How to empty trash on android – step by step the tutorial
How to empty trash on android?
Is your Android phone troubling you with constant reminders that Storage is full? Are you unable to install new apps or save new photos and videos because your phone has run out of memory? If such is the case, all you may need to do is empty trash on your Android phone. Free up space by eliminating unnecessary files and useless data that pile up day by day. Learn here how to empty trash on Android phone and make more storage available for use.
Unlike in a computer, an Android phone does not have a Recycle Bin or Trash folder which you can simply empty when you need space. Recycle Bin on your computer also serves the purpose of restoring lost data if you have deleted something by mistake. But Android phones do not have any dedicated folder to store data that you have deleted because of the limited space available on such devices. So it all falls on you to personally check and verify what data you need deleting before actually deleting them.
Empty Trash on Android Apps
Although Android devices do not have any Recycle Bin or Trash folder, individual apps may do. Listed below are the various ways to empty trash on your Android phone through apps:
- Google Photos: Google Photos is the best app to manage photos and videos on your Android phone. If you delete a photo on Google Photos, it automatically saves them to a Trash folder for 60 days before deleting them permanently. You can use this folder to restore photos that you may have deleted by mistake. You can also choose to clean this folder up if you want to free up space on your Android phone. Here are the steps to follow:
- Launch Google Photos on your Android phone.
- Tap on “Library” option from the menu
- The Trash folder will now be available for you to check along with the other folders like Archive, Favorites, and Utilities.
- Tap on the Trash folder
- Select the photos from this folder that you want to delete permanently. Tap the “Delete” option.
- You can also choose to tap “Select” at the top. Then tap on the “Delete all” option to delete all the photos from the Trash folder.
- Gmail: As in the case of Google Photos, Gmail too stores unwanted and deleted emails in a Trash folder. These emails are stored for 30 days before being deleted permanently. To free up memory, you can manually delete the emails that pile up in this folder. Follow the below steps:
- Launch Gmail on your Android phone
- Tap on the three lines on the top left corner
- Among the list of menus on the left-hand side, you should see a folder called “Trash.” If you don’t see it immediately, scroll down and then tap on it.
- Your Trash folder will open up. You can select the messages you want to delete permanently or you can simply tap “Empty trash now” to clear the folder.
- Dropbox: If you use the Dropbox app or similar storage apps, it almost always has a Trash folder which you should periodically clean. This folder collects unnecessary and junk files that have no use whatsoever. Note that the free version of the Dropbox app only allows for 2 GB of storage, so cleaning the Trash folder is a smart way to manage your phone storage:
- Launch the Dropbox app on your Android phone
- Locate the Trash folder by tapping the dustbin icon
- Select the files you want to delete and hit “Delete”
- You can also choose to delete all the files in the Trash folder at once
More ways to empty trash on Android
The simplest way to empty Trash on your Android, as you may have already gathered, is to locate the Trash folders in individual apps and delete the unwanted files therein. Here are some more methods to clean up storage:
- Clear cache: Cache files are created and saved on your device automatically to give you customized user experience. These are temporary files related to how you use individual apps. Sometimes these could be unimportant apps like heavy games or other graphics-heavy apps. If you have no use for them, clear your cache files.
Go to Settings > Apps. Locate the individual apps and under Storage, tap on the “Clear Cache” option.
- Delete unwanted files: Sometimes your phone storage is filled up with a lot of images, videos, and other files that you may download absent-mindedly. From time to time, check your downloaded files, and delete the ones you do not need. To do this, go to File Manager > Downloads on your Android device.
If you have music files saved on your phone, consider using a free music-streaming app like Spotify or Google Music which allows you to play music directly via internet without having to save the audio files.
- Clean your Gallery: If you use Google Photos, it allows you to save back-ups of your photos and videos on your Google account which you can access whenever you need, There is, thus, no need to save them on your phone. If you use a regular Gallery, go to the individual folders and delete all your unwanted photos and videos which, otherwise, take up a lot of space.
- Delete unused apps: Many apps that we install on our phones remain unused for a long time. We sometimes install them for a one-time use and then forget all about them. These apps remain on our phones and use up storage and RAM regularly. Locate the apps that you do not use and uninstall them.
- Delete offline maps: Google Maps often creates offline maps and saves them on your phone. These may be your daily routes like home to work and vice versa. If you do not need them, delete these files as they take up a lot of storage space.
Go to Google Maps > Menu > Offline. Select the routes you do not need and tap “Delete.”
- Use an SD card: If at all you need additional storage space, instead of filling up your device storage, consider using an external SD card. You can simply store all kinds of data that you need to use on your phone on this memory card and insert it in your phone to use them. This will not encroach upon any storage space on your phone and you will be able to access these files as well from your Android device.