To recover your lost photos, videos, or songs from the internal storage of your Android phone, you will need the Android data recovery software - EaseUS MobiSaver. (The prerequisite to recovering data from your Android device is that the phone has been rooted.) Step 1: Download and install EaseUS MobiSaver for Android on a Windows PC. Click the button Storage and Clear Cache; If you're running Android 6.0 Marshmallow on your device, like my Huawei Android 6.0, simply click on Files and then Clean up. If you use Launcher Pro or ADW instead of HTC Sense, you can even delete the data files of HTC Sense, which will release dozens MB for your memory storage space. Android Market also provides some apps that will automatically clear up cache data but not for free, such as Quick App Clean Cache. To clear the cache open settings then Storage and tap on cached data and in the next screen choose delete. This is just junk files and no personal data is deleted doing this.

• Can't Access Device Storage Android
• How To Clean Internal Storage On Android Tablet
• How To Clear Other Internal Storage On Android

What Is Media Storage on Android

Media Storage is a system process that is needed when you view, download, play, and stream images, videos, audio files, and other media files. As a system service, it is not available from your phone desktop. Then where is Media Storage in Android? You can access it from your phone:

The most straightforward way to delete a file is to have the opened file reference call delete on itself.

Step 1. Go to 'Settings' > 'Apps'.

Step 2. Click the 'More (three dots)' button and choose 'Show system processes'. (the options may be slightly different on different phone models).

Step 3. After you open 'Media Storage', there are always several options shown, like Disable and Force Stop (when 'unfortunately app has stopped' error occurs, you can try to force stop it). If you click 'Storage', you will see another two options: Clear Data and Clear Cache.

Without knowing the details about these options, some users attempt to disable Media Storage or clear data in Media Storage, aiming to free up space on Android or save battery, only to find that their device cannot work properly or some files are missing. Can you disable Media Storage? Will clear data delete your photos, videos, or audio files? Read on to get the answer.

Frequently Asked Questions About Media Storage on Android

Many users feel confused about the options in Media Storage, here we will explain some of them in detail.

1. Can You Disable Media Storage?

No, you can't. As mentioned, this system process is needed when you download, play, or stream media like videos and audio files. If you disable the options, you won't be able to do things like viewing photos/videos, playing videos/music, and taking photos. Therefore, you cannot disable Media Storage with the purpose of extending the battery life of your device.

2. How to Enable Media Storage on Android?

If you have disabled Media Storage on your Android phone, you should re-enable it to make sure you can use your device as normal.

To enable Media Storage on Android:

Step 1: Go to 'Settings' > 'Apps' (> 'Apps').

Step 2: Click the three dots in the top-right corner and choose 'Show system processes'.

Step 3: You can search for 'Media Storage' and click the option.

Step 4: Click 'Enable' to re-enable the service.

3. Will Clear Data Remove Your Media Files?

No, it won't. When you click 'Clear Data' in Media Storage, all the app's data, including the files produced during the using of the service, settings, accounts, database, and more will be deleted permanently (if you want to recover the deleted files, you can use the Android data recovery software - EaseUS MobiSaver to have a try). It WON'T remove the media files stored on your device like your photos, videos, and audio files. If the media files are gone or missing after you choose 'Clear data', it's probably because you have accidentally disabled Media Storage. Have a check on the option and make sure Media Storage is enabled.

How to Recover Deleted Media Storage Data on Android?

If you are sure that your media files are lost after your misoperation under Media Storage, don't worry. You still have the chance to recover them. Here we've listed 4 methods, try them one by one to recover your deleted Android data.

Method 1: Restart Your Android Device

If you're trying to get back all the sounds, simply restart your phone and this will bring all ringtones and gallery pictures back. It's a matter of the Android OS restoring metadata during the restart.

Method 2: Sync Lost Data from Your Google Account

Tap on 'settings' > 'Applications' > 'Accounts' > 'Google account', uncheck the boxes for sync and check the boxes again. In this way, the cleared data is synced again and will reappear in Media Storage.

Method 3:Find Cleared data in lost.dir folder

If reboot your Android device does not help you find lost data files back, you can try to locate lost.dir folder and look for the lost files there.

Method 4:Download Android data recovery software

Still, none of the methods above finds your lost media files? It's time to apply the best Android data recovery software to recover deleted files from media storage.

Option 1: Recover Lost Files from Android SD Card

If the files lost are saved on your Android SD card, you can apply the hard drive recovery software - EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard to recover them.

Step 1. Run SD card recovery software and scan the card.

Launch EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard on your PC and select your SD card. Then click 'Scan' to start finding lost data on your SD card.

Step 2. Check found SD card data.

After the scanning process, you can click 'Filter' to quickly find wanted files.

Step 3. Restore SD card data.

You can check and preview found files by double-clicking each one of them. Then click Recover to save found SD card files to a secure location on your PC or external storage.

Option 2: Recover Lost Files from Android Internal Storage

To recover your lost photos, videos, or songs from the internal storage of your Android phone, you will need the Android data recovery software - EaseUS MobiSaver. (The prerequisite to recovering data from your Android device is that the phone has been rooted.)

Step 1: Download and install EaseUS MobiSaver for Android on a Windows PC.

Step 2: Connect your Android device to the computer with a USB cable.

Step 3: Run EaseUS MobiSaver for Android and click 'Start' button.

Step 4: Scan Android to find all lost data files.

Step 5: Browse the files in the categories of Gallery, videos, audio and more, and click 'Recover' button to get them all back.

The Bottom Line

Knowing the importance of Media Storage, you won't easily disable this system process next time you want to clean up your Android phone or save battery on your device. To prevent yourself from disabling needed system processes, you can hide the system processes via Settings. Hope the information presented in this article is useful to you.

Summary :

Is your Android phone giving you the insufficient storage available error when you are using it? When this issue happens, do you know how to deal with it? Here, you can read this post from MiniTool to learn how to handle it effectively.

My Phone Says Insufficient Storage But I Have Space

Now, let’s start with a real-life example as follows:

The total space of my app is 10 MB, and after installation, it will take less than 20 MB. In Galaxy Note I, while updating my app, it's saying Insufficient Storage Available, where there is 214 MB of free space in device memory (internal). It happens even trying to download a new app.stackoverflow

This is definitely an error relating to Insufficient Storage Available. What do you think about it?

As it is well known, the internal memory of an Android device is never as ample as it appears. For a device with 32GB of storage, a lot of storage is occupied by the operating system, preinstalled apps, as well as the wasted space based on how the OS formats the storage medium.

As a result, when trying to install or update an app on your Android, you could be told that there is insufficient storage available even though the app takes less space than what is actually available on your Android device. (Sometimes an alternative version of a similar error such as 'this device doesn't have enough space to download' may appear when downloading an app.)

However, there is actually enough storage space available to update or install your required app but not enough space to execute the process.

This is also the answer to the question – “why does my phone say memory full when it isn't”.

Have you encountered this issue: SD card not full but says full and nothing on it in a camera? Now try to recover data from the target SD card and fix it.

Is your Android phone also suffering from insufficient storage error? If yes, don't worry! You are not the only one and we also receive many feedbacks saying Android storage space running out but it's not. Here, we will walk you through 7 simple solutions to quick fix this issue.

Insufficient Storage Android Fix

Solution 1: Clear App Cache to Free up Space on Android

In general, the lack of working space is probably the main cause of having insufficient storage available for Android users. Usually, any Android app uses three sets of storage for the app itself, the app's data files and the app's cache.

If the cache is too large in size, it will occupy a huge part of the space although it is reported that the occupied space is the free space on Android device. In this case, emptying your app cache is a useful way to fix the Android insufficient storage error.

How to clear the app cache? Follow the steps:

1. Open Settings firstly from the home screen and then go to the Applications or Applications manager
2. Then you can see all the downloaded apps on your Android device are listed as well as how much storage space they are taking up.
3. Tap Menu or More to sort these apps by size so as to check which one takes up the most storage.
4. Tap the specific app to see the storage space occupied by the app, its data (the Storage section) and cache (Cache section).
5. Tap Clear Cache to empty cache to free up some space.
6. Repeat the same process for each app.

Additionally, you can also delete all the cache files for all your Android apps together. To do this, navigate to Settings > Storage > Device Memory. Then tap Cache data and Delete to wipe all cached data from all your apps.

After finishing the operations above, you won't complain to us 'my phone says insufficient storage but I have space'.

Solution 2: Transfer Photos/Videos from Android to Computer

If you find that your Android device is having insufficient storage available, one of the best solutions is to move some large files including photos, videos, audios, etc. to your computer so as to free up Android storage. To do this, you need a piece of third-party data transfer tool.

Luckily, this free Android data recovery software - MiniTool Mobile Recovery for Android which is developed by MiniTool Team is worthy of being recommended. This free tool can be not only the Android data recovery software to recover deleted files but also the data transfer tool to save the existing files to a computer.

Besides, it can be used in all Windows OSs including Windows 10/8/7 and supports multiple Android phones and tablets, for example, Samsung, Huawei, Sony, LG, Google, etc. Now, it's up to you to download this freeware for data transferring to fix the insufficient storage available issue.

Step 1: Open MiniTool Mobile Recovery for Android Free on your computer.

Which one module you need to choose from the main interface, Recover from Phone or Recover from SD-Card? Both of them are OK. If your photos, videos or music files are saved to Android internal memory, please click the first section.

Step 2: Connect the phone having the Android storage space running out issue to the computer via a USB cable. Then, analysis operation to your Android device will be performed.

Step 3: To save your photos, videos or other data to a computer successfully, you need to enable USB debugging by following the instructions based on corresponding Android version.

And then you should allow USB debugging on the computer. We suggest checking the Always allow from this computer option to avoid authorization next time.

Step 4: Choose one scan method.

• Quick Scan can be used to scan your Android device in a fast way but it only allows moving contacts, short messages and call records to a computer.
• Deep Scan is designed to scan the entire device so that more files can be transferred but this way costs much time.

Here you should choose Deep Scan to scan and save photos, videos, and audios to your computer in case of insufficient storage available.

Step 5: Then, MiniTool Mobile Recovery for Android will start scanning your device. Afterwards, you can see all the found file types are marked in blue. Just choose the file type you want to extract, check all items and click Recover.

MiniTool Mobile Recovery for Android Free Edition has a limitation: it only allows saving 10 files of each type each time. When phone storage is full, we suggest using its advanced edition to transfer more files.

After getting the license, click register in the scan result interface and register this freeware.

Step 6: Click Browse to specify a storage path or directly save your selected files to the default place in your computer by hitting Recover.

After finishing all the above steps, enter the Android phone and delete all the files you have saved to the computer. Then, the insufficient storage error can be solved.

If lots of pictures or videos are stored on the SD card, causing insufficient space on external storage, you can also use the Recover from SD-Card feature to save deleted and existing files to your computer.

1. Connect the Android SD card to your computer.
2. Select the target card to scan.
3. Choose the pictures or videos to save them to the specified path.

Or you can connect your SD card to a computer and directly move files on the SD card to it.

Solution 3: Save Pictures & Videos to External SD Card Instead of Internal Memory

Photos and videos consume a lot of storage on the Android device. In addition to moving them to a computer, you can fix the issue of Android storage space running out by saving your pictures or videos to an SD card.

Can't Access Device Storage Android

Is it possible to recover deleted Instagram photos? Now, in this post, we will tell you how to use MiniTool software as well as other two ways to do this job.

If you have already stored photos and videos on the phone's internal storage, you should firstly remove them to the SD card. After that, change the default storage for the pictures and videos to the SD card.

To do this, go to Settings > Camera Settings. Then, select Storage location to change it to SD card or Memory card if the default storage path is Device.

Solution 4: Uninstall Unwanted Apps

Sometimes the 'Android storage space running out but it's not' issue is caused by the overwhelming amount of data stored on your phone’s internal memory. If you have many apps on your Android device and use them simultaneously, cache memory on your phone can be blocked, which leads to Android insufficient storage.

In this case, you can choose to uninstall some unwanted or unused apps to free up storage space. This operation is very simple.

To uninstall an app, go to Settings in your Android phone, and enter the Apps section to get a list of all apps that have been installed on your device. Also, you can sort them by size. Then choose the app you don't need and click Uninstall to remove it.

If you have many apps need to be deleted, repeat the above steps to free up some space to fix insufficient space.

Solution 5: Move Apps from Internal Storage to SD card

Some of you may not want to uninstall any app and would rather search for insufficient storage available Android fix without root. Here, simply moving some apps from the internal storage to your SD card is a good option. This can add space to the internal memory of your phone and solve the “can’t install app insufficient storage available” problem.

1. Go to the Settings menu on your Android device.
2. Tap on Apps.
3. You can still arrange all apps in order by taping Sort by size. Then, choose the app and tap Move to SD card.
4. Repeat the operation to remove the apps which are taking up much storage space.

Solution 6: Use an Cleaning App to Free up Android Space

Sometimes some junk files occupy much Android space, causing insufficient space on the device. In this case, you can use a cleaning app for Android to clean some junk files and optimize your device.

How To Clean Internal Storage On Android Tablet

The app can be MobileGo, CCleaner, etc. Just download one from Google Play Store to remove some cache, junk or unwanted files.

Solution 7: Factory Reset Your Device

If you have tried all the above solutions but still encounter the insufficient storage available error, you may fix the problem by factory resetting.

1. Go to Settings.
2. Tap System > Reset or Backup & reset.
3. Tap on Factory data reset and Reset phone or Reset tablet. If there is a need, input your PIN, pattern, or password.
4. At last, tap on Erase everything.

Note that this method can wipe all data stored on your Android device. Thus, you had better back up your important data firstly. If you forget to make a backup beforehand and lost many important files after factory resetting, what should you do?

MiniTool Mobile Recovery for Android can still be your good assistant. As professional Android data recovery software, it can help to effectively recover deleted files including contacts, messages, videos, photos, music files and more to your computer.

How To Clear Other Internal Storage On Android

How can you recover deleted videos Android? This post will introduce you different ways to get deleted Android videos back with third-party software.

Verdict

Are you encountering the insufficient storage available issue on the Android phone or tablet when installing an app? Now, it is the time to try the above seven simple ways to fix Android storage space running out and optimize the performance.

Have some problems when using MiniTool Mobile Recovery for Android to move files or recover data? Or have any suggestions to fix the insufficient storage error? Please let us know by sending an email to [email protected] or leaving your idea below.