Some apps are fun and help you pass time. Other apps link you to friends and family or make it easy to network and find employment. And countless more apps provide news, time-management features, links to shopping, entertainment like movies and podcasts, and everything else under the sun. When all is said and done, there is an app for everything. But all apps have something in common: they take up storage space. Considering the resources that they provide, it makes complete sense that they should take up space; however, that does not mean you want them to hog up so much space that you are left nearly empty-handed and scrambling to either buy more storage or delete every photo and video you’ve ever taken in an effort to gain back space.
Some app are much bigger storage hogs than others. When it comes down to it, these five apps are among the worst when it comes to storage space. If you can delete them, your phone’s storage will thank you.
One report has found that spending just 45 minutes a day on Facebook can result in a loss of 2GB of data in one month. There’s plenty to blame on this app for taking up so much storage: all of the video content that automatically plays, for example. There are some settings that you can change to help make the Facebook app less consuming of storage, and you can even download Facebook Lite and save storage that way, but the number one way you’re going to make a dent in this storage stealing is by deleting the Facebook app altogether. The good news is that you can access Facebook via your phone’s browser and not miss a beat when catching up with friends.
TikTok
Like Facebook, TikTok is an intensely resource-heavy social media app that is busily auto-playing videos in a never-ending stream of content. Whether you are viewing content or creating your own, the app takes up a lot of storage space and battery power. In fact, the TikTok app takes up about 300MB of storage space on your phone.
Pandora and Music Apps
Music-streaming apps like Pandora a strain on your storage space. When you download music, all of those files stick around until you delete them — and, if we’re being honest with ourselves, how often do we remember to delete music? Chances are you’ll want to keep all of the music you download just in case you want to listen to it again. Deleting music apps is a sacrifice, and maybe not one worth making. A better approach might be to delete all but one music app and try and get rid of old files within the app that you never use.
Shopping Apps
Shopping apps like Amazon, Walmart, and Target can take up a surprising amount of storage space on your phone. These apps can become bloated by data that is collected from all of your browsing while shopping. Ask your self if you truly need these shopping apps on your phone — if you can make due with accessing sites like Amazon on your browser, get rid of them.
Movie Streaming Apps
Similar to music apps and podcast apps, movie-streaming apps like Netflix and Hulu can take up 1GB of data for every hour that you stream content. If you think about how often you’re kicking back and enjoy movies an TV shows on these platforms, that’s a lot of data that gets racked up fast. It’s difficult to choose just one streaming service, since they all offer something different. But making it a priority to occasionally delete titles you’ve downloaded can help you maintain more storage space.
