Make Room for 2017 with these 6 Digital Space-Saving Tips
As we enter into 2017, eating healthier and being more positive might have made your new year’s resolutions list. But beyond self-improvement, you also need to think about your devices and technology. With all your great projects from last year, you probably have little room on your phones, tablets and computers for this year’s content. Free up some digital room with these space-saving tips and get a fresh start in the new year:
6. Clean up hard disks & cache
Over time, the hard disk on your laptop or computer can get pretty messy. Each time a new application is installed or you work on a heavy multimedia project, data files are added to your computer, and they’re not always easy to find or delete. Before long, those files can add up and take up space. Thankfully, disk cleanup applications like CleanMyPC (Windows) will find and delete the extra digital baggage you’re carrying around. For Mac users, deleting cache has the same effect, or you can download a program like CleanMyMac.
5. Backup and move files
If you’ve never backed up your computer, don’t panic. Slowly step away from this article, head to your nearest technology distribution center and get to work. It’s never too late. Backing up your work will not only recover all your precious work in case your hard drive crashes, but it will also free you up to start deleting old projects that are taking up too much space. Especially with high resolution images and video, multimedia adds up quickly. Beyond a physical hard disk, it might be a good idea to invest in cloud storage like Dropbox or iCloud, so you can access your files any time, without manually hooking up to a disk.
4. Change photo and video settings
Most smartphones today take outstanding photos and video. While that can be a huge advantage for your digital multimedia projects, it doesn’t help you much when trying to save space. For everyday use, you probably don’t need the highest image settings, such as HDR and 4k video on iPhones. If you’re using Photo Stream on any of your Apple devices, those images are also being added to your hard drive space, so you may want to disable that feature by going to Settings > Photos & Camera and deselect My Photo Stream. Android users can download Google Photo, which makes automatic backups of all your photos, and allows you to easily delete duplicate photos.
3. Delete media and messages
At some point, you should probably think about deleting all those gifs and videos from group messages and texts. Multimedia within your messages often take up more space on your device than you think and can add up quickly. For iPhone users, the easiest way to delete them is by going to Settings > Messages > Message History > Keep Messages, and select a time parameter, and then click Delete. You probably should backup your phone or save any old messages before doing this, as it will delete messages older 30 days or 1 year old. Similar instructions for Android users can be found here.
2. Delete or move apps
Photos, video and music are usually to blame for your lack of mobile space, but you might be surprised to see how much space everyday apps take up on your device. Because many social media apps collect cache and save other data to your phone as you use them, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat are often the biggest culprits. iPhone users can go to Settings >> General >> Storage & iCloud Usage >> Manage Storage to find out which apps are weighing you down the most. When you delete an app like Facebook, all the extra data will go with it. So, if you turn around and re-download it, the app should be much smaller. One great trick for Android users is to move apps to an SD card. Just go to Settings >> Applications >> Application Manager and choose the app you want to moved. Then, select Move to SD card.
1. Delete Downloads
The easiest solution, and often the most forgettable, is to do delete that long list of files in your Downloads folder. Over time, this directory gets heavier and heavier. Without trashing the files from time to time, your devices are likely to carry around a lot of extra weight. You can do this with any PC, Mac or even Android device, and it will sometimes free up several gigabytes of space (be sure to Empty the trash on Macs).
