I'm running out of space!

Are you constantly running out of space on your Android phone or your iPhone? Yeah, me too! This time we’ll discuss why you might be running out of space and how to deal with it.

I do just about everything with my phone. I browse the Internet, buy things on Amazon and eBay, take pictures, listen to music from my streaming services, watch a few videos from YouTube and Netflix and look at a few documents that have been mailed to me. I thought I bought a phone with a large enough storage that I wouldn’t have to worry about running out of space. So why am I getting messages telling me that I am? Well, just about every app you use, every site you visit, every video you watch and music track you listen to will store some of the things you’ve watched or listened to or viewed on your phone or tablet (called “caching” - data is stored in a “cache”) so that it can startup or resume more quickly later. That’s fine as long as you have plenty of free space but, eventually all that caching will catch up with you and you’ll start to get those “out of space” messages. Do you want to delete any of your pictures to make space? No, of course not! So what is one to do? You can connect your device (phone or tablet) to your home computer and copy your important stuff to your computer and then delete it on your device. And, while that’s a good idea, it also means you can’t look at those pictures on your phone anymore. You can buy a USB drive and copy your stuff to it and you can carry that drive with you so you can get to your stuff anytime you like. Again, that’s a good idea but that can be a bit awkward. Yes, there is another alternative - the “cloud.”

When you hear the term “cloud” you might think of some magical place “out there” that somehow stores your stuff for you. Trust me, there’s nothing magical about it! It’s really just a bunch of computers and storage devices at a big “data center” - a place that is made to house computers and storage devices with lots of power and good connections to the Internet. If you have an account on one of those cloud providers, you can get their app, log in to it and tell it what you want stored in their cloud. Once your stuff is safely located in their cloud you can direct the app to delete that stuff on your device. You can access your stuff in their cloud through their app so your stuff is still easily available to you when you have access to the Internet which, for most of us, is pretty much all the time. If you’re on a Apple device you have iCloud, if you’re on an Adroid device you have Google Drive. But there are other providers out there that you may have access to without knowing it.

Do you have an Amazon Prime account? Then you have Amazon Photo storage, regardless of whether you are on Apple or Android. Download the app and upload your photos to Amazon Photos then have the app delete them from your device. Like iCloud and Google Drive, your stuff is accessible any time you have Internet access.

Do you have a Microsoft 365 subscription? Then you have OneDrive, regardless of whether you are on an Apple or an Android device. Tell it what you want it to store in the OneDrive cloud (anything, not just pictures) and it will do so and delete the original file from your device once it’s safely tucked away in your OneDrive. Like iCloud and Google Drive, your stuff is accessible any time you have Internet access.

But you may still be running low on space. All of those cached files might be what’s using your precious storage. So, go into your storage settings and get rid of trash and cached files. For iPhone and iPad see https://www.laptopmag.com/news/how-to-clear-cache-on-iphone-declutter-your-ios-device, for Android see https://www.tomsguide.com/how-to/how-to-clear-android-cache (for Samsung, go to Battery and Device Care, then Storage and follow the directions in the linked article).

That's all for this week's column. I hope you have reclaimed storage on your device. Don't hesitate to write to me if you have questions!

As always, my intent with these columns is to spark your curiosity, give you enough information to get started, and arm you with the necessary keywords (or buzzwords) so you'll understand the basics and are equipped to search for more detailed information.

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