How to free memory on your Android Smartphone
Over recent years there has been a dramatic move away from traditional feature phones to smartphones, this included the lower end of the market where Android has allowed the development of cheap smartphones.
Whilst this has brought smartphones to a wider audience this hasn’t been without difficulties as some of the hardware limitations on low end smartphones demand increased maintenance and house keeping, a task not generally required on feature phones.
One common issue includes the limitations on the amount of internal memory included in lower end Android devices. In early versions of the operating system, like that found on lower end devices, the internal storage is shared between the operating system, applications, temporary files and working space, whilst some applications can be moved to external storage cards some high profile apps like Facebook and their increasing cache filed need to remain on the internal storage.
Some Android devices, e.g. the HTC Wildfire S, have very limited internal storage space and when the available space fails below 20mb routine tasks ( e.g. retrieving email ) in Android begin to stop working. Unfortunately on some devices this happens far too quickly and frequently.
The HTC Wildfire S has small internal storage.
However there are a number of steps that you can take to minimise the demand on the internal memory of your device.
1) Use Web Apps where possible. By using the web page version of an App you can dramatically reduce its demands on the devices internal storage. For example the web version of Facebook works in an almost identical way to the Android App but has a significantly smaller footprint. By creating a shortcut to the Web App on your home screen you still get instant access to the service, most social networks have mobile friendly websites.
To place a shortcut on your home screen:
- I) Open the Internet Browser
- II) Navigate to web service (e.g. www.Facebook.com)
III) Save the page as a bookmark.
- IV) Tap and hold your finger down on your Home, his will display the personalise menu.
- II) Select the option to add a Shortcut.
III)Select the Bookmark that you have created an it will appear on your Home Screen.
2) Regularly Clear the Cache on your handset. You can reclaim some space on your device’s internal memory by clearing the temporary files of the installed Apps.
To clear the Cache on your Android Phone
I) From the home screen on your device press the menu button.
II) Select Settings
III) Select SD & phone storage option.
IV) Scroll down and select the Make more space option
V) On the Clear caches screen select the All applications option and tap on next.
VI) Select Next
VII) Select Finish
Its also possible to see the size of and delete the cache for individual apps. To do this:
I) From the home screen on your device press the menu button.
II) Select Settings
III) Select Applications
IV) Select Storage Use
This will display each App that is installed on your phone and how much space each app is taking up on your handset. By tapping on each app in the list you select to delete its cache files or its saved data. You should only delete an apps saved data if you desperately need the space.
3) Where possible move installed apps to a memory card
Some Apps can be installed on an external memory card and where this is possible it should be done.
An App called App 2 SD can be found in the Google Play Market which can be used to quickly determine which apps can be moved to an external card and will move them.
It is a pain in the neck but these steps will keep your device functional, and if you don’t take do them you’ll soon find that you smartphone stops working how it should.
