Why is there not enough memory if there is any? How to clear your phone's internal memory of unnecessary files

Data-lazy-type="image" data-src="http://androidkak.ru/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/chistka-pamyati..jpg 450w, http://androidkak.ru/wp- content/uploads/2015/09/chistka-pamyati-300x179.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px"> If you are not a beginner, but a more or less experienced Android user, then you probably already know a rather unpleasant fact: of the gigabytes of memory stated on the box with the phone, not all are available for installing applications.

But before rushing headlong to correct this injustice, it is worth finding out why this happens and how exactly you can clean the system.

Android File System Structure

Data-lazy-type="image" data-src="http://androidkak.ru/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/faylovaya-sistema-android.png" alt="File system structure Android" width="200" height="356" srcset="" data-srcset="http://androidkak.ru/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/faylovaya-sistema-android..png 168w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px"> !} One thing to understand is that the Android file system is not nearly as versatile as, say, the one found in Windows. If on Windows your programs and media files are in the same space, then on Android each type of file has its own section.

System programs - separately, auxiliary files and music - separately. The first partition is called the system memory, while the last one is called the media partition.

Why is this necessary? First of all, to make the OS as secure as possible. If you combine these sections, it turns out that a regular media player can accidentally delete data important for the operation of another program, crash the system, or simply fill it to capacity with its files, without leaving even a byte for the necessary system programs.

Moreover, these two sections have different access levels. In the media section, the user and third-party programs can do whatever they want. There is no access to anything other than these programs in the Android system programs section.

Because of this order of things, sometimes a rather curious situation occurs: the media section has several gigabytes free, but the phone stubbornly reports that it cannot install an application of a couple of tens of megabytes in size. This happens because the section for third-party programs is already full.

In such cases, there is nothing left but to try to clear the system memory in the hope that you will be able to free up these megabytes.

You can see the amount of free system memory in the settings, in the “Memory” section. The first scale shows exactly this value. In addition, it is worth considering that the system requires leaving a certain amount free - from 50 to 600 megabytes, depending on the Android device model and OS version.

Cleaning system memory without superuser rights

If you have not opened root access on your smartphone, then your ability to clean up the system partition will be seriously limited. On the other hand, the warranty on the device will remain intact. Is it worth it? You decide.

Read also: How to connect a mouse to an Android phone or tablet

If you want to clear system memory, do the following:

• Go to "Settings".
• Go to the "Applications" section.
• Next, go to the “Third Party” tab.
• Click the Menu button (three vertical dots in the upper right corner of the screen).
• Select sort by size.

.png" alt="List of Android phone applications" width="300" height="169" srcset="" data-srcset="http://androidkak.ru/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/spisok-prilozheniy..png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px"> !} After a couple of seconds, you will see a list of the largest applications on your device. If there is something among them that you do not use, then click on it and select “Delete”. If the button is not available, it means that the application is a system application and cannot be erased without superuser rights.

Then select “Uninstall updates”, this way you will free up at least some space. It is also advisable to disable the program by clicking on the corresponding button. But this must be done carefully and only with applications like Facebook that are not part of the system.

The above method does not take into account the fact that Android calculates the size of the application on the entire internal memory. If it takes up 1.2 GB on the internal memory card and only 40 MB on the system partition, it will still show up as 1.2 GB in size.

If you have already carried out such optimization and there is still little space, you have little choice: get superuser rights or try to transfer applications to a memory card. The latter will only work if your system is version 4.0.4 or lower, so the chance is slim. But if you really are a user of a device that is at least three years old, then next to the “Delete” button you will have a “Move to SD card/USB drive” button. Click on it, and part of the data of this application will leave the system partition and will be transferred to the memory card, freeing up space.

Some Android programs are used only by some third-party applications, so they can be erased even without superuser rights. For example, deleting " Google Services Play" allows you to free up to 150 MB in the system partition, in return closing the possibility of direct synchronization between devices. If you don't use programs like Pushbullet or MightyText, you can safely delete this. And if some program suddenly needs something, it will offer to download it again. The second candidate for deletion is Google search, but along with its 40-60 MB you will lose Google Now and the “Ok, Google!” command.

Cleaning system memory with superuser rights

Data-lazy-type="image" data-src="http://androidkak.ru/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/chistka-pamyati-root.jpg" alt="Cleaning memory on Android root" width="70" height="69" srcset="" data-srcset="http://androidkak.ru/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/chistka-pamyati-root..jpg 150w" sizes="(max-width: 70px) 100vw, 70px"> !} With superuser rights, clearing system memory is much easier. And although we will further discuss unstable solutions a la Xposed App2SD, which, for example, allow you to replace the application section with a memory card, root users still have more options.

Read also: How to log out of Google account on Android

Removing pre-installed programs

If your Android already had third-party applications installed when purchased (Facebook, VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, MTS Assistant), then most likely you will not be able to remove them without superuser rights. This is quite a shame, because they often have significant sizes of 40-160 MB.

.png" alt="Titanium Backup application" width="70" height="70" srcset="" data-srcset="http://androidkak.ru/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Titanium-Backup..png 150w, http://androidkak.ru/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Titanium-Backup-300x300.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 70px) 100vw, 70px"> !}
The solution is the Titanium Backup program, which allows you not only to make a complete backup of all your applications with their settings, but also to clean the closed system partition from such garbage. To do this, simply select the desired application on the second tab of the program and click “Delete”.

Mounting an SD card as internal memory

As mentioned above, 1.5 GB of a game does not always go completely to the system partition. But for those who have internal memory of a couple of gigabytes, this does not make it any easier.

Jpg" alt="Folder Mount program" width="150" height="119"> !} The solution is the FolderMount program, which allows you to transfer cache files (that’s what these one and a half gigabytes are called) to a memory card, leaving a shortcut in their place. In this case, the system will still consider that the files are in the old location, which leads to funny oddities in the “Memory” settings section: for example, you can see that you have 8.2 GB of 3.6 GB occupied, while another 0.98 of these 3.6 are completely free.

If FolderMount cannot create a folder on the SD card, do it yourself with any file manager and specify it in the program. You can also immediately copy the files of the transferred program there, deleting them later from the internal memory - it’s more reliable. And if you see a message that mounting is impossible, turn on “Autostart” or “Mount at startup” in the settings and restart your smartphone.

Other partition extension methods

Data-lazy-type="image" data-src="http://androidkak.ru/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/App2SD.png" alt="App2SD App Manager Save Space" width="100" height="100" srcset="" data-srcset="http://androidkak.ru/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/App2SD..png 150w" sizes="(max-width: 100px) 100vw, 100px"> !} There are other ways to transfer data from the system partition to a card or internal memory. However, most of them are extremely dangerous in the hands of inexperienced users, are suitable only for a certain model/manufacturer, or require high level technical skills.

Sometimes when installing applications, users receive an error message stating that they do not have enough memory space Android devices and the application failed to load. If you also encountered a similar error and don’t know how to fix the situation, then this article should help you.

Tip No. 1. Move applications from internal memory to a memory card.

If you receive an error message that you do not have enough space on your device memory, then the first thing you should do is. This method Freeing up memory on an Android device is very simple and yet very effective. Typically, migrating just a couple of applications will free up enough space so that the error messages no longer appear.

To move an application, open Android Settings and go to the “Application Manager” section (on some devices this section may be called simply “Applications” or something else). In the “Application Manager” section, you need to view the list of installed applications and find those applications that take up a lot of space in the memory of your Android device. Click on one of these applications to open it.

After this, a page with information about the application will open in front of you. Here you need to click on the “To SD memory card” button.

After this, the Android operating system will move the application to the memory card and the internal memory will free up the space that the application occupied.

Tip #2: Remove unnecessary apps.

Usually accumulates on an Android device a large number of applications that the user no longer needs. Sometimes such applications accumulate so much that the user begins to receive errors due to lack of space in the device memory.

To correct this situation, look through the list of installed applications in the Application Manager and find what you can. Open such an application and click on the “Delete” button.

Tip #3: Use apps to clear your memory.
If you have inspected the installed applications, but still receive an error message that you do not have enough space in the device memory, then you can resort to using special applications to clean up the memory.

For example, you can use the free one. Launch the SD Maid app and run a garbage scan as well as a system scan.

After completion, click on the “Cleanup” button to remove the found junk files.

Tip #4: Move personal files from internal memory to a memory card.

Another reason for the lack of space in the device’s memory is the user’s personal files. Use the file manager and check folders in the internal memory such as DCIM, Documents, Bluetooth, Movies, Music, Download, Pictures and Sounds. It is quite possible that in these folders you will find a lot of personal files that take up a lot of free space.

It is very convenient to check personal files using . Launch this file manager and go to the “Internal Memory” section. After this, carefully examine the contents of the folders mentioned above.

Tip #5: Clear your app cache Play Market and Google Service Framework.

In some cases, there is free memory space, but you still receive an error message that there is not enough memory space in Android. If you encounter a similar problem, then try deleting the cache for Play Market and Google Service Framework applications. To do this, go to the “Application Manager” and find these applications there. Open each of these applications and click on the Clear Cache button.

After this, reboot your device. It is likely that you will no longer receive an error indicating that your device is low on storage space.

If clearing the cache does not help, then you can try “Clear data” and “Uninstall updates” for Play Market and Google Service Framework applications. In some cases this helps.

Tip #6: Reset your settings.

If all else fails and you still get the "Not enough storage space on your device" error, then you most likely have serious problems With operating system. In such cases, only .

But you need to understand that resetting the settings returns the Android device to the state in which it was released by the factory. This means that all user data will be deleted. Therefore, do not forget to backup all the data you need that is in the internal memory of the device.

So, in order to reset the settings, go to the Android settings and go to the “Backup and reset” section (in some cases, this section may be called “Restore and reset” or something else).

After that, open the “Data reset” subsection.

Click on the "Reset Device" button.

After the reset, the device will reboot. And after the reboot you will need to go through the initial setup procedure.

The problem of lack of free space on the phone is relevant despite the fact that the capacity of the built-in storage is constantly growing. After all, along with it, the size of programs, photos and videos increases, which in high resolution weighs several gigabytes. However, there are tricks that will help you free up space without deleting applications, and your device will start working much faster. Read the article before you free up space on your Android phone, and in 10 minutes you can destroy the “garbage” in your gadget and optimize the performance of the drive.

Deleting cache

Cache - components that carry additional application data, such as page thumbnails, photo previews, and other materials that the software needs for faster operation. The other side of the coin is that it weighs a lot and does not always help the system work faster, sometimes even the opposite. Therefore, it can be safely destroyed without harming its performance.

1. Go to “Settings - Storage”.
2. Select “Cache Data” there and you will be prompted to permanently delete all content.
3. Agree.

After a couple of moments, the process will complete.

You can also erase the cache of an individual program.

1. Go to "Settings - Storage - Applications".
2. Select something there that takes up a lot of space, see how much the cache weighs.
3. If it weighs a lot, then click “Clear cache”.

Third-party programs on Android help you do this automatically, but at the end we will explain why you should not use them.

Uninstalling unnecessary software

There are probably a lot of programs on your phone that you never use. But they take up space in the system, their processes hang in the background, loading the processor, which can cause slowdowns.

In general, this is already enough, but open “Applications” and look through them all. Try to remove as much unimportant software as possible. Pay special attention to games that take up a lot of space and instant messengers, which often “wake up” the smartphone and leave services in random access memory. Do not hesitate to remove such components.

If you have root rights

Vendors love to install their own software on smartphones, but it usually takes up a lot of space and hangs up in RAM, so it needs to be removed.

This can greatly increase operating speed and free up the internal memory of the device.

Transferring data to a memory card

If your phone supports it, we recommend storing music, videos and images on MicroSD. Almost all programs, such as Camera, browsers, services for listening to podcasts, etc., can store data on a flash drive or in the device’s memory. Don’t be lazy, go to the software settings, look for the item where you can choose which memory to save to, and install MicroSD.

Transfer information from your computer directly to a flash drive so you don’t have to deal with transposition later. Documents already saved in the internal memory can be transferred very easily.

1. Open the built-in file manager or download Total Commander, ES Explorer.
2. Launch it, open the folder with videos and photos, usually called “DCIM”.
3. Select the components you need and click "Cut", go to the directory where you want to move them and click "Paste".

Do the same with other large documents.

Transferring applications to a memory card

Most programs can be transferred to MicroSD. But some software is not adapted for storage on it, for example, system applications. Also keep in mind that the speed of removable storage is lower, so games may run slower, and messengers may not send notifications correctly after the drive is freed like this.

1. Go to Applications.
2. Select the program you want to transfer, tap on it.
3. Click on “Move to memory card”.

You can also reset all data from any mobile devices to the card, including music, videos and photos.

This solution is suitable if you want to seriously clean the ROM.

How to expand internal memory?

Starting with Android 6.0 and higher, it became possible to combine internal memory with a flash drive to expand storage.

1. As soon as the card is in the smartphone tray, swipe the notification shade down.
2. Click "Customize".
3. There you can choose to either consolidate the memory or leave the flash drive as a portable storage device.

Attention! If you choose the second path, the phone will format the memory card and change its file system. So don't forget to make a backup.

Use of third party services

You can download many “magic” services from the Play Market to free up memory on Android. However, most of them are more harmful than beneficial, for example, CleanMaster indiscriminately kills necessary processes, shows how much space has been freed, but constantly hangs in the background even after you clean up the “garbage”.

The Android version of CCleaner performs better, as it clears space in system memory, but the built-in utilities also replace it well. Among the useful ones, it is worth noting Google Drive, Yandex Drive and Google Photos. They allow you to transfer information to cloud storage to clear your mobile phone memory and have access to data.

In Telegram, you can create a private channel and upload files there. A good alternative to cloud disks. From there you can always download components from any device.

Google Photos deserves special attention, allowing you to store photos and videos in the cloud, which are instantly loaded if you want to view them. Extremely convenient program, which greatly saves space on the phone. You can upload an unlimited number of photos in high quality and 15 GB in original size. Also deleted files They don’t disappear immediately, so what you erased can still be restored.

This is the question we received from one of the users of our site, Alexey. He writes that when downloading an application from Google Play Store The error message appears: “The application could not be loaded. There is not enough space in the device memory." At the same time, there is plenty of memory space - at least several gigabytes, while the size of the downloaded application is only a few megabytes. What to do, what to do?

This is what the error looks like when downloading the application:

Let’s say right away that there is no single solution to this problem, so let’s consider various options that may help resolve the problem.

Clearing the cache in the Google Play app

If you believe numerous reviews on the RuNet, the first thing the user needs to do is clear the cache for Google apps Play. It is primarily recommended to take this action in cases where there is a lot of space on the device, but the application is not installed.

Go to the settings of your phone or tablet.

Select the “Applications” section.

Find the application Google Play Market or Google Play Services (the name may vary depending on the firmware) and tap on it.

Here, click on the “Erase data” button, then “Clear cache”.

After that, try to install the application from the Market. This method should help you.

Make sure there is actually enough memory

In some cases, the available memory may not be correct. For example, you think there are a few more gigabytes of memory available, but in reality there are only a few megabytes available. To make sure you have free memory, go to settings and select the “Memory” section.

As you can see, in our case there is very little free memory and if you install applications several hundred megabytes in size, there really won’t be enough space.

Clear the contents of your device

If there is really not enough memory, you need to get rid of junk and unnecessary applications, as well as files.

To delete temporary files, cache data, etc., it is better to use a special application, for example, Clean Master. Download it, run it, then click on the “Trash” button.

When the system finds all unnecessary and temporary files, simply click on the “Clean” button.

This way you can free up quite a lot of space, but if it is still not enough, we recommend deleting unused applications that are usually always present.

In some cases, the memory is occupied by various files, for example, music, video files, photos, etc. They need to be deleted manually, preferably using a file manager. We use ES Explorer. Find the file or folder that you want to delete, tap on it, highlight it and click on the trash can icon.

Often there can be a lot of such files and deleting them frees up a huge amount of memory.

Transfer applications to a memory card

If you have a memory card and have the ability to transfer applications to it from the main memory, use this option so as not to delete applications.

To do this, go to settings, then to the “Applications” section. Select here the right application and click on the “Move to SD card” button (in our case, the button says “Go to SD card”).

Please note that system applications are not migrated. It is possible that your device does not have the ability to transfer applications to a memory card at all.

What else can help?

Tips from the web that may or may not help. If it is worth using them, it is only in the most extreme cases, when nothing helps at all. You can also try:

• Uninstall updates for the Google Play application.

• Delete cache and data not only for the Google Play application, but also for the Google Service Framework.

• Clear Dalvik cache using .

• Do . In this case, all data will be cleared and files will be deleted.

“The application could not be installed/updated because the device memory is full” - many Android users have seen this message more than once. How to make up for the lack of MB and whether you need to do it at all, read our article.

How to check the amount of free memory

If you see a message about low memory, the first thing we do is check its (memory) status. Perhaps some update or downloaded file weighed more than you thought, and now the system really does not have enough free megabytes to complete the specified procedure. So, to check the phone's memory status:

If there really aren’t enough megabytes, let’s start cleaning the phone from unnecessary data. If there is enough, we will look for the cause of the problem and fix it.

How to free up additional memory on your device

If you have too much information stored on your device, the easiest option to clear the memory is to move some of the files to another device. This is not difficult to do, you just need to transfer the photos and videos you took, downloaded files, etc. to them. The folders listed below are of main interest to us:

But what if they are all empty, and there are still not enough MB? There are several options for freeing up additional memory, and we will look at each of them separately.

Clearing the cache (Dalvik cache, general and individual applications)

Any device that has access to the Internet has a cache - an intermediate buffer in memory that provides quick access to temporary files. This allows you not to load the entire page every time you access it, but to store part of the data in the system memory and retrieve it upon the first request. On the one hand, this is convenient, because... The site loads quickly, no matter how low the connection speed is. On the other hand, we have memory filled with unnecessary files and the system itself slows down. Therefore, even if you have not yet encountered the error discussed in the article, you should clear the cache on Android at least once a month. By the way, you can do this in three ways:

• Delete all cache stored on the phone

To do this, go to “Settings”, open the “Memory” section and look for the “Cache” item in it. Click on it and agree to delete. A couple of seconds, and treasured megabytes were freed up on our phone.

• Delete a specific application's cache

If you are only missing a few MB, it is not necessary to erase all temporary files. Sometimes it is quite possible to get by with the cache of some resource-intensive program. To do this, you just need to open the “Settings” menu, select “Application” and find the application you are interested in in the list provided. Open it and look for the “Clear cache” button. Click on it and watch how the amount of free memory increases by the treasured megabytes.

• Erase Dalvik cache by putting the device in Recovery mode

Dalvik cache is a temporary compilation of application code that is stored as executable files. Removing them does not cause any harm to the performance of the gadget. Therefore, to free up a few extra MB in this way, do the following:

• Turn off the phone.
• We launch it in Recovery mode (the combination of buttons will be different for different devices, you can find it out from the instructions or on the manufacturer’s official website).
• In the menu that appears, first select the Wipe cache partition item, and then alternately Advanced Options and Wipe Dalvik Cache.
• After the unnecessary files are deleted, turn off the phone and restart it in normal mode.

Note! In Recovery mode, the touch display is disabled, the menu is navigated using the volume buttons, and selection is made using the start button.

However, you need to understand that by deleting the cache, you do not get rid of it forever. Temporary files will be placed again in the device’s memory as soon as you visit the website or open the application.

Removing unnecessary data from the “Downloads” and “Other” sections

Files downloaded from the Internet, as well as data that the system cannot assign to any of the prescribed categories, also take up a lot of space. You can get rid of them different ways. If you know which folder or folders the download is being made into, open them and clean them manually. If not, use the following scheme:

If you are afraid to delete something you need, but you cannot identify the file by its name, click on it and it will open for viewing.

Cleaning using utilities

If you don’t want to deal with your phone’s settings, you can clear the cache much faster. Special applications will help you with this, any of which can be downloaded from the Play Market. To start scanning the system, click the start button. The system will analyze all the files stored on the phone and find among them temporary and no longer needed. Then click on “Clean” or “Delete” and get rid of the garbage on your gadget.

The most popular cleaning applications are:

• Clean Master is one of the most popular applications for cleaning memory and protecting against viruses. It has extensive functionality and allows you to free up not only regular memory, but also RAM.
• CCleaner quickly finds outdated and residual files, allows you to remove several applications at a time, quickly stops running tasks, and also puts background programs into hibernation mode in 1 click.
• NoxCleaner. The program is interesting because it independently removes any third-party applications that have not been used for more than a month, and itself weighs extremely little (8 MB, version 1.2.5).

Also in the Play Market there are various “Application Managers” that help manage programs (install, delete, move, etc.) on the phone. However, for full functionality, many of them require root rights, which can negatively affect the security of the gadget.

Uninstalling apps

The lion's share of the phone's internal memory is occupied by third-party applications and games. Therefore, if you are thinking about cleaning your device, start with them. As a rule, users erase programs that have become unnecessary using a simplified scheme: they press and hold the icon on the work screen or in the general menu, and then drag it to the trash. Or open the application page in the Play Market and click the “Delete” button. However, the cache and some entries after such deletion may remain in the device’s memory, settling there as dead weight. Therefore, if you want to erase an application without a trace, we suggest using the following method:

Done, neither the application itself nor the files related to it are anymore on the device. Data account are stored in your Google cloud profile, so if you want to reinstall the game, your progress will not be lost.

Transferring applications to external memory

If you don’t have enough free MB and don’t want to delete applications, you can try moving them to an external drive. Let’s say right away that this option does not work for all firmware and not for all programs. However, why not give it a try. To transfer:

If there is no such button, it means that the developer intentionally prohibited installation anywhere other than internal memory. And you can free up space by transferring only if the user has root rights.

Manual cleaning with root rights

We consider it necessary to start the conversation about this method with a warning:

If something goes wrong during the installation process (download an application infected with viruses, make a mistake, etc.), then there is a risk of getting “ ” instead of a phone. And the service warranty does not apply to devices with superuser rights. Therefore, you perform further actions at your own peril and risk.

To get root rights, select from the list below the application that is suitable for your phone model and install it:

• 360 Root.
• Baidu Root.
• DingDong Root.
• Romaster SU.
• Root Dashi.
• Root Genius.
• Root Zhushou.

Run the program, after which you can uninstall through it (or normal deletion, described above) system applications, files from the data folder and other components prohibited from erasing.