Android: Low on space. Phone storage space is getting low.

This is probably the biggest pain in the ass that we Android users face. I can't really remember the circumstances as I've cleared mine quite awhile back, but it does include problems like not being able to update your apps and logging into your Gmail account to name a few.

The solution? Clearing up your Android's internal memory! Why? Our phone uses it's internal memory as it's RAM therefore the more space there is on the phone the faster it will function (my own theory... no idea if there's any truth to it! LOL!) and the other obvious reasons is removing that irritating icon at the top and being able to access our mail and update our apps in the marketplace.

From my experience, there's only 3 ways worth your time to solve this problem.

1. Rooting your android (Not recommended)
I like to keep things simple and my android is not rooted as well. But yeah, this way we are able to transfer all our data freely from our phone's internal memory and our SD card as well as other benefits which I will not be explaining in detail.

2. Apps2SD (compulsory for all froyo users)

App 2 SD

Just download it from the marketplace. This application is used to transfer movable applications to your SD card easily. The down side? Not all apps can be moved which still uses alot of space.. but it's not a major thing, you'll find out why in the next method.

3. Clearing up unnecessary Contacts Data. (Most effective!)
Our Androids stores up alot of unnecessary contacts data with it's syncing and actually uses up most of the phone's internal memory. Hence clearing it will probably give you an extra 20 to 100++ MB depending on how many contacts you have in your list and the amount of data stored in it.

DON'T WORRY: YOU WON'T LOSE ANY OF YOUR CONTACTS OR THEIR CONTACT DETAILS (e.g. name, phone number, address, email, facebook etc etc etc)

It's been awhile since i've done it and I'll try to remember the steps. So if it work's leave me a comment!

Step 1: Back up
1. Go to All Apps
2. Open People/Contacts
3. Press Menu
4.Click on Import/Export
5. Export to SD card
6. Click Google. *take note of where and the name of your file is for which Google/SIM/Phone*
 (it should look like this /sdcard/google_username_000001.vcf)
7. Confirm export - Click OK
8. Repeat steps for SIM and Phone *remember to take note of the file location*

*this step takes quite awhile if you have alot of contacts on your phone

Optional: to be really safe you can backup your contact files to your computer in case anything goes wrong =)

Step 2: Clearing the Contacts Storage
1. Go to Settings
2. Go to Applications
3. Go to Manage Applications
4. On the tabs menu click on All
5. Click on Contacts Storage
You will see a large amount of data and storage space used here!
6. Click Clear Data - this will delete your entire contact database so make sure you have done the backup steps or you'll lose all your contacts!

Your data and storage should be at 0.0MB, if it's not you can go to the People application earlier and individually delete all of them to prevent duplicated contacts.

Step 3: Restoring Contacts
1. Go to All Apps
2. Open People/Contacts
3. Press Menu
4. Click on Import/Export
5. Click Import from SD card
6. Click Google
7. Click Import one vCard file
8. Click on the file you've noted down earlier in Step 1
(e.g. google_username_000001.vcf)
9. Repeat for all steps accordingly for Phone.

Step 4: Syncing your Contacts (Optional unless your really need to... cause this will just cause another build up of low storage memory)
1. Go to Settings
2. Click on Accounts & sync
3. Turn on your Auto-sync (this will sync your phone contacts and data with your facebook, google, twitter etc etc.)

Thats it! You will notice that your phone will have ALOT of extra internal memory.

Note: This was written entirely on memory and the author will not be held responsible for any damage occurred or lost of data in your Android. There are more accurate and detailed guides about this on other pages if you want to be safe.

Testimony:

- I personally tried this method with my phone. My contact storage before clearing the contact storage was 19.43 MB and after following the tutorial, my contacts storage went down to 4.07 MB. Thanks! - Jason , Malaysia


- since clearing the contacts storage really wasnt enough to solve my space problem. i went and cleared data for my fb, mail, dialer storage and dunno what else. everyhing is fine.. except, all my msgs are gone. LOL, but return...i get 50mb freed up. - Joanne, Malaysia