory in a Samsung phone. Deleting files and clearing garbage. How to clear RAM on an Android phone

How to clear android internal memory when android internal memory is full. In this article, you will learn effective ways to clear the internal ROM (internal) memory of an Android device and get rid of the “phone internal memory is full” message.

When using a mobile device, sooner or later the question arises: how to clear memory on Android. This problem may occur when you want to install an application, download something from the Internet, receive files via bluetooth, or simply your phone or tablet displays a message: the internal memory of the phone is full - we will tell you what to do. Cleaning your phone of junk has a positive effect on the speed of the entire device and applications.

We will analyze how to clear the internal memory of an Android smartphone or tablet step by step. Where possible and makes sense, we will use multiple methods so that you can choose the one that is most convenient for you.

When files can be saved in the device memory

  • you create a photo, video, melody
  • exchange files by mail, using social networks or instant messengers (Viber, Skype, WhatsApp, etc.)
  • record on a tape recorder
  • do not use or have not used external memory or cloud storage before
  • receive files via bluetooth, Wi-Fi, NFC...
  • all applications are installed in the device memory

Before you clear the internal memory of your Android device, you need to prevent further littering internal memory. To do this, specify saving to a memory card in the settings:

  1. cameras
  2. voice recorder
  3. browser loader which you are using
  4. applications, with which you create or edit documents, pictures, videos, music files
  5. messengers, in which you exchange files, if possible
  6. bootloaders, with which you download music, videos or pictures
  7. GPS maps And navigators.

If in applications you need to specify the path where to save files, create a corresponding folder on the memory card and specify its location. After these steps, new files will not cause problems such as the internal memory of the Android is full.


After you have moved the necessary files to the memory card, you have managed to partially clear the internal memory of your Android. But that’s not all, and if you want to free up even more space and forget about the error: Android internal memory is full, read the article to the end.


Launch Android Assistant, go to the " tab Tools" and select the item "App2Sd".
The tab opens a list of applications that can be transferred to the memory card. After selecting applications, you are thrown into "Application information" click here "To SD memory card".


You can clear your Android's internal memory by uninstalling unnecessary apps. For convenience, we recommend a tool in Android Assistant - "Batch deletion"- it allows you to select several applications to remove at the same time and will show in which memory it is installed.

Launch the Clean Master application, select "Garbage" And "Clear." After this, the application offers to do more advanced cleaning and warns that this partition may contain the necessary data, so carefully select the files to delete.


Now you know how to clean your Android phone of junk, how to transfer applications to a memory card (if possible) and how to move files on Android when the Android internal memory is full. In addition to a memory card, there is another way - storing files on the Internet.


So, in this article, you learned how to clear the internal memory of your Android phone when the internal memory is full. We solved this problem by analyzing the questions: how to move files on Android (pictures, videos, music, documents), how to transfer applications to a memory card, how to clean your device of garbage, and learned about storing files on the Internet - Cloud storage.


There is also a way for the “lazy”, if you urgently need to clear all personal data and delete applications with their settings - try it. This will completely clean the device and format it.


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One of the weak points of the Android OS is considered to be system memory, especially if the technical characteristics of the device exclude the possibility of adding it. The situation is further complicated by the fact that over time all sorts of installation modules and files accumulate, which significantly affects the speed of the gadget. Therefore, many users are starting to wonder - how to free up system memory on Android?

There are several effective methods, which will be discussed in this guide.

Modern phones (tablets) have system (built-in) memory and additional memory cards. And, if (if there is nothing valuable on it), then with system memory everything is a little more complicated.

Cleaning via built-in conductor

Memory full? You can use a special conductor that is in the device itself (the name may vary in different devices):

Open the utility, select the category that needs cleaning. These could be applications or documents, archives or images, videos or music. At the top, find the pencil image (edit) and click on it:

The contents of the folder of the selected category will appear in the window that opens; mark unnecessary files. Delete them by clicking on the trash can icon:

Cleaning with Clean Master

The next method is to use the Clean Master utility, which is considered one of the most popular, significantly speeding up the operation of mobile devices. Applications running on the device not only eat up memory, but also battery power. The new task killer implemented in the program will be able to terminate unwanted applications, which will free up a significant amount of memory and increase the speed of the device. You won't need superuser rights, but if you have them, the task killer will function better.

The operating algorithm is quite simple:

Launch Clean Master - a window with two circles opens, where the larger one characterizes the system memory, and the smaller one characterizes the RAM:

Select “Memory” (maybe “Device” or something else) - the scanning process starts. As a result of the check, it becomes clear what exactly will help free up memory.

A table opens where you need to select those files that can be deleted or compressed, confirm their deletion by clicking on “Save”:

The cleaning process may take some time, after which the “Space Free” message will pop up.

Cleaning using Task Manager

You can clear memory using the built-in task manager:

  • Go to the “Settings” menu.
  • Select the “Applications” submenu.
  • Clear memory by selecting a utility (one or more applications) and clicking “Uninstall”.

Transferring apps to an SD card

There are situations when memory has disappeared somewhere, although the user has not yet installed anything. This can be explained:

  • the presence of viruses - you will have to run an extraordinary (thorough) scan with one of the many antiviruses;
  • updating previously installed programs that take up more and more free space.

If the problem with viruses disappears, then you need to configure the storage (memory on Android). Simply put, any application can be transferred to a memory card. The main thing is to follow these steps:

  • Enter the “Settings” menu.
  • Click on the program (icon) you want to move.
  • Transfer it to the memory card by selecting the appropriate button.

Unfortunately, this method is only suitable for those programs that are not system ones.

Saving data to external storage

Among the installed applications, there will probably be those that save data received from the network on the device. The simplest example is e-readers and online players. To prevent the internal memory of your phone (tablet) from becoming full, you need to configure them in such a way that all data is written to an external card.

Using cloud services

The modern user has no need to store information on Android that may never be useful. You need to remember only what is important at the moment. All other data can be safely uploaded to cloud storage, where they will wait in the wings.

As you can see from our material, even not the most advanced user can optimize his “Andryukha”. Well, for clarity of the procedure - video

It's easy to run out of space on Android phones or tablets, especially if you're a big fan of apps and want to try everything.

It makes no difference whether you listen to music or do photo shoots in the bathroom.

The data cache is equally unforgiving, especially if your smartphone provides too little storage space.

The less space you have on your phone, the faster you need to become an expert at managing internal storage space.

Method one to free up space - use android tools

Modern versions of Android have a tool that shows you exactly what's taking up space on your phone.

To find out, go to Settings and then open Storage. There you will see how much space is used by applications, their data, photos, videos, music, downloads, data caching and various other files.

For example, you can view a list of which application is taking up the most space with the option to free it up.

Select "Downloads" to see all the files that came to your phone through downloads and clear the data cache from installed applications.

When dealing with applications, keep in mind that the application can cache more than 1 GB of disk space. This applies to any application that uses temporary memory.

The second way to free up space on Android is to delete large files

Android has a useful tool built into it that allows you to see the space used for different types of data, but the truth is it still needs some work.

There is a better solution from external developers in the form of the DiskUsage program. This is a free application and you can download it from the Play Store at any time.

Then open the app to see which folders and files are taking up the most space.

You can delete them directly from the application, for example, you may encounter leftovers left in the folder after deleting a game or application.

Select a folder or file, click the Menu button and use the Delete command to get rid of unwanted items.

Please note that you may be able to delete files that depend on some applications.

Don't delete app-related data unless you're willing to recover it, although most often the data is synced online and there is an option to redownload it if you need it, but don't get your hopes up too much.

The third way to increase space on Android is to add an external memory card

Many Android devices are built with a MicroSD card slot. If your tablet or smartphone has room for a MicroSD card, you can score quite a bit of storage.

Unfortunately, the space obtained this way cannot be used for some applications or operating system files, but can store music, videos, photos and other data.

Even if the device already has an SD card, but provided that the amount of space does not satisfy you, you can purchase another one with a larger capacity.

SD cards are quite affordable, so you can significantly increase your storage space at an affordable price.


After installing the card, connect the device to your computer and transfer multimedia files there or use the file manager application.

Method four to free up space on Android - move applications to an SD card

As new generations of Android came out, Google removed this move option due to performance, stability, and security concerns.

This option was removed in 4.4 KitKat. However, it is still found on some Samsung devices even if it is running KitKat or newer versions of Android.

Check your phone to see if your phone has this feature.

If you can move apps to your SD card, go to Settings and then Apps.

Once you select the application, you will see the option “Move to SD card”. If not, it means that your device does not allow transfer, or there is no SD card installed.

Built-in applications cannot be moved this way and because they must run in the background.

If the application does not allow movement positions, you will see that the button is gray - the operation will be unreachable.

The fifth way to increase space on Android is to upload photos to the Internet

Photos often take up the most space on a modern smartphone. Instead of storing them on your phone, you can easily use an app that automatically uploads them to the Internet.

This is Google+, Dropbox or Microsoft OneDrive. Google+ is built into your Android and gives you unlimited storage space.

You can access your photos from any computer, tablet or smartphone. Then you can delete the copies remaining on your phone and thus free up a lot of space.

This trick works with other files that take up a lot of space on your device.

For example, you can upload a large amount of music to the Google Play Music service and later play it using the Internet.


Older Android devices have a clear distinction between "Internal Memory" and "SD Card".

In this case, the physical storage space will be divided into two parts: one for the system and applications and the other for data.

This means you won't be able to free up space for media files by deleting apps, nor can you free up space for apps by deleting media files - this only applies to older devices.

In new Android devices, on the internal memory in one part, you can use whatever you want. The added SD card will be available as new storage. Good luck.

There are two symptoms when the internal memory on the phone is sorely lacking:

  1. Applications and Android are slow,
  2. The phone displays a message that you need to take action and free up the occupied space.

The internal memory of the phone has a fixed volume, and it (seemingly) cannot be increased. However, in the guide we will tell you how to clear your phone’s internal memory of unnecessary files and applications.

By increasing the free space in Android memory, you will save time and stop noticing lag on your phone and tablet. The entire “cleaning” will take about 20 minutes.

Error: Insufficient memory on mobile device

Android usually displays this message if a process or application does not have enough free space in the phone's internal memory.

Lack of memory can make itself felt by constant freezes. If this is not noticeable when you buy a phone, then over time, after installing dozens of mobile applications and becoming overgrown with “garbage,” you begin to notice it.

The question involuntarily arises: do the phone’s characteristics “lie”? If not, then why does the same smartphone/tablet work stably for others?

Checking the amount of free memory on Android

When a notification appears about insufficient internal memory, the question arises: how much memory is available, what part of it is occupied?

You can check your free space through your mobile phone settings. To do this, go to Settings – Options – Memory (Settings – Device Maintenance – Storage – Storage settings – Device memory). We carefully study the data, paying attention to the following figures:

  • Total space – the amount of internal memory of Android
  • System memory – the minimum amount of space reserved for system operation
  • Available space – how much space is left in the internal memory.

Accordingly, if the built-in memory is not enough, you need to increase the memory on the phone to the size of System memory so that the system does not display the corresponding error.

In the following chapters, I will tell you how to clear the internal memory on Android.

Clearing your phone's internal memory

You can remove unnecessary things through the built-in tools of the operating system and through third-party applications. They analyze occupied space and help identify files that can be safely deleted.

Removing applications from Android system memory

There are probably applications installed on your phone that are hanging around like dead weight and are not being used for their intended purpose. Their size can reach hundreds of megabytes (including cache).

You can remove useless programs through the standard Application Manager: Options - Settings - Application Manager (Settings – Apps).

In Android 8, it is convenient to use the free utility FIles Go to calculate unnecessary applications. For other OS versions it is available for download via Google Play.

How to remove unwanted apps in FIles Go:

  1. Go to the Unused apps section,
  2. We sort applications by modification date or size,
  3. To remove, mark unnecessary programs with checkboxes and click Uninstall.

Video instructions for deleting applications:

Transferring files to a memory card

The internal memory of the phone, as already mentioned, has a fixed volume, so you need to constantly check whether there is enough free space for applications and the OS to work correctly.

In general, Android memory is divided into internal and external. External memory is easy to “expand”, fortunately, SD cards are inexpensive today (for $25 you can buy a 256 GB memory card).

Actually, you can transfer files through any file manager - via phone or PC.

Moving unnecessary applications from internal to external memory card

As an alternative to CCleaner, it is convenient to use the aforementioned Files Go application.

How to increase memory on Android manually

Any file manager is suitable for manually clearing your phone memory. We recommend ES Explorer or Total Commander.

Be careful and only delete unnecessary user files in Android internal memory that you created/copied yourself.

So, open the file manager, go to the root of the internal memory, start searching and deleting what is unnecessary.

Which files should you delete (transfer to a memory card) first:

  1. Photos, videos, voice recorders and other documents saved not on SD, but in internal memory;
  2. Documents received by mail or via social networks (most often they are saved in the Download folder);
  3. E-books and other files saved by third-party applications to the device’s memory;
  4. Contents of the DCIM, bluetooth, sounds folders.

We use Storage Analyzers (for clarity)

For clarity, we recommend using the Files Go application or any other storage analyzer for Android, which will show which files take up the most disk space and where they are located in the form of a diagram. Among these applications we note:

Transfer photos and videos to Google Photos service

It is photos and videos that “eat up” the most space on your phone, so you can quickly free up space on your memory card or built-in storage. If your phone doesn't support a memory card, move files you don't access often to the cloud. The best app for this is Photos, or Google Photos. It automatically uploads photos to the service, where they are available in their original quality through a browser or application.

In addition to Google Photos, you can pay attention to alternatives such as Dropbox, Flickr or Microsoft OneDrive.

Even when the photos are only available on the server, you can easily access them if you have a working internet connection. And most importantly, this is a really convenient and fast way to free up a couple of gigabytes of internal memory!

Memory clearing: questions and answers

1. The phone did not have enough internal memory, I sent half of the photos to the SD card, after that I open it, and they are all kind of cloudy. I tried to transfer it back to the internal memory of Android, but the photos are the same. How can I get my old photos back? so that it is as before, cleaned up without any distortions.

2. I didn’t have enough internal memory on my phone, so I wanted to clear it. I transferred the data (photos, music) to the memory card. Now the files cannot be read, although the phone sees the card. How can I get at least a photo back?

3. Samsung A5 phone. I didn’t know how to increase the internal memory, so I used my laptop to move folders with music and files from the internal memory to an SD card. After that, when opening the folders, they all turned out to be empty. Neither the phone nor the computer can see the files and music. The internal memory of the phone did not seem to decrease after this. How to find these files?

Answer. You probably copied sketches, not originals, to the memory card. The original photos may have remained in the phone's internal memory. If this does not happen, the DiskDigger program will help you.

If there is not enough space in the device memory, you should copy the files to your computer (make a backup copy) and only then move them to the memory card. It will be useful for you to read the instructions on how to clear internal memory on Android (see text above).

I have a Sony Xperia phone, when I go to the Play Market, I want to download some program, the system says that there is not enough memory on Android, although the flash drive is 16 GB! What to do?

Answer. Most likely, the “insufficient memory” error on Android is due to the fact that there is not enough internal memory - this is where the installation files are downloaded from Google Play.

  1. Transfer the largest files from the internal memory of Android to your SD card.
  2. Remove unnecessary applications using a file manager or Files Go.
  3. Use the CCleaner utility to clean up unnecessary files in your phone's memory.

I cleaned my phone's memory and deleted many folders. And now I can’t view the gallery through Android, it says: “The storage is not available.” How can I get it back?

Answer. During cleaning, you probably deleted the folder with photos on the memory card (SDCARD/DCIM/CAMERA). You can recover files from there using CardRecovery or PhotoRec programs.

The local memory of a smartphone is significantly less than the hard drive capacity of a desktop computer. Therefore, during the active life of your mobile phone, overflow occurs very quickly. As a result, you will no longer be able to install new applications, and the phone itself will become much slower. The built-in memory card is more than half full of a bare operating system and a couple of applications.

Another problem with a full smartphone memory is that when you receive a notification about a system update, you will not be able to update the operating system. Because there will simply be nowhere to download system files. For example, an update from Android 4.5 to 5.1 weighs about 400 MB.

And all these files need to be written down somewhere. Fortunately, the system allows you to choose a default save location. That's why most people immediately buy an additional decent-sized SD card.

The local memory of your smartphone must be monitored and cleaned regularly. How to clear the memory of an Android phone?

Cleaning your smartphone's memory

To begin with, it’s useful to figure out what actually fills the phone’s memory? Here we can highlight several main areas of risk.

  • Downloaded applications.
  • Media files – video, audio and photos.
  • Cookies, cache, temporary files and other garbage that accumulates during routine work.

Things like text documents have so little weight that even if you devote all night to deleting unnecessary files from the Documents folder, it will not give you anything.

Analytics and statistics

In Android OS, the user can go to the settings at any time and go to the Memory section.

Here you can easily see the current information - how much memory is in total, and what exactly it was used for. Like that:

  1. Total space.
  2. Available.
  3. System.
  4. Applications and multimedia.
  5. Images and videos.
  6. Audio.
  7. Other.

Depending on user preferences, there may be overflow in the direction of applications, video or audio. The programs and videos themselves, as well as operating system updates, weigh the most. It’s enough to record a couple of full-length videos on your camera and you can assume that you don’t have any more space left on your phone.

From theory to practice - how to clear the memory of an Android phone

Now the main question is what can be cleaned and how is this done practically? The main thing to remember when clearing your phone's memory is to do no harm.

If any applications are on a removable card, they will be lost when cleared.

This refers to the removable card that we selected in the default settings to save any downloads. It is clear that no one will be able to clean the system memory with the operating system with one click of a button. But it is enough to delete just one file of a useful application, and your happy life with a smartphone will come to an end. So - if you do not understand the purpose of the file, it is better not to touch it.

To check an incomprehensible file, you can try to run it and open it before deleting it. Click on it and the file should open in the neighboring application. If the dispatcher says that there is no neighboring application, leave this file alone.

What to do?

It is clear that many users are facing exactly the same problem. And somehow it gets resolved. One method is to install the DU Speed ​​Booster app. It’s not exactly the best, but it’s good at intruding itself, thanks to contextual advertising.

Start cleaning

Click on the icon on your desktop or find it in the application gallery.

Then the calculation of problems with the operating system health score will begin. The maximum value is 100.

With one click on the central button, you can perform general troubleshooting of memory problems. The intelligent DU Speed ​​Booster algorithm takes care of everything.

Simultaneously with clearing the memory, the system is configured. At the end, the app gives itself a full 100 points. Good job. The beauty is that periodically the offer to do acceleration will appear by itself without any effort on the part of the user.

Manager for deleting and moving files

The DU Speed ​​Booster application provides a convenient interface for managing installed applications. He is called a dispatcher.

The delete section provides a complete list of user and system applications; it is impossible to make a mistake. Next to each program, the size of memory it occupies is indicated.

If you scroll to the very bottom under the system, you will find a link to a list of applications, the removal of which can lead to serious consequences.

This information will, at a minimum, help guide those who are used to operating through system settings, where the prompts are no longer so obvious.

Moving files

Not all applications can be moved, but this can also provide a service in some cases. For example, when cleaning a purchased SD card. Applications can be moved in both directions. By moving they protect themselves from being removed and just as easily return back.

Removing unnecessary applications using regular tools

It's very interesting to install more and more new applications, but then most of them end up unused. And they can be safely deleted. This is done from the settings in the Applications section.

There are 5 tabs inside the section, each of which can be useful. First, this is a list of applications downloaded by the user.

The next section is similar to the one presented in the DU Speed ​​Booster Manager. This is moving to a removable memory card. Applications already on the removable card are marked with a checkmark.

The third tab shows the distribution of RAM. You can see exactly which applications are running and how much space they take up.

When you click on an application, a menu appears where you can uninstall the program, roll back its updates and perform some other operations.

Actions that are impossible for a given application are marked in pale gray. If you try to accidentally delete a factory-preset offer, the system will warn you not to do this. And let it stay. Uninstall only applications that you installed yourself. Simply by cleaning this way you can free up two or three gigabytes of memory.

Cleaning media files

There are two paths to choose from:

  1. Unnecessary ones - delete.
  2. If necessary, transfer them to a removable or external storage device.

You can use a memory card, desktop computer or cloud storage as an external storage device. By the way, in Google services you can configure instant saving of all photos and videos directly to Google Drive, bypassing local memory.

There is an easier way to do the same. To do this, you need to log into the Google Photos application through the gallery. Almost immediately you will be prompted to save all the pictures on a network drive.

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