How To Free Storage On Galaxy S8 And Galaxy S8 Plus

No matter how much storage space you have on your Samsung Galaxy S8 or Galaxy S8 Plus, you will always want more. It’s the secret power of these amazing smartphones and their impressive technological might – they lure you into downloading music, taking photographs and filming videos, downloading all kinds of things, up until you are running out of space.

When that happens, here are the best 6 things you can do to save the situation and continue using your Galaxy S8 or Galaxy S8 Plus to its fullest potential:

Remove any third-party app that you don’t need;
Clean up the Download folder;
Try a music streaming app;
Copy all your media files to a PC;
Store your media files in cloud;
Run a factory reset.

To uninstall any unneeded app:

Go to Settings and tap on Apps;
From the list of apps displayed in there by how much space they occupy, select the bulky ones and uninstall them.

You can always reinstall them later if you discover you need something that you just removed. But until then, you will be saving even a couple of hundreds MB!

To clean up the Download folder:

You can either connect the Galaxy S8 / S8 Plus to a PC, with a USB cable, and manually delete files;
Or you can use the dedicated Downloads app and do the cleanup from your smartphone.

You’ll be surprised to see how many things you were keeping in there, from images and PDFs to APKs and many others!

To try a music streaming app:

You can use a streaming service like Spotify (though this one is paid);
Or you can try a free service – see Google Music.

Either way, you should be able to move all the music previously stored on your Samsung device right onto the online servers of the service provider. It will take up some of your mobile data, but at least you’re freeing the phone from music.

Most streaming apps will let you manually choose what songs and playlists you want to download on your phone and you should be able to switch these selections regularly. That way, you will only be using the Internet to download a specific selection and then you can use it without problems, while all your other GBs of music will stay away from your Galaxy S8!

To copy all your media files to a PC:

Connect the smartphone to any PC through a USB cable;
Install the Android File Transfer app if you’re planning to use a Mac;
Once the PC detects your Galaxy S8 or Galaxy S8 Plus as a removable drive, you can proceed to move everything from your DCIM and Camera folders to that computer;
Delete all the files from the smartphone when you’ve finished copying.

Alternatively, you can always use special programs for Windows, Linux or Mac that can automate the media files copying process as soon as they identify a smartphone connected to the PC. The Adobe Lightroom or the Windows Photo Viewer, as well as Dropbox or iPhoto, are all reliable choices!

To store your media files in the cloud:

Pick one cloud storage app to use with your Samsung Galaxy S8 or Galaxy S8 Plus – Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox, Google Photos, whatever;
Download and install it on your smartphone;
Follow the instructions provided when you launch the app so that it will automatically initiate camera uploads;
Wait for it to upload all the photos and videos currently stored on the device;
Proceed to remove all those files right after they were copied.

These apps can also automatically store every new photo or video from now on to its dedicated server – make sure you configure it to use exclusively the Wi-Fi connectivity!

To run a factory reset:

Go to Settings;
Write “Factory data reset” in the dedicated search box;
Select the desired option;
Confirm that you read the warning and that you want to proceed with the reset;
Wait for the process to finish.

Don’t forget that a factory reset will bring your Samsung Galaxy S8 or Galaxy S8 Plus to its factory defaults, letting you without all your important data. Backup whatever you want to keep before you initiate the reset!