{"id":254410,"date":"2026-05-24T18:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T22:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/24\/your-android-phone-comes-with-two-built-in-tools-for-freeing-up-storage-space-heres-how-to-use-them-and-keep-your-mobile-running-smoothly\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T18:55:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T22:55:07","slug":"your-android-phone-comes-with-two-built-in-tools-for-freeing-up-storage-space-heres-how-to-use-them-and-keep-your-mobile-running-smoothly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/24\/your-android-phone-comes-with-two-built-in-tools-for-freeing-up-storage-space-heres-how-to-use-them-and-keep-your-mobile-running-smoothly\/","title":{"rendered":"Your Android phone comes with two built-in tools for freeing up storage space \u2014 here&#8217;s how to use them and keep your mobile running smoothly"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.techradar.com\/phones\/android\/your-android-phone-comes-with-two-built-in-tools-for-freeing-up-storage-space-heres-how-to-use-them-and-keep-your-mobile-running-smoothly\">Your Android phone comes with two built-in tools for freeing up storage space \u2014 here&#8217;s how to use them and keep your mobile running smoothly<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.techradar.com\/phones\/android\/your-android-phone-comes-with-two-built-in-tools-for-freeing-up-storage-space-heres-how-to-use-them-and-keep-your-mobile-running-smoothly\">https:\/\/www.techradar.com\/phones\/android\/your-android-phone-comes-with-two-built-in-tools-for-freeing-up-storage-space-heres-how-to-use-them-and-keep-your-mobile-running-smoothly<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-05-24 18:30:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"www.techradar.com\">www.techradar.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"elk-76eda1e7-d5e6-4dcc-be96-00b1f0fa28c2\">Nobody wants to get a &#8220;storage full&#8221; warning on their Android handset: running out of room means you won&#8217;t be able to install any new apps or save any new photos or videos, and performance can quickly start to suffer too.<\/p>\n<p>Google knows how important it is to keep a chunk of space free on Android, though, and the mobile operating system comes with two built-in tools for clearing out some room. You might not have previously discovered them, but they&#8217;re straightforward to use, and can solve your storage woes in just a few minutes.<\/p>\n<p id=\"elk-76eda1e7-d5e6-4dcc-be96-00b1f0fa28c2-2\">What you get with Android can vary from device to device of course, but the two apps we&#8217;re talking about here are Google Photos and Google Files \u2014 which should be preinstalled on phones from most Android manufacturers (including Google and Nothing). If you can&#8217;t find them on your phone, you can download them via the links above.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"inline-flex items-center gap-1.5 text-sm font-article-heading capitalize leading-5 text-white whitespace-nowrap\"><span class=\"jwp-carousel-title-mobile\"\/><span class=\"jwp-carousel-title-desktop\">Latest Videos From<\/span><span class=\"jwp-carousel-brand inline-flex items-center\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/span><\/span><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.techradar.com\/media\/img\/techradar_logo_v2.svg\" alt=\"\" class=\"max-h-12 w-auto\" aria-hidden=\"true\"\/><br \/>\n        <span class=\"\n            flex\n            after:content-[''] after:flex-1 after:ml-4 after:my-[0.7rem] after:border-t after:border-solid after:border-t-[#ccc]\n            before:content-[''] before:flex-1 before:mr-4 before:my-[0.7rem] before:border-t before:border-solid before:border-t-[#ccc]\n            font-article-heading pb-0 text-[length:var(--article-river-title--font-size,1em)] uppercase sm:text-[length:var(--article-river-title--font-size,0.875em)] font-bold\n        \"><br \/>\n            You may like<br \/>\n        <\/span><\/p>\n<h2 id=\"free-up-space-in-google-photos-3\">Free up space in Google Photos<\/h2>\n<p id=\"elk-48abae2d-63a9-495a-952f-695e0dd86c92\">Photos and videos probably take up a sizable block of storage space on your Android device: now that we&#8217;ve all got high-quality cameras to use, it&#8217;s all too easy for images and clips to pile up (most of which you&#8217;ll probably never look at again).<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re backing up all of these photos and videos to the cloud in <strong>Google Photos<\/strong>, then the app can help you free up space on your device, once everything has been safely uploaded to the web. First, though, check the backup settings: in Google Photos, tap your profile picture (top right), then <strong>Photos settings  Backup  Photo and video quality<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>There are two options here, <strong>Original quality<\/strong> and <strong>Storage saver<\/strong>. The latter will slightly compress your photos and videos as they&#8217;re transferred to the cloud \u2014 which can save a lot of room but can reduce resolution. Videos in 4K will be scaled down to 1080p, for example, and Google has a full explanation of what&#8217;s involved here.<\/p>\n<p class=\"vanilla-image-block\" style=\"padding-top:56.25%;\">\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net\/BizwCL3moDet4J2T2YGXLi.jpg\" alt=\"Google Photos\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net\/BizwCL3moDet4J2T2YGXLi-1200-80.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net\/BizwCL3moDet4J2T2YGXLi-1024-80.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net\/BizwCL3moDet4J2T2YGXLi-970-80.jpg 970w, https:\/\/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net\/BizwCL3moDet4J2T2YGXLi-650-80.jpg 650w, https:\/\/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net\/BizwCL3moDet4J2T2YGXLi-480-80.jpg 480w, https:\/\/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net\/BizwCL3moDet4J2T2YGXLi-320-80.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 1000px) 970px, calc(100vw - 40px)\" loading=\"lazy\" data-new-v2-image=\"true\" data-original-mos=\"https:\/\/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net\/BizwCL3moDet4J2T2YGXLi.jpg\" data-pin-media=\"https:\/\/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net\/BizwCL3moDet4J2T2YGXLi.jpg\" class=\"rounded-[var(--image--border-radius,0)] inline\"\/>\n<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"caption-text\">Freeing up space in Google Photos <\/span><span class=\"credit\" itemprop=\"copyrightHolder\">(Image credit: Future)<\/span><\/p>\n<p id=\"elk-bfa240e5-e41f-4e67-a031-c5e3f24bc0a2\">It&#8217;s important that you know how your photos&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.techradar.com\/phones\/android\/your-android-phone-comes-with-two-built-in-tools-for-freeing-up-storage-space-heres-how-to-use-them-and-keep-your-mobile-running-smoothly\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Your Android phone comes with two built-in tools for freeing up storage space \u2014 here&#8217;s&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":254411,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net\/wrDLXpcafr9ZSDBoLJNPqE-2000-80.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[70],"class_list":["post-254410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-android","tag-google"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254410"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254410"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":254412,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254410\/revisions\/254412"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}