Gmail is an app that you may not expect, but can easily deplete your phone’s storage, and this can apply to any email apps you may have on your device. Unlike apps like your phone’s gallery or media apps, which you can quickly clear up as you sort through your photos or videos, email apps can be silent killers. Gmail, in particular, can take up storage due to factors like cache, multiple account login and sync, and “All Mail” syncing, as well as indirect factors like large attachments that are automatically downloaded locally.

To combat this, you can manually empty your trash or spam (for an immediate fix) and clear the app cache

When it comes to personal messaging, a prominent app to keep track of is WhatsApp. Media is a main variable for storage issues, whether you receive or send it, but other factors like chat backup and auto download can also cause issues. Unlike apps that you don’t use very often, it’s also difficult to offload such apps, so it’s important to keep an eye on backups and media.

If you use WhatsApp regularly and frequently receive large attachments, make sure you disable autodownload on your device so that media is not saved locally to your device. For Android, tap “More Options” (three dots) in WhatsApp and go to Settings > Chats, then turn off “Media visibility.” For iPhone, tap Settings > Chats, then turn off “Save to Photos.”

Social media apps can quickly hog your device’s storage, since they store cache for loading high-resolution media. There are also factors like app size, drafts, bookmarks, and chats, frequent updates, and background data. My worst storage killers are consistently X, Instagram, and TikTok, and you might notice that apps that display high-resolution videos can have this problem.

Saving content for viewing later can also contribute, so it’s a good idea to go through your saves and bookmarks regularly to remove unnecessary media. Further, you can keep an eye on how long you scroll on high storage-consuming social media apps to reduce video data and related cache.

Apart from social media and communication apps, streaming apps are also a major contributor to storage problems on your device. Storage used by apps like Netflix, Spotify, and YouTube only increases due to offline downloads and download-quality preferences, beyond cache.

Regularly managing your offline library and download preferences can help, and you can also offload or delete streaming apps that you barely use on your phone (this is something I do for Netflix on my phone, since I use it on my desktop frequently). For music streaming apps like Spotify, I ensure that I download music offline only for long-distance travel or when I’m staying in low-connectivity areas.

Finally, the main reason many people experience storage issues does not even involve a third-party app: your device’s photos/gallery app can often be a major reason you’re running out of storage quiclky. Media file format and resolution can contribute to more storage being taken up. But it’s not always realistic to spend time going through your gallery to delete media or compromise on media quality.

Backing up local media files to a cloud storage service (iCloud, Google Drive, OneDrive, etc.) is the easiest fix to this problem, with monthly subscription options starting from as low as $0.99/month, with perks like storage ranging from 50GB to more than 2TB (depending on your plan) and device sync. You can also regularly delete duplicate media and manage videos, which can be a major storage killer.

How to manage storage on your device

To ensure that your phone’s storage is not fully eaten up by essential apps and features, there are a few things you can do.

• For starters, you can clear the cache for apps that take up the most storage. On Android, go to Settings > Apps, select the app, then tap “Storage”, and choose “Clear cache”.
• On iPhone, there is no option to clear cache, but you can reinstall the app (or offload it if you don’t use it very frequently).
• To offload an app on iPhone, go to Settings > General > iPhone Storage and choose an app, then tap “Offload App.” This can help clear the app’s cache without actually deleting important app data.
• Another way to manage storage is to keep an eye on duplicate files and autodownloads, as well as other hidden files or data  that you may not be aware of If you want to upgrade your phone storage, look into cloud subscriptions that fit your needs and budget as well.

These apps (and others) may be your main storage killers, but it’s also important to be wary of how many apps you have downloaded, and regularly delete apps you no longer use, since app size can also contribute to storage issues.