Phone spring cleanup

At some point, most phone users arrive at a very annoying, yet important milestone. Running out of storage space. Just as people often underestimate how much memory (RAM) their computers should have to keep them happy and productive, they often buy a phone with less storage capacity than they’ll realize they need after many months of use.

Part of the reason we tend to fill up our phones quickly is because of how easy it is to accumulate data. Apps are easy to get and in many cases, are free or very inexpensive. Having a camera in your phone means being able to take pictures of anything, at any time. As phone cameras get better, the pictures they create get bigger (in file size). But then videos take this storage requirement to a whole new level. So, at some point, if you’re a vigorous user, you’re going to run out of space and your phone is going to complain. What to do…….

You could back up your phone, but then you’ll need equivalent storage capacity in the cloud (if that’s the option you choose). Storage in the cloud isn’t always abundant, nor is it typically free beyond a certain base amount. There are exceptions to this of course – Google Photos lets you store pretty much unlimited photos in the cloud as long as you let them get a bit compressed. But that doesn’t let you back up apps, etc. I still am aware of many people who still don’t trust the cloud to store their stuff. You could back up to your computer, which programs like iTunes lets you do, but then you need to have your computer if you want to access anything that’s backed up and also deleted from your phone. So, is there another approach? I dare say yes. It’s called spring cleaning. It’s just a carryover from what I recommend to my clients who own computers.

Start with apps. Be stingy and ask the following about every app on your phone. "Have I used this in the last 6 months?" If the answer is ‘no’, and you know you probably won’t use it in the next 6 months either, delete it. You can always get it back later if you change your mind. But don’t stop with just the apps themselves. Some apps, especially those used to communicate, tend to keep a growing pile of past texts, messages, calls, etc. Find out where the apps store their stuff and delete it. Don’t assume that a deleted app will also delete its saved files. Sometimes an app will leave your past history intact, in case you change your mind about deleting it and reinstall in the future.

Next, move on to videos and photos. Look at every video you’ve stored with the eye of a ruthless movie critic. Will you really care about that clip next year? Yes? Then upload it to YouTube or Facebook and delete it from your phone. If your kids roll their eyes every time you show the clip, you may be fooling yourself about just how amazing it is. Delete. Moving on to photos. That picture of those amazing desserts you had at Cheesecake Factory might have looked good when you took them, but seriously. Do you think you’re the only person who has ever had the Ultimate Red Velvet Cake Cheesecake? Nope. And I’m willing to bet there are pics on Google of that dessert that are much more professional. Even if you insist on keeping the dessert photos, you don’t need 10 different angles of cheesecake. Delete nine, keep the best one. Memories are great keepsakes, just don’t act like the Smithsonian Institute about it. One final note about pictures. Did sister really, really love that one pic of the two of you at Disneyland? Great. Send it to her and let her keep it. I know, I can be ruthless.

Music is another thing that can gobble up storage fast on a phone. It's nice to be able to store every song you own, but I know people with music collections topping 100GB and more. If you want to avoid using up a lot of space on your phone, consider paying for a music service like Spotify and let them store all your favourite songs for you. Yes, that means streaming data, but sometimes you have to choose what’s more important – a phone with a lot of storage (expensive), that may still not be enough, or a better data plan (or more use of wi-fi). I let my Spotify songs store on my phone so I can save data costs, but thanks to compression, my measly 1800 songs on Spotify use up 10GB of phone capacity.

If you drill into your phone’s settings, you can find out what’s using up all that space and start to weeding. I’m pretty good about spring cleaning and I’m using about 40GB in total. Half of that is apps and photos. Needless to say, I’d need to be even more ruthless to be able to use a phone with only 32GB of storage.

So if you’re getting low on phone storage, or even if you’re not, consider doing some spring cleaning. But maybe do it every season. Be ruthless. And leverage the cloud as much as you dare.