What is other in storage Android? It’s the most curious question that jumps into every smartphone user mind.
In simple words, Other is categorized storage that contains system, cached and temporary files
In past years, Android has improved significantly as an OS. Google has put a lot of effort into improving its file storage system, and its applications have been much faster. However, this has come at the expense of your internal storage.
Your operating system files have grown in size, applications have increased, and games became more resourceful.
With all of this in mind, it’s no wonder that your Android smartphone, with its massive storage space, will quickly fill up. Although you can instantly see what images, videos, directories, notes, programs, and games are taking up storage space, specific files can be hidden.
We will share what files are consuming space in the “Others” storage in Android and show you how to free up space from there.
What is Other in Storage Android ?
In the Smartphone’s internal memory, any unspecified data files are categorized as “Other.” And this is what’s taking up space in your phone’s Other drive. Now, hopefully you know what does other mean in storage.
There are multiple categorized storage sections for different files in the Android internal storage, including Apps, Images, Videos, Audio, Cached and Other. The files on your Android have been categorized in these sections accordingly. You might wondering that what is other in phone storage?
Well, we have the answer for you. If any file doesn’t match the categories above, the Android system automatically moves them into the “Other” category. In easy words, the other storage section is mostly used by the unspecified data files on your phone. But users can move those files from the “Other” category to any other category. The “Other” storage section can be larger or smaller according to your device and daily usage.
Private Apps Data
Private app data is being reported as perhaps the most common cause of the file storage overflowing in the Others category. Consequently, these could include downloaded files, unsuccessful OTA patches, server backup files, and more.
Nowadays, most games and apps come with a smaller installation size, but these apps require a huge additional resource data to be downloaded from the cloud to run an app on your Android. Moreover, some apps sync to the cloud storage to backup and restore data according to the user’s preferences.
Besides that, streaming apps will sometimes malfunction and forget to erase cache data, which will fill up the Android phone’s storage room.
Backup Failures
Google allows you the choice of backing up your smartphone content to the cloud. Other platforms permit you to do the same with competitive price plans.
Keeping your smartphone app syncs to the cloud has several benefits. You will have a copy of those data even though you delete it, and you will be able to acquire all of your files when your phone’s local storage is not enough.
Password vaults, app file backups, free disk space, file sharing, and other features are available via cloud providers. However, daily upgrades and new functionality will cause these services to malfunction.
Even if most of these problems are resolved immediately, there could be unsuccessful backups on your phone that are not accepted by the backup service. There may also be redundant files on the phone taking up valuable Storage, which would appear in your ‘Other’ section.
Failed OTA Updates
Newly released Android phones get regular security updates and major OS updates in their life cycle for performance improvements and new features. Android provides these updates via on-the-air (OTA), which is the easiest way for users to get updates wirelessly.
OTA update is undoubtedly a great feature, but it has some drawbacks too. It requires a stable internet connection and pings. Thus, it can be easily failed because of a slow and unstable internet connection. Especially when you are traveling, there’s a huge chance of getting failed OTA updates.
These incomplete downloaded files are moved into the “Other” file section on your device. Most of these files are not deleted automatically; you need to delete or clean them up manually.
Temp Data and Caches
Your web pages, applications, and games are always connected to the web, downloading large amounts of data in the format of the text, pictures, and videos.
User files, advertisements, content, and a variety of other things could be included. To keep the internal memory clear of unnecessary stuff, each of these data is customarily developed to clean up when you remove them.
However, there are times when these data are stored over; this is especially popular for web browsers. If you don’t clear the web content, your browser’s storage will fill up quickly, using a lot of space on your phone.
If you inspect the Storage with Android’s stock program, each of these momentary and cached data will appear as ‘Other.’
How to Clear Internal Storage on Android?
You can easily clear internal storage on Android by following the guide below.
Don’t lose hope. Still, you can get rid of these unnecessary files from your Android phone. And you can achieve a fair amount of space out of them.
Android Stock Cleaner
Most Android phones now have a feature that allows you to wipe up your phone’s memory from inside the Settings app. This is how you can do it:
- Open the phone’s Settings window.
- Search your Storage option by scrolling down. It should be under Device Care on Samsung phones. Put it another way. You can use the search box at the top to look for the term “storage.”
- Inside the tab, you will find the “Other” storage option, which indicates the consumed space.
- Tap on that, and now you can view the files that it has. On the right of every file form, there is a Clean Up button.
The User interface for Storage can vary by the Android device.
Use a Storage Analyser or a File Manager app.
Using a Storage Analyser app is the best way to free up internal storage on Android. There are many efficient file manager apps available on the Google Play Store. These apps can show your phone’s internal storage more efficiently and help you clean up. Below we have listed some best File manager apps that will help you clear storage on Android.
1.Storage Analyser & Disk Usage by Anton Patapovich
This file manager app focuses on analyzing storage and freeing up space on your Android’s internal storage. The UI of this app provides you with a detailed view of your phone’s local storage. Moreover, it comes with an inbuilt cache cleaner.
Storage Analyser & Disk Usage app shows graphs and charts based on different parameters such as date created, last modified, and storage size. It has a widget you can place on your home screen that will save time while cleaning up local storage on your device.
Besides, its Top 10 features will show you the largest files on your internal storage that will help you clean easily.
2.Disk Usage by Ivan Volosyuk
Disk usage is an open-source project app showing you different visual parameters of your phone’s internal storage. This file manager mainly focuses on privacy. It has a detailed diagram UI that will help you identify large files and directories on the local storage that you can clean manually to free up space.
Disk usage is available on the Google Play Store for free. This app is smaller and has a simple UI that will efficiently help you free up storage on your device.
3.Ghost Commander by Ghost Squared
Ghost commander is another free file manager app that you can get from the Google Play Store. Like the Disk Usage app above, this app is also a privacy-focused app for Android. This app has an easily sorted UI based on name, size, date, and extension.
This file manager app is so powerful that it can handle and modify partitions and has a feature to compress and decompress files. Moreover, it has an inbuilt FTP client with an image viewer and text viewer.
4.Amaze File Manager by Team Amaze
Amaze file manager is one of Android’s most popular file managers. It is also an open-source code project by Team Amaze. It has an attractive material design and also supports AES encryption. It comes with built-in major cloud services and a database reader.
This file manager comes with a default APK reader. Moreover, it is one of the few file managers that supports .zip and .rar files. The most interesting thing about this file manager is that it doesn’t show any inbuilt ads. You can easily clean up cached files and other hidden temporary files using this app.
5.File Manager by Flashlight + Clock
This is another popular file manager app available for Android with many interesting features. It comprehensively visualizes your internal storage, SD Card, and USB Mass Storage connected with OTG.
The File Manager will divide your files into different categories and subcategories, such as audio files and videos, images, system files, downloads, etc. The most interesting feature of the file manager is that it allows you to sync to the cloud and provide a detailed storage analysis of your local storage.
Check Storage Space by Apps
Android’s built-in storage scanner could be handy if your app content is cluttering up your internal space. Follow this easy guideline to make use of this function.
- Open the Settings tab on your phone.
- Open Storage Options by navigating to it.
- If the device’s manufacturing company allows it, sort the applications by scale. If it is not, manually search for applications with huge data volumes.
- Tap on the app and select Clear Cache from the menu.
- If that doesn’t work, go ahead and Clear All records.
Store your Photos in Cloud Storage
Photos and videos may hold the most space on your device. Sometimes we take many unnecessary photos and videos and forget to delete them later. Thus, this can be clogged up your phone’s internal storage silently.
You might have heard about Google Photos if you have an Android phone. Most Android phones have the Google Photos app preinstalled. You can easily back up your photos and videos to Google Photos and free up your phone space.
Follow the instructions below for backing up your photos and video files to your Google account.
- Launch the Google Photos/Photos app on your phone.
- Tap on the icon in the upper right corner. If you are already backing up your photos, you will see the “Backup complete” option in the drop-down menu.
- If not backing up, tap on the “Photos settings” option and select “Back up & sync.”
- Now, toggle the “Back up & sync” option.
If your problem is not solved & Interested to know more about deleting or clear other storage, then please read:
How To Delete Or Clear Other Storage On Android?
Final Thoughts
If you are ever running out of phone storage while installing a new app, don’t think you are alone. It’s a regular issue among Android smartphone users.
After facing this issue, the most common query is “what is Others in storage Android” by many users. Thus, we have shared the file formats stored inside this, locating the folder and deleting them to save some spaces. Let us know if this post helped to solve your problem or not.
FAQ
Why My Android Phone Use Too Much Internal Storage, Up To 4.3 GB?
Your Android phone use too much internal storage, up to 4.3 GB for the following reasons:
- Before you purchased the handset, the manufacturer loaded several pre-installed applications. However, these games won’t take up a lot of space in general. They can only take up a few hundred megabytes of data on your device.
- You’ve installed all of your android apps on system memory, and the amount of space these apps take up is determined by the number of apps you’ve installed and the types of apps you have.
In reality, the Android operating system is relatively small, taking up just around 500 megabytes in total.
Should I Use Third-party File Manager to Clean My Phone Memory?
Yes, you should use third-party file manager app to clean your phone memory. If it’s an efficient app, you can always use an additional app to optimize your internal memory. These are the best file managers that you can give a try:
What is other in samsung galaxy storage?
In Android phones, unspecified data files are categorized in the “Other” section. And these files clog up your phone’s internal storage.
What is other in Android storage?
There are different file categories on Android storage, “Other” is one of them. Any file that doesn’t match the file categories is automatically categorized in the Other storage Android section.
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