Google's Files App Frees Up Tens of Gigabytes on Smartphones Easily

As artificial intelligence models increasingly occupy valuable storage space on smartphones, users face shrinking capacity for photos, videos, and essential apps. However, instead of paying for cloud storage, Google offers a free solution through its Files by Google app, available on Google Play. This app not only manages files but also includes powerful cleaning tools that categorize unnecessary files for easy deletion.

Users can access these tools by selecting the "Clean" option in the app's menu, which identifies categories such as blurry photos, duplicate files, memes, and old screenshots. In a test on a five-year-old Samsung Galaxy S21, the app quickly found over 2,000 old screenshots occupying about 1.5 gigabytes, which were deleted with one tap. Additional cleaning of duplicates freed up 500 megabytes, blurry photos 50 megabytes, and removing about 100 memes helped reduce gallery clutter.

The most significant storage recovery came from identifying unused apps, which accounted for nearly 20 gigabytes of lost space. Along with deleting other large files, the total reclaimed storage reached approximately 25 gigabytes. This amount of free space is difficult to achieve through manual cleaning due to users' hesitation to delete important files. Google's app addresses this by safely organizing only files deemed safe to remove, saving users from time-consuming manual sorting and helping their phones run more smoothly.