Each new generation of smartphones is equipped with a built-in drive with a large supply of data storage. And yet, after some time, device owners note that their operation slows down and freezes. When a system message appears on the screen stating that there is critically little free space left, many begin to panic. Meanwhile, there are several ways to clear the memory of a Samsung and other manufacturers’ phone yourself.
Why do you need to free memory?
The internal storage memory is designed to solve a wide range of tasks, the main ones being:
- telephone conversations and sending SMS;
- installing applications and updating them;
- downloading programs from the Internet;
- receiving data using Bluetooth or NFC;
- operating system update.
Vyacheslav
For several years he worked in mobile phone stores of two large operators. I understand tariffs well and see all the pitfalls. I love gadgets, especially Android ones.
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What will happen to the smartphone if the memory becomes full? How does this affect work?
An overabundance of information leads to the fact that the device ceases to function normally. In addition to reduced speed and freezing, other serious problems may appear. The smartphone will stop sending and receiving messages and media files. It will be impossible to take photos, shoot videos, or download updates.
The user loses access to certain functions and cannot use some programs. Obviously, overloading a gadget leads to disruption in its operation. Therefore, freeing up memory is a necessary procedure that must be carried out regularly.
What is the problem?
All Samsung smartphones have the Android operating system. This, in turn, leads to a number of troubles.
The fact is that the system memory of Android devices is the most vulnerable point. Many smartphones suffer from errors related to the archive being full.
Sometimes the problem is due to improper use of the smartphone, sometimes the cause can be viruses and other malware. Sometimes it is impossible to prevent this, but sometimes careful use can help avoid such problems.
How to clear Samsung RAM
Surely everyone knows that the speed of a smartphone depends on the amount of RAM (RAM or RAM). It is part of the system and serves as a link between the CPU and the OS. Certain data necessary for the correct operation of running programs is stored here. Many applications take up a certain amount of memory when installed (for example, YouTube - 200 MB, VK - almost 300 MB, WhatsApp - about 30 MB).
Therefore, Samsung manufacturers are constantly increasing the size of RAM to improve stability and increase the capabilities of the device. Owners of budget models have to regularly clean the RAM on their Android Samsung, otherwise the device will overheat and the battery will quickly drain.
There are two ways to clear memory: using the built-in functionality or additional applications. The first option is considered the simplest and most convenient. To solve the problem you need to perform the following steps.
- Open the menu and click on the “Settings” icon.
- Go to the "Applications" section.
- Select the “Running” section (Running, Running).
- Estimate the RAM consumption of each of them.
Select the programs that consume the most resources and click on the “Stop” (Erase data) button. Additionally, you can clear the cache by clicking on the corresponding button. The acceleration of the smartphone will be noticeable immediately after the procedure is completed.
In addition to the built-in tools, there are a number of programs that can effectively free up RAM. These are the so-called “process killers”:
- Advanced Task Manager;
- Super Tool Box.
Users have many other programs at their disposal that allow them to close unnecessary applications and unload the device, improving system performance.
How to clear Samsung phone memory using built-in tools
Unlike RAM, in which data is stored temporarily and erased when the power is turned off, there is another type of storage device - read-only memory (ROM or ROM). Information about all processes running on this device is stored here. To clear the ROM, you should analyze the contents of your smartphone and determine what data is taking up a lot of free space. To do this you need:
- open “Menu”;
- go to the “Settings” section;
- select “Memory”.
To determine which data should be destroyed, you should know which of them are “garbage” and slow down the system.
- Cache. Temporary files used by applications should be deleted after processes are completed. But, since this does not always happen, they remain in the memory and clog it.
- Images, media. Users love to take selfies, shoot videos, and simply send pictures via instant messengers. This data takes up a lot of space and hangs like “dead weight”. By erasing what you don’t need, you can instantly make sure that your phone works faster.
- Remote software files. When you uninstall applications, individual files are saved in the phone memory. When they accumulate, they slow down the operating system and cause it to freeze.
- Extra content. These are music, videos, documents downloaded from the Internet. Many of them have already lost their value, but still remain in the device’s memory.
To restore the functionality of your smartphone, you should delete all unnecessary files using one of the methods described below.
How to clean your phone using the engineering menu
This method is considered extremely convenient because it does not require “Superuser” (ROOT) rights. However, it is not provided in all Samsung smartphones. To find out if your device supports this feature, follow these steps:
- Call the engineering menu by entering the code *#9900# in the dialing line and press the button in the form of a green tube.
- In the window that opens, select the line “Delete dumpstate/logcat”.
If no changes occur after activating the option, it means that the function is not supported by the device, and you should use another method.
Removing cache and cookies
As mentioned earlier, Samsung manufacturers have provided automatic deletion of temporary files. But if problems arise with a site that previously worked fine (problem with loading and displaying some elements), it is advisable to clear the cache and cookies. Google is the easiest place to do this.
- Open the application on Android.
- Click on the “Menu” icon in the upper right corner (3 vertical dots).
- Go to the “History” section and click on the “Clear” line.
- Check the boxes next to the items “Cookies, media licenses and site data”, “Images and other files saved in the cache”.
- Select a time range and click on the “Delete data” button.
After cleaning, some settings (names and passwords) may be deleted and will have to be entered again.
Removing unnecessary applications
One of the effective ways to clean the ROM of a Samsung smartphone is to remove unnecessary programs and applications. To increase the amount of free space, you need to remember that after uninstallation you need to clear the cache. The procedure is simple and can be completed in just a few clicks. To do this you need:
- enter the “Menu” and select the “Settings” icon
- select the “Applications” section.
- if you cannot find it, you can call up the system menu (three vertical dots on the right).
- select the utilities you are interested in and first click on the “Clear data” button and then “Delete”.
In this way, you can get rid of all unnecessary applications and optimize the performance of the Android system.
Removing unnecessary content
To view text, media files and documents, your Samsung smartphone has a folder called “My Files”. It functions as an explorer on a Windows PC.
To remove all unnecessary information, several manipulations should be done.
- Open the folder (it is often located in the Samsung directory), and select “Device memory” from the list.
- When folders appear on the screen, you should select those with the largest size. To do this, you need to select the object and in the menu (three dots at the top of the screen on the right) select the line “Properties” (information).
- Having selected all the necessary elements, click “Options” and click on the “Move” (or “Delete”) option.
Transferring folders to a memory card
On budget Samsung smartphones with limited ROM capacity, it is advisable to transfer heavy applications to a removable SD storage device - a memory card. To do this, you must perform several steps in sequence.
- Enter “Settings”, and then select the “Applications” section.
- Select the programs you are interested in and view information about each of them.
- Next, click on the “Change” button.
- In the tab that opens, assign a new storage location – “Memory card” and confirm.
Removing data from thumbnails
When considering ways to clear the memory of a Samsung phone, you should pay attention to another convenient option - deleting unnecessary files from the thumbnails folder. Few people know that to simplify downloading and viewing photos, images, text documents, the smartphone creates thumbnails, which are stored in this directory by default. To remove this information and optimize system performance, you must:
- Connect your mobile device to your PC or laptop and enable File Transfer mode.
- In the smartphone menu, select and open the DCIM section.
- Enter the thumbnails directory and delete its contents.
It is recommended to perform this procedure regularly at least 2-3 times a year. This will keep your workspace free and free your gadget from slowing down.
Clearing messenger data
Messenger conversations can take up an impressive amount of space on a smartphone. Users send photos, videos and GIFs to each other, and all this extra content is saved on the drive by default, reducing the amount of free space.
How to clear memory on Android Samsung and disable auto-download in WhatsApp: • open the list of chats; • click on the three vertical dots in the upper right corner to open settings; • select “Data and storage”; • go to the “Autoload media” section and uncheck all the boxes - now the sent files will no longer be automatically saved on the smartphone; • return to the “Data and Storage” menu and view how much space the correspondence with each interlocutor takes up; • to erase unnecessary data, use the “Free up space” button in the contact menu.
Disabling autoloading in Telegram, Viber and other instant messengers follows a similar principle from the application settings menu.
Clearing memory using third-party programs
If you cannot clear the memory of your Samsung mobile device using the built-in tools, you can use numerous utilities specifically designed for this purpose. It makes no sense to list everything; it’s worth highlighting only the most popular ones.
CCleaner
It is considered one of the best programs that quickly and efficiently cleans a smartphone and memory card based on Android Samsung. Using special options, you can quickly get rid of unnecessary data, browsing history, cache and cookies, optimizing the operation of the operating system and increasing the speed of command execution. The software not only clears memory, but also analyzes the impact of programs on the device and removes the software.
Clean Master
Another useful utility designed to optimize and ensure the security of mobile devices. It allows you to save maximum free space, save battery power, protects against overheating and protects against viruses, and ensures a secure connection to the Wi-Fi network.
What is a cache and why is it needed?
A cache is an intermediate storage device that collects data for faster access to it. The importance of such storage can be illustrated using the example of a browser. For example, the owner of a Samsung Galaxy A10 often visits the same site. When you first go to the resource, opening the page takes 3 seconds, and on the next visit – 1 second. Thus, the cache saves time.
Cache is collected by a variety of applications. These are not only browsers, but also image processing programs, video editors, social networks and games. Despite the obvious benefits of the cache, the temporary buffer has a significant drawback. It takes up a large amount of free space in the internal memory.
Since the cache does not contain important files (for example, passwords for accounts or multimedia), you can get rid of it without any consequences. This way, the owner of the Samsung Galaxy A10 will not only get additional space on the internal storage, but will also speed up the operation of the device.
Saving data from phone to PC
Some files remain in demand for a long time, but storing them on a smartphone becomes problematic due to limited memory space. You can get rid of them on Android Samsung by saving them on your computer. This is quite easy to do:
- connect your mobile device to your PC using a USB cable;
- allow file sharing;
- enter the ROM directory and transfer the information of interest to the computer.
Then delete all unnecessary data (photos, text and media files) on the smartphone itself. As a result, significant space will be freed up, which can be used for other purposes.
Cleaning out the Thumbnails folder
The system folder .thumbnails contains thumbnails of photos saved in the gallery. This allows you to increase the speed of viewing images, but if too much data accumulates, it begins to take up valuable space on your smartphone.
How to clean your Samsung phone from unnecessary files: • go to the “Service” menu; • go to the “My files” section; • follow the path “Device memory” - DCIM -.thumbnails; • delete unnecessary data.
You can also clear the contents of the .thumbnails folder from your computer if you connect your smartphone to it using a cable.
Connecting to cloud storages
If the smartphone's ROM turns out to be critically full, and the slot intended for installing an SD card is occupied by an additional SIM, necessary but rarely used files and photos can be transferred to cloud storage. Android Samsung smartphones come with Google Drive installed by default. To download a document (or other file):
- Click on the “+” icon.
- In the dialog box, select “New object”.
- Activate the "Download" option.
- Mark the file you want to move to a new location.
In addition to this application, there are several other, no less popular repositories. This:
- Yandex Disk;
- Dropbox;
- OneDrive;
- Cloud Mail.ru.
All of them provide high reliability of data storage, and also allow you to synchronize various devices of one user through a remote server.
Data transfer
Another simple way to clear the internal memory of a Samsung phone is to transfer data from the drive to another location. For example, files and folders can be saved on an SD card, for this:
• open the “My Files” application (it can be located in the “Tools” menu or in the “Samsung” folder); • go to the “Device Memory” section; • select the folders that take up the most space (you can see the size of an object in the “Details” menu, it is called up using the “Properties” button in the panel below); • click the “Move” button in the lower left corner; • select the “Memory card” section.
To free up space on your smartphone, you can also transfer photos, videos and other large files to external media:
• To your computer's hard drive. To do this, you need to connect your smartphone to your PC using a USB cable, enable data exchange and transfer unnecessary information. • To the cloud. You can move files to Samsung Cloud, Google Drive, Yandex.Disk or any other service convenient for you, and also set up automatic data upload.
A radical way to clear the memory of a Samsung phone is to reset it to factory settings.
Factory reset
If the options proposed above turned out to be ineffective, and after deleting unnecessary information, the Samsung smartphone continues to freeze and slow down its operation, you should resort to more radical measures. One of them is restoring the device to factory settings. After the procedure is completed, it will be in its original condition as it was at the time of purchase. This method allows you to fully restore functionality without the need to use third-party software. To carry out a thorough cleaning, you need:
- go to the “Settings” section;
- Open the "General" tab and then "Reset".
- In the list that opens, select the “Reset settings” item;
- Click on the line and confirm to continue performing the actions.
All that remains is to wait until all files are deleted and the device is rebooted. After this, the smartphone will be as clean as when purchased.
What else can you do to clean it?
In addition to the described methods for freeing up RAM and internal memory on Samsung smartphones, it is worth taking into account other, no less useful recommendations for cleaning the device.
- Removing caches of installed programs and games manually. This is a great option for those who use the services of popular instant messengers and social networking applications. Text and media files, photographs and images received through them, as a rule, take up a lot of space and reduce the speed of the gadget. To fix the problem, it is advisable to regularly delete data and carry out preventive cache cleaning. To do this, you need to take several steps: Menu → Settings → Application Manager. Next, select the program that consumes the most resources and in the “Memory” item, click the “Clear cache” button.
- Erase unnecessary playlists. Music lovers, who often listen to music content, do not notice that streaming services create playlists that take up hundreds of megabytes. Therefore, it is recommended to periodically delete unnecessary data.
To summarize, it should be noted that to optimize the performance of Samsung smartphones, there are many different ways to free up free space and increase memory. If you clean regularly every 2-3 months, you can maintain operating speed and extend the life of the device.
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Removing unnecessary applications
Users rarely uninstall unused programs from their smartphones. Meanwhile, removing unnecessary applications can free up gigabytes of wasted storage space. To view the size of all installed programs and erase unnecessary ones:
• go to settings; • open the “Applications” section (in some firmware versions - “Application Manager”); • a list of all programs installed on the smartphone will open, indicating the volume they occupy; • tap on the name of the utility you do not need; • click on the “Stop” button; • go to the “Memory” menu; • click the “Clear data” and “Clear cache” buttons; • return to the previous menu and tap “Delete”.
Expert commentary
Anton Povetkin
I write reviews, study new technologies, ratings and settings. Manager of an online electronics store.
Samsung smartphones provide a service that allows you to analyze the device's memory. To view statistics on storage usage, open the settings and go to the “Memory” menu.
To free up space on Android smartphones, it is not necessary to completely remove the program. Sometimes it is enough to transfer it from the device to the SD card:
• go to the application manager; • select the desired program; • open the “Memory” section; • click the “Change” button; • check the box next to “Memory card” (or “Move to memory card”); • tap “Move”.
If you are planning to change your mobile phone to a more modern one, we recommend reading the review of the Samsung A72 - the best budget smartphone of 2022.
