I freed up 10GB on my Galaxy phone – and I didn’t delete a single app
Samsung includes a handy tool on every Samsung Galaxy smartphone that analyses your storage, tracks down unnecessary files and suggests specific ones to delete – without you having to uninstall any apps.
I recently used it on my Galaxy S23 Ultra to free up more than 10GB of storage space. But many Galaxy users are unaware of this feature or have never used it. Here’s how to find and use this hidden storage tool.
Device Care: Samsung’s underrated, inbuilt tool
Device Care is a pre-installed system app that comes with every Samsung Galaxy smartphone. It brings together five areas in one place: battery, storage, RAM, performance and device care (updates, maintenance mode).
Many Galaxy users only recognise it as a button for quickly optimising the device, yet there’s significantly more to it than meets the eye, particularly in the storage sub-menu.
Device Care not only analyses how much storage is in use, but what’s taking up the space. It specifically highlights files and groups of files that you’ve probably long since forgotten about, and makes concrete suggestions as to what you can delete. This is a key difference from a simple ‘clean-up’ button: instead of deleting data blindly, you decide for yourself what to remove.
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How to open Device Care on your Galaxy
You’ll find Device Care in the Settings on your Galaxy mobile. You don’t need to install an app or set anything up.
- Open Settings on your Samsung Galaxy.
- Scroll down and tap Device Maintenance.
- Tap Storage to open the storage analysis.
Here, you’ll see a breakdown of how the storage you’ve used is organised: apps, photos, videos, audio files, documents, the bin and other categories. This gives you a good initial overview before you take any action.
In principle, you could go through each category individually and check file by file – but this will take a huge amount of time and I wouldn’t recommend it. It makes more sense to start straight away with the two functions that appear below the category list: Duplicate Files and Large Files.
You can usually delete duplicate files without hesitation, as they’re simply redundant. For large files, a quick overview is enough: these often include videos, archive files or old downloads you no longer need. Together, these can quickly free 5-10GB in one go.
John McCann / Foundry
How to find hidden junk files on your Galaxy
If you scroll down a little further in the Storage menu, things get interesting. This is where Device Care shows you specific suggestions for what you can safely delete. You’ll see individual categories such as old audio files, screenshots, app cache, temporary system data, installation files and more, with details of how much storage space you can free up in each category.
Tap on a category to view the relevant files in detail and select exactly what you want to keep and what you don’t. Device Maintenance doesn’t delete anything automatically – it’s up to you what goes.
When you open Device Maintenance for the first time, it only displays some of the suggestions. Tap ‘Show more’ to expand further categories. This is often where you’ll find the biggest hidden storage hogs.
Empty the Recycle Bin: Quickly free up a few extra gigabytes
At the very bottom of the storage menu in Device Maintenance – that is, below the suggestions – you’ll find the Recycle Bin. On Samsung devices, deleted files don’t vanish immediately but are first stored there temporarily. If you never empty the Recycle Bin manually, data accumulates over time, taking up unnecessary space.
One tap is all it takes to empty it and free up storage straight away.
Archive unused apps instead of deleting them
You’ll also find the Unused Apps section in the Storage menu under Device Care. Here, Samsung lists all the apps you haven’t opened in the last 30 days or more. Have a scroll through this list – you’ll probably find apps there that you’d completely forgotten you still had installed.
For apps you’re definitely no longer using, uninstalling them is the simplest solution. For apps you might want to use again at some point, there’s a clever alternative: archiving. When you archive an app, it isn’t completely deleted. Samsung removes the installation files, thereby freeing up most of the storage space, but your personal data, login details and settings are retained. The app icon remains visible on the home screen and a simple tap automatically restores the app.
To archive several apps at once, tap the Archivable tab in the top right-hand corner of the unused apps menu. There you’ll see all the apps suitable for archiving and can select which ones you’d like to archive.
On my Galaxy S23 Ultra, I archived 7 out of 20 unused apps this way, freeing up a further 1.5 GB of storage.
Luke Baker
Clearing RAM: Close background apps
As well as the ‘Storage’ section, the ‘Device Maintenance’ menu also includes the RAM section. Here, you can see how much RAM is currently being used by apps running in the background and how much you could free up by closing them.
Tapping ‘Clear’ will close any unnecessary background processes. On my device, this freed up a further 1 GB of RAM and made the system run more smoothly.
Clearing the app cache: Reclaim even more memory
Another setting that many Galaxy users overlook is the cache for individual apps. Over time, every app creates temporary files to load more quickly – which makes sense, but can become a noticeable memory hog over the months.
Conclusion: Don’t bother with external cleaning apps
Apps such as CCleaner or similar cleaning tools from the Play Store aren’t necessary and are often not recommended, as they demand access rights that go far beyond what they need to perform their actual task. The Device Care feature does the same job without you having to grant a third party access to your data.
In need of a mobile upgrade? See our top recommendations in our round-up of the best Samsung Galaxy phones.
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