Phone storage - how to free up?

[fungussingstheblues]

Sorry to post this in Chat, but the Tech Tips forum looks almost dead...!

I have a Samsung J3 that keeps telling me storage is full, but I have no idea how to free up more space. I've taken most apps off, to the bare minimum.

Deleted all photos and videos, optimised phone, and still I'm getting these (attached). Any clues or tips? It's warning me I can't send texts now!

Oh, and I can't click on "Other" to see what the 15.85GB is made up of, btw...

I'm having this problem with my iPhone. I had a Kindle that was the same - deleted everything and it still came up with those messages. So annoying!

I think my problem is all the photos and videos from WhatsApp conversations - but it sounds as though you've removed all those. Hope someone wiser comes along soon!

Mine got to that stage and nothing I did helped. I had to upgrade.

Just a suggestion (I don't have the same phone, but have a similar problem) - it looks as though you have an SD card, so can you move documents and photos to that?

Check your what's app - mine saves all photos that I'm sent at a really high resolution which takes up space, as do old conversations.

I delete podcast episodes to free up space on mine

@MilkshakeandFries

Check your what's app - mine saves all photos that I'm sent at a really high resolution which takes up space, as do old conversations.

Thanks for this, I didn't realise old convos took up a lot of space. Off to delete now!

Clear all internet history and delete emails from junk folder.

Move stuff to your sd card, there's loads of space on there

I used to have this due to too many photos on my old phone. Turning it off and back on usually freed up some storage. I'd also clear the cache on my apps. If you go to settings, scroll down to 'Apps', click on the 3 dots at the top and sort by 'size', click on one of the apps, and then 'storage' there's a 'clear cache' option at the bottom which will free up some space. Facebook and Samsung Internet usually have 200-odd mb of cache saved so that's almost half a GB right there.

Ah, thank you, all, the cache-deleting definitely helped and I'm now down to 14.9GB used out of 16, though I don't suppose it'll be long before I start getting those messages again.

I've tried moving apps to the SD cards before, and some of them will go, but others just refuse to, for some reason.

Think an upgrade will still be required soon, but thanks for the stay of execution!

Its your documents. Had this same problem and clicked on documents and deleted some which made loads more space.

Oh and your apps too. Delete some of those if you can.

Thanks, Squirrel, but I don't have anything at all in my documents, 0MB. And my apps only add up to 3.9MB. It's back to being 99% full again after taking a couple of short videos this evening. I'll take them off... but think I need a new phone!!

Yeah, it could be your phone's total storage is minimal. Can you store videos/photos/music on a computer to clear space? That or a new phone like you say!

Videos/photos/music were all cleared almost as soon as I had them. Problem now solved with a new phone, though! Turns out I was due one last March, so no wonder mine was starting to get a bit creaky...

Thanks for everyone's help, though :-)

I had a j3 with the very same problem.
I now have an a40

My j3 also has the same problem. I went into google photos and deleted the crap and emptied the bin. It's playing ok at the moment.

It's all Samsung's bloody bloatware. I think eventually all the updates clog up your system and you're stuck with very little space for stuff you actually want.

See if any of your apps will let you move them to your SD card. Unfortunately space hogs such as Twitter won't so you have to regularly delete the cache.

Also, if you use Spotify you seem to have to delete the cache from within the app rather than from App settings like other apps.

Really pisses me off - I need to bite the bullet and learn how to remove all the crappy Samsung default stuff.

Does a samsung j3 have a slot for an sd card? If so where is it please?

Take the back off and it's on the side. Problem I found was a lot of apps where non transferable. My memory card was barely used but the phone memory was full.

Thanks. I'm a div, I've only had the phone 4 years and only now found this out. I was looking for a slot on the side like my kindle has. Google is a wonderful thing.

I have a Samung A5 and I find alot of storage wasted in the cache. Go into your settings and clear out the highest storage apps. I find things like Snapchat, Insta, google could be keeping up to 250mb each in space.

Clear cached data. The option to do this will be somewhere in “storage”

I hate this. I have an LG - basic, bought second-hand (very cheap) from a friend and it's really showing signs of age, but the space thing is so irritating.

For me, it's Whatsapp, that keeps demanding that I free up 100MB (or whatever) of space to allow for an update and locks me out from accessing it (except via WhatsApp Web) until I do. It seems to think it's the only thing I use my phone for and 'kindly' pre-ticks applications that it's identified use a large amount of space and asks me to just confirm and it will delete them for me. The things it picks to send to trash are always fundamental functions of the phone that it tells me itself were last used xx hours ago. It reminds me of the thousands of charities who all plead for 'just' the price of a Starbucks or Pret each month. The equivalent of thousands of takeaway drinks or sandwiches each month costs a fortune - and I don't usually even buy one of them a month myself, as they're beyond my budget anyway.

When I go through manually and delete things I can do without or have backed up in the cloud, the space I clear seems to instantly reduce again - like there's extra rubbish just waiting to hop right in and use it up.

Truly useless (to me) things like maps and some Google services that I use alternatives for seem almost impossible to get rid of; even if I can, it warns me that the whole phone might 'misbehave' if I go ahead, spurn them and delete them.

It's non-stop cat-and-mouse, where phone memory gets bigger, so apps are designed to help themselves to far more of it, and you never really benefit from the expensive mega-storage you've paid to upgrade to in the end. Remember when it started to become the norm for both parents to work full-time outside the home and people were thrilled to see how quickly they'd be able to buy and pay off their house? And then what happened to house prices, once households were earning so much more....?