How to increase the storage space in an Android smartphone

Here are some techniques, all very simple to apply, to increase the storage space available on Android smartphones

The storage space is one of the main aspects to consider when buying an Android smartphone. The various apps and the space occupied by the operating system, in fact, occupy the memory very quickly. So let's see some techniques to increase the memory of our device.

One of the best methods to recover part of the memory of our smartphone is definitely the use of a cloud service to move old files that we do not use often, photos and videos. All these data can be safely saved in the cloud to avoid taking up space on the device. However, the cloud storage service may not be the only effective solution to not constantly see the "running out of storage space" notification on our screen. Especially if we own a so-called entry level smartphone.

The use of microSD

A good technique to recover memory is to format a microSD card as internal memory. There are only a few rules to follow in this case. Obviously the first one is to buy a microSD card with a good memory capacity, which also conforms with the total storage space available on our device. Then you must have an Android Marshmallow version or higher. As a final point, the card must be a Class 10 card, and therefore high speed. If you use a slower card it is likely that in the long run you will see some general slowdowns on your device. If we have all the right cards, the first step is to format the SD card. Obviously before we make sure that we have made a backup to avoid losing important files and data. To start formatting, go to Settings and then Storage and USB. At this point we click on the SD card entry. Once in this page, click on the menu icon (the three horizontal lines). In the pop up menu that appears click on Settings. And at this point the last step is to choose the "Format as Internal Memory" item. With this process we'll erase all the data on the card and from then on the microSD will be a real extension of our phone memory. The whole process takes about five minutes. Once finished we'll see that the internal memory of the device considers the storage space of the smartphone cumulatively . Be very careful, as always, when removing the microSD. After internal formatting, a sudden ejection can cause problems, even serious, not only to the card but also to the phone itself.

Samsung and Xiaomi smartphones

Even so, not all smartphones possess the ability to cope with the process just described. For example, Samsung and Xiaomi devices cannot. But even in this case there are some little tricks that we can use to expand our internal memory. First, we need to activate the USB debugging option. All this can be found within the Developer Options that will be previously activated, and installed Android Debug Bridge. It seems like a difficult process but just follow a step-by-step guide. Let's go to Settings, then Phone Info and then Version Number. We have to click on this heading seven times consecutively until a pop-up appears to inform us that we are in Developer mode. At this point we go back to Settings and go to Developer Options. And  click on the USB Dubugging item. At this point we go to ADB Shell and run the command sm list-disk. We note down the device ID at the command prompt. To make the micro SD card become a constant extension of our memory we use the command xxx, x plus the device ID.