Spring’s arrival means no more procrastinating. It’s time to roll up your sleeves, pack up the old clothes collecting dust in your closet and take them to the nearest donation center. Let’s be honest, you know you’re never going to wear that shirt you’ve had since high school.
Making space in our closets serves its purpose. But it also provides a friendly reminder to make space in another everyday part of our lives: our smartphones.
Sadly, our beloved phones only come with a finite amount of built-in storage, which poses a challenge to those of us who frequently take pictures, record video and download the latest apps.
To learn how to save storage space on our phones, we spoke with Geek Squad Agent Derek Meister.
He shared five easy things you can do right now to free up space on your iOS or Android phone.
1. Don’t need it? Delete it
One of the best ways to reclaim storage space is to see which apps use the most space and delete those you don’t need. If you haven’t used an app in 2-3 months, get rid of it! Both iOS and Android users can do this via their “Settings” app. And if you downloaded movies or podcasts you no longer watch, delete ‘em!
2. Save text messages for 30 days, not forever
Your messages app can be a surprisingly big file if you text often, rarely delete messages and send pictures and videos. Change your default setting to automatically delete messages after 30 days to help save space.
3. Stream it if you can
Who doesn’t enjoy listening to music or watching a TV show on-the-go? Saving these files to our phone is convenient, but streaming services like Google Music or Spotify for music and Hulu or Netflix for videos offer a more space-friendly alternative. Note: Keep an eye on your data use when streaming (use Wi-Fi when possible).
4. Embrace the cloud
Saving files to the internet is unsettling for some, but cloud services like DropBox, Amazon Drive, Google Drive and iCloud enable you to securely save as many files as you want. DropBox and Google Drive will even let you store files for free, up to a certain size limit.
5. Back up files to a flash drive
Want to back up your files but don’t have service or Wi-Fi? A smartphone-compatible flash drive like the SanDisk iXpand lightning flash drive for iPhone or the SanDisk Ultra Dual flash drive for Android will allow you to back up your files anywhere, anytime.
To learn more about storage-saving solutions, visit your nearest Best Buy store and talk to one of our knowledgeable Blue Shirts or Geek Squad Agents.