Ways to increase the amount of internal memory on Android

Any new smartphone, even one that does not shine with technical characteristics, at first just flies, delighting its owner. But over time, he begins to notice that the device turns on much longer, when launching applications, many of them slow down, and the stability of the smartphone as a whole leaves much to be desired.

This is the result of clogging up the phone’s memory with data of different origins. You can, of course, draw an analogy with old age, but by and large it will be true only partially. It is problematic to return youth at the current stage of the development of medicine, but it is quite possible to free up the space of the internal memory of an Android smartphone. This problem is especially relevant for budget gadgets with a relatively small amount of internal storage. There are many ways to increase internal memory (to be more punctual, we need to talk about freeing memory), and not all of them are harmless and safe. So the cleaning procedure must be carried out wisely, and our task is to give readers as much useful information as possible on this issue.

Using memory cards or external drives

Everyone knows that you can insert an SD card into a smartphone. Some do not do this due to the presence of a combined slot on the phone, preferring to use two SIM cards from different operators. For others, this problem is not relevant if their phone model has its own memory capacity comparable to or exceeding the typical capacities of memory cards (and 64 or 128 GB is far from being a rarity today).

Well, the third, expanding the internal memory with an SD card, did not see any improvements and spat on this matter. This is not surprising – only user data (photos, music, videos) can be written to external memory, new applications will still be installed directly on the smartphone.

But there is a way to turn an SD card into a full-fledged internal storage medium. Consider an algorithm that allows you to increase memory on Android using a memory card. For smartphones that have nothing at all of their own internal memory – 8-16 GB, the addition of 32, 64, or even 128 GB can radically solve the problem of deficiency.

To do this, we need two utilities from third-party developers, with which you can add an SD card to the shared pool of the computer’s internal memory. The procedure consists of two stages.

Splitting a map, creating a main section

First, we need to find, download and install the EaseUS Partition Master utility. This is a free partition manager that you can use to expand the memory of your Android smartphone. To do this, the entire working space of the SD card must be divided into two sections – the main one with the Fat32 file system and the main one for Ext2 (Ext3 / 4).

How to do it:

• launch the EaseUS Partition Master utility;
• in the main application window, select an unallocated space on the external drive, press your finger on the screen and hold it down until the context menu appears;
• release, select the item “Create”;
• set the parameters of the new size (label, its size, file system type), confirm by clicking OK;
• we tap on the “Perform operation” button, and then on the “Apply” button.

Expansion of the internal memory with the Link2SD utility

Creating two partitions is not enough for the Android OS to treat them as its own. But the Link2SD application successfully copes with this task. It allows you to expand the memory of your Android smartphone using the Ext section of the SD card.

Step by step algorithm:

• download the utility to the phone;
• we get root rights – without them, the application will not be able to access the file system of the phone;
  
• insert the prepared card (divided into two sections) into the appropriate slot;
• launch Link2SD;
• on the main screen, select the Ext section (it doesn’t matter, Ext2,3 or 4), click OK;
• we reboot the smartphone and run the utility again;
• click on the “Settings” tab, select the “Automatic link” item to ensure that existing applications can be moved to the map after the installation is complete;
• if you already have several installed applications, click the “Create” button;
• now you can select the item “Storage Info” in the settings, which allows you to see the current status and the amount of internal memory – it should increase by the size of the Ext section.

Now you can use all the available ROM to install a large number of new applications. But in order for them to start quickly, it is necessary that the microSD card used be fast, at least grade 10.

Adding memory from flash media

Finally, the third way to add storage to your Android phone is to use regular USB sticks. Some models of smartphones are even equipped with special adapters, but if you are unlucky, take a look at the nearest M.Video showroom, there probably are such OTG adapters. And if you are too lazy to leave the house, you can order this accessory on Ali-Express, and it will come out cheaper (but longer).

True, you first need to find out whether your smartphone supports the USB host function by looking at the technical documentation or asking around experts on thematic forums. Of course, the adapter is not the best solution. But there is also an alternative – a USB flash drive with a built-in Type-C connector, which is inserted directly into the smartphone’s connector without the need for an adapter. Usually, such flash drives also have a classic Type-A connector located on the back of the device. So there will be no problems with connecting the drive to a PC. True, there will be little benefit from such a solution: the USB flash drive can only be used as an external additional media, that is, to store user files. But in some cases, this is good – for example, if you carry a collection of films or a large series with you,which you watch whenever you can.

Connecting an external SSD, and even more so an HDD disk will be problematic for one simple reason – the phone is not able to provide such a gluttonous accessory with the required amount of electricity.

Removing unnecessary applications

The situation when the installation of a new application on a smartphone ends in failure with the formulation of a shortage of space in the ROM is very common. This usually happens at the moment when a new program needs to be installed urgently, while there is no possibility of transferring user data to the cloud or to external media.

The problem can be solved quickly and easily using the built-in tools of the mobile operating system, at the same time finding out which source is the most voracious in relation to internal memory.

So, go to the phone settings, go to the “Applications” tab and after pressing the “Menu” button, sort them by the amount of memory they occupy – most Android smartphone users have done this operation more than once. And yet, let’s try to analyze which of the preinstalled applications are the most demanding on internal memory.

Usually some of the “heavyweights” are needed, so we can’t touch them. An example is Google Maps, or Yandex.Navigator. It is also not recommended to clean Google Play services, even if you do not use some of them – they all interact with each other and it is not known how this will come around. Another thing is the Chrome browser, YouTube service, clients of popular social networks such as VK, OK, Facebook, or the Dropbox service. The appetites of these applications can and should be tempered by clearing the cache (this button is in the “Memory” section).

Clearing the cache can free up between 200 MB and 1 GB, depending on how long you haven’t done this. If you have only 8 GB of internal storage, then this is a very good indicator.

If you come across advertisements for utilities that clear the cache in automatic mode, it is better not to download or use them – many such applications delete cached files that you should not touch (for example, Google maps or games), so you have to download them again.

As for removing pre-installed applications, you can find lists of those on the network without which the operating system will remain stable. But, firstly, these lists are highly dependent on the version of Android, and it is not a fact that the files that you see in your explorer will end up there. Secondly, some of them cannot be removed with the usual OS tools – you simply will not have such an opportunity. Finally, many built-in applications are needed, although without them Android will not lose functionality. So this opportunity should be approached with caution. Moreover, most of these utilities take up very little space, and many do not use the cache and do not store auxiliary data.

Custom applications are another matter. Among them may be rarely used, and completely unnecessary, established during the time of Tsar Pea and successfully forgotten. Removing them will really allow you to significantly increase the internal memory, and such an opportunity should definitely not be neglected.

The easiest way is to delete unnecessary files using standard tools, but if you are used to using third-party file managers such as Total Commander, then no one forbids using them, if it is more convenient for you.

Using cloud services

Manufacturers of mobile gadgets are not very fond of memory cards – they need to “finish” the software, which is not easy, and where is the guarantee that the owner of the smartphone will not install a slow microSD card on his smart device and will be unpleasantly amazed by the performance of the system, blaming the phone brand for this …

Quite a few models are released without a card slot, and most with a combined slot, forcing users to make a difficult choice between additional memory and using two numbers.

Fortunately, if you are unable or unwilling to use an SD card, you can increase the amount of internal memory on Android in an alternative way. As you may have guessed, we are talking about cloud storage, which provides you with a decent amount of disk space for storing any data, from movies and music to documents.

The functionality of many such services allows you to configure the transfer for a certain type of files, limit their size, set limits depending on the current battery charge and the type of network connection used.

For example, Dropbox lets you customize the types of files you can store in the cloud. Some services even know how to automatically delete large files from a smartphone, if a copy is available in the cloud – such a “smart” cloud storage is the Microsoft OneDrive service. As for the amount of space provided, here the numbers may differ, and quite a lot. For the same OneDrive, this is 5 GB, but almost all services practice various promotions, so if you’re lucky, the initial figure can be doubled or even tripled. Well, for money, you can easily use any additional amount of gigabytes.

In addition to these services, you can expand your Android memory on Google Drive (the search engine also offers a separate Google Photos server), Yandex Drive, Box – these are the most popular cloud storage. Less well-known and therefore less reliable, there are many more to be found. But is it worth it?

Clearing smartphone memory

We have already said that the main working way to increase the memory of an Android phone is to clear the cache, which gets clogged persistently and constantly. The benefits of it are undoubted – the use of cached data allows you to speed up the work of applications, but if there is a choice between speed and the ability to free up a lot of space, then it is often made in favor of the latter option.

You can use third-party utilities to analyze the contents of read-only memory. The free Disk Usage app on Google Play allows you to graphically demonstrate to the user which apps are the most memory-intensive. Here you can also estimate the size of folders, and see those applications that are not shown in the built-in explorer.

In addition to the cache, a lot of space is occupied by temporary files created by applications for their not always clear purposes, installers, duplicates of large files. In a word, there is always a lot of garbage on the built-in media.

Searching for and deleting such files manually is a thankless and not entirely safe task. However, for these purposes, you can also use third-party applications. So, the AMC Cleaner utility, which is distributed free of charge and is able to clean up memory in just one click, perfectly copes with junk files.

Its functionality is not limited to this:

• the program is able to monitor the state of the battery and disable those applications that consume an inadequate amount of electricity;
• there is also a function of software acceleration of the smartphone. It is especially effective in relation to games;
• the utility is able to block receiving calls / SMS from unwanted numbers;
• there is a module that provides additional protection for confidential information stored on the smartphone.

One of the most famous utilities for cleaning up internal memory is CCleaner, which recently only had a desktop version.

So, you got acquainted with the main ways of making more permanent memory on an Android phone (it should not be confused with RAM, it is usually indicated in the characteristics first and always less than ROM). We will be glad to see in the comments how our readers solve the problem of lack of memory – perhaps their experience will be useful to someone too.