How to expand the internal memory of a samsung, huawei, etc.

It is only possible to expand the internal memory of a cell phone that has an external micro SD card. On devices that lack this feature, the only option to have more internal memory available is to free up the space already used.

To increase the internal memory you have to convert the micro SD card into internal storage. In the Android 6 or higher system, there is an option that allows you to do this easily.

If there is no micro SD slot, to have more internal memory you have to free up used space. For that, the most important thing is to delete or move the photos, videos and files of the device, among other things.

How to expand the internal memory Android 6 or higher

To increase the internal memory of Android 6 (Marshmallow) onwards, you have to format the SD card as internal memory. A) Yes:

1. Settings.
2. Storage.
3. SD card.
4. Menu button (top right), “Settings” option.
5. Format as storage internal.
6. Delete and Format.

The data saved on the SD card will be erased. Take care to back up, if deemed necessary.

Increase internal memory: Problems and solutions

On devices that do not have the Format as Internal Storage (Adoptable Storage) option, it may be possible to enable this feature. However, the process is a bit technical.

Adoptable storage, which is what this feature is called, has a few downsides. However, those drawbacks can be overcome by setting the SD card to mixed mode. That is, configure the micro SD as internal and external memory at the same time.

How to have more internal memory in other Android

In cell phones with another version of Android (5 or lower), the option to convert the SD card into internal storage is not available. Although they have support for micro SD. In this case, the only solution to have more available capacity is to free up internal memory.

Delete or move files

Deleting the files is one of the best solutions to have more internal memory available.

Photos, videos, music and user files in general are the items that consume the most internal memory. The easiest thing is to delete them, but if they are important, it can be moved to the SD card, to a PC or even to a cloud storage.

Start with the largest files

You have to start by deleting the largest files. An excellent application to determine this very easily is Disk Usage.

Once this is determined, you can choose to remove or move them. This can be done with the phone’s “Files” manager, or with a third-party application. These applications offer the option to move or delete, just by long pressing on the files.

Move to SD card

1. In the file manager, internal memory is selected (sometimes identified as sdcard0).
2. The file or files to be moved are selected (long press).
3. Touch the menu button.
4. Choose the Move option.
5. Choose the destination, in this case the external SD card (which usually has the name of sdcard1 O extSdcard).

Move to PC
If the device does not have an SD card, the files will have to be moved from the internal memory to a PC, to be backed up there.

It is easy, because it is only a matter of connecting the cell phone to the PC with the USB cable and from the PC’s file explorer, manage them. On the PC, you have to right click on the cell phone files and choose the “Cut” option. Then, right-click on a folder on the PC and use the “Paste” option.

Move to cloud storage
Another option is to use the Google Photos app. This app offers unlimited storage in the cloud of photos and videos. Can be downloaded for free from Google Play.

Uninstall or Move apps

Uninstalling the applications allows you to notably free internal memory of the Android as well:

1. Settings.
2. Applications (if possible, sort by size, to see the apps that consume the most space first).
3. Select the application.
4. Touch on the “Uninstall” option.

To move to the SD card, instead of Uninstall, tap on “Storage” and then “Change” to move to the SD.

Most devices do not have the option to move to the SD card. Or they only allow to move certain applications. To obtain or expand this possibility, you will need root permissions. Once that has been accomplished, the Link2SD application can be used. We have a tutorial to move the applications to the SD card.

Clear CACHE

Clearing the Android cache can help increase internal memory by several hundred Megabytes. The option is in the Android system itself:

1. Settings.
2. Storage.
3. Cache data. Touch on it to delete it.

In a Samsung cell phone modern, this option is in Settings> Device maintenance> Storage> Unlock.

The application cache can be cleared one by one:

1. Settings.
2. Applications.
3. Choose application.
4. Storage.
5. Clear cache.

The cache is a memory that stores temporary “elements” of applications, games, files and web pages so that they can be opened quickly. Sometimes they can consume a lot of internal memory, so it is a good idea to remove them. It is safe and does not affect at all.

APPLICATIONS to free internal memory, without being root

There are cleaning apps that are amazing and help to dramatically increase internal memory in just one tap. One of the best applications to do this job is CCleaner.

Basically, these apps delete junk files, remnants of uninstalled applications, cache, and any kind of files that are no longer useful. These applications never touch and worse still delete the user’s files (unless explicitly instructed to do so); they just remove garbage from the system.

Other tricks to have more internal memory

On the next page you can see more information on how to have more memory available if it is full. Another good article is the one that solves the problem of insufficient space when you cannot install applications, despite having done everything.