Many users of phones equipped with the Android operating system often face a problem of full memory. There is probably no universal recipe for solving this trouble, although you can look for some practical advice, though they are not systematized. Let's try to figure this out and find out how to free up internal memory on Android.
Varieties of Storage Devices
So, first you need to understand what types of memory are in devices with the Android operating system. You need to know this in order to better understand the essence of the problem and what you need to do with it.
RAM, RandomAccessMemory or RAM
This is the so-called RAM. It is here that the operating system and software of the Android system record all the necessary data for the smooth operation of the application, by the way, they are quickly calculated. It should be borne in mind that when the device is turned off or rebooted, the RAM is quickly cleared, RAM necessarily requires constant power.
Well, and accordingly, the more memory, the more services and applications you can simultaneously run on the device. Another amount of memory determines what resource-intensive applications can be run on your phone. When the entire amount of RAM has been exhausted and there is not enough space for the new application that you are trying to run, a “Phone memory full” error may occur. In principle, technology does not stand still, and already from Android 2.2 and higher, the operating system itself determines what needs to be removed from memory, which applications can be closed in order to free up space. Today, many flagship devices have enough memory capacity of 1 Gigabyte. There are even 2 gigabytes. Therefore, the question of how to free up internal memory on “Android 4.1.2” arises less often than in relation to earlier versions. If we consider more budget devices on Android, tablets and smartphones, then they basically have 512 MB or a little more than 768 MB (quite a custom size).
In fact, progress does not stand still, everything is improving, because some couple of years ago, most Android devices had only 256 megabytes of RAM and instructions on how to free up internal memory on Android 2 were quite in demand.
ROM, ReadOnlyMemory or ROM
It is read only. What is stored in it does not change and is recorded even at the factory or when the operating system is reinstalled, during a flashing. ROM is divided into sections to perform various internal functions.
Interal Storage (Interal Phone Storage)
The internal drive itself. This is where all the data and applications that are entered by the user of a smartphone and tablet are stored. Internal storage is an analogue of the hard drive in a personal computer. Of course, when we write various applications to the device, the memory decreases, and it is not difficult to increase it - just delete unnecessary. You can find out how much built-in drive and available space you see them in the device’s settings. Thus, often the answer to the question of how to free the internal memory of the “Android” is the cleansing of the internal drive.
MicroSD / microSDHC or ExternalStorage card
This is the so-called removable memory. The volume of the memory card depends on the selected card, however, you must take into account whether your device has the necessary spot and whether its device supports it. ExternalStorage can be compared to an external hard drive for a personal computer. And the amount of free space and busy can also be seen in the settings of your gadget. It is good to store multimedia data on such a card: music, movie photos, pictures. By the way, already with Android 2.2 and higher, you can transfer all applications installed by the user to the memory card, this greatly saves space on the internal drive. If you decide to replace the memory card, then do not forget to unmount it first, and only then remove it.
Android smartphones: how to free up internal memory?
Many users, after being more or less accustomed to their gadget, begin to install, stuff their device with various applications, scripts, and modify programs in every way. And someday, the message “Phone memory is full” still appears, especially if the model is not the most expensive, and there is not much internal memory in it. Part of the problem lies in RAM. It is very easy to clean it - through the device settings or download an additional utility. So, when the internal memory of the gadget is full, then a message will surely appear that there is not enough memory. In principle, you can constantly clean the internal drive, delete applications that you no longer use, but the time will come when this message will appear more and more. Quite a lot of space is occupied by various updates that come for GooglePlay. By the way, you can transfer some of the programs to the memory card using the special Link2SD program. Access to InternalStorage is obtained by having Root rights. These actions also clear the memory well. It is also necessary to clear the so-called temporary files, they have the extension .rm, are stored in the datalocalmp folder and are constantly accumulated. For this action, you also need to have Root access and resort to the help of RootExplorer, plus files with the log extension are often accumulated in the same folder and contain error in their name - these are application errors, they also take up a lot of space. All these unnecessary files must be deleted.
What measures are better to take?
But this is all temporary cleaning of the device. What is a more thorough way to free up internal memory on Android? When installed on a tablet computer or smartphone with an Android device, each program creates a file with the extension .dex in the datadalvik-cache directory. True, it happens that on some system applications there are no such files.
It may seem strange that this program does not take up space. However, the reason is that along with these files in the phone’s memory there are files of the same name, but with the extension .odex. In principle, such files can be created, then you do not need to leave .dex files. To do this, you can install an additional application, for example, LuckyPatcher.
Now let's proceed directly to the steps that help answer the question of how to free up internal memory on Android 2.3.6 and in newer versions.
We look how much space the application takes - the "Properties" menu.
For example, this is 1.68 Megabytes, and, accordingly, the dex file takes up the same amount of memory, and the odex file we created will be the same weight. Now you need to launch the LuckyPatcher application, select the desired application from the list. Clamp (hold, not just click). The context menu appears. You need to select the first or second item. The program itself will create the odex files necessary for us. Then we remove dex from the datadalvik-cache folder. Now the application works fine and takes up 0 MB. So you can free memory for all system applications. Thus, the instruction is executed on how to free the internal memory on Android 4.0 and other distributions.
A slightly different method is suitable for cleaning user applications. We selected the application, went to its folder on the memory card, we see the free space of this application. For example, 1.56 MB of free space is left, and the dex-file occupies 1.68 MB. You can, in principle, move the desired application to the system directory and do the same as mentioned above, or simply select another application, and leave it as it is. By the way, if you still move this application to user memory and create an odex file, and then delete the dex file, the application will work fine. But if you transfer it to a flash drive, then the odex file will be deleted and the program will not work, then you will either have to reinstall it, or do a full cleaning of dalvik-cache. Please note that in general, not every program will work without dex files. This is typical for games or applications with dex up to 1.5 megabytes. This method is suitable only for those applications in which dex-files are less than there is free space in memory. As you can see, the steps that help answer the question of how to free the internal memory on the "Android" are not particularly difficult.