How To Free-up Space On Your Devices Without Losing Your Files

[Participant @idowu]

You take several pictures and save a lot of videos right? I do too. But a few days back I ran out of space on my device due to the large files I save on it. Apart from downloading stuff online directly to my phone and saving big files for offline access, I download a lot of YouTube videos too – and such videos are notorious for gobbling up device disk space.

I was a bit worried. As much as I didn’t want to lose my files, I also didn’t want to clog up my device. So I thought – but, there is a cloud somewhere, and there should be a way around alleviating my worries with it. Besides, I would imagine what the relevance of cloud is if they talk about it that much, and it doesn’t help save my files and light-up my device. So, I found a solution to my problem, and I’ll be sharing it in this article.

Leverage the cloud

You might have heard about cloud computing, cloud storage, DevOps and all that. You wonder what they are, and how you can benefit from them as an individual. I’ll keep the explanation simple, besides, you probably only need this article to get a problem solved.

So, here it is – you can think of the word “cloud” as a large space “up there”, that accommodates all sort of files and data by taking them away from your local devices or server – while giving you full access to them anytime, anywhere and on any device. Thus, you can be sure that your files are safe somewhere in the cloud even if you lose or delete them.

Back-up your mobile files on the cloud

To save photos and videos from your Android on Google cloud, if you don’t have it already – download Google photo from Google play store. However, if you have a Google photo installed on your mobile, ensure that you update it on Google play to enjoy the best features.

When you launch Google photo, all your pictures and videos will be automatically parsed. Those files are on your device and not on the cloud yet. To upload them to the cloud, first, ensure that you’re logged in to your Gmail account on your mobile device.

In the Google photo app, tap on the 3-line menu icon at the top-left corner of the app and click on settings. Next, tap on Back-up and Sync. Turn-on the Back-up and Sync button and select your preferred Google account for the back-up – a panel will roll down. Under Cellular Data Back-up, turn-up the switches to allow back-up of photos and videos with cellular data (if you’re not using WIFI) – you can select only photos if you wish, this means only your photos will be backed up with cellular data. To start the back-up, tap the round menu at the top right corner of the app. Note that you need a good internet connection for the back-up. If you wish to stop the back-up completely, go to settings and switch off the back-up button.

You can also select specific files to back-up. For instance, to back-up WhatsApp files, mark the files you wish to upload to the cloud and click on the options menu at the top right corner of the Google photo app. Next, select back-up now, this will back-up the selected files. Your files get synced on any of your Google accounts – should you choose to switch them.

To confirm if the back-up is done, tap on the round icon at the top right corner – you’ll see how many items are left. Once the back-up is done, to free-up space on your device, tap the 3-line menu icon at the top left corner. Next, tap the free-up space option – this will clear all your backed-up native files while leaving the ones on the cloud.

To recover or download your files to your local drive, select the file you wish to download. Tap the menu icon at the top right corner of Google photo. Next, at the base of the file, select the download option – this creates a local copy of your file.

Backing-up your media to cloud on PC

To upload the files on your PC to the cloud, download and install OneDrive. OneDrive is a Microsoft product that offers personal cloud to users. One advantage of OneDrive is that it is supported on Mac OS. Once you install OneDrive on your PC, launch the app and sign-in or create a new Microsoft account if you don’t have one.

After a successful installation of OneDrive – by default, the OneDrive folder will be in your PC’s file manager. If you can’t find the folder in your file manager, click on the OneDrive app on your taskbar panel (it will be there by default). Next, select the Open folder option – this will open-up the OneDrive folder. Cut or copy the folders or the files you wish to back-up on the cloud and paste them inside the OneDrive folder. You can also right-click on the folder(s) or file(s) you wish to upload and select the Send to OneDrive option.

Once your stuff is in the OneDrive folder, to start uploading them to the cloud, click on the OneDrive app on the taskbar panel. Next, click on the more options icon and click on resume sync or start sync option – note that this activity requires a good internet connection. Only the files and folders inside the OneDrive folder gets uploaded to the cloud.

To free up space on your PC, delete the folders or files you’ve uploaded to OneDrive already. These folders are now on the cloud and not on your device anymore. However, you can access them anytime and anywhere – as long as you’re logged in to your Microsoft account.

Once your files are backed-up on the cloud, you can format your hard drive peacefully without worrying about losing important files.

Upload downloaded YouTube videos to the Cloud (Mobile)

As stated earlier, when you download a video on YouTube with your mobile device – although, these videos are only accessible when you’re logged in to the YouTube app on your Android. These videos are not saved directly to YouTube – they’re downloaded directly to your phone’s storage. Trust me, these videos take a lot of space on your mobile device, that you wonder how your space is used up.

Unfortunately, you have little control over files downloaded from YouTube. However, to have full control over them, you need to take them away from the YouTube app.

To isolate a video from YouTube – first, download a YouTube video downloader. To use the downloader – go to your YouTube app and click on the share button at the base of the video you wish to download (if a download is enabled for that video). Next, select the copy link option. Paste the URL of the YouTube video in the downloader’s search console and click on the search button on your Android’s keyboard. Once the video is found, tap the download button at the base of the downloader – this gets the video downloaded to your device in no time.

Once the video is downloaded, go to Google photo, search for the downloaded video. Select the video by long-pressing it. Next, tap the options menu at the top right corner of the app. Select back up now to upload it to Google cloud.

Using pCloud on Mobile and PC

Another option is to download pCloud from the Google play store. To upload a file to the cloud with pCloud, tap the “+” button at the lower right corner of the screen. Select the file you wish to push and wait for it to upload.

To use pCloud on your PC, follow the same step that was highlighted for OneDrive. They work the same way. Once you launch the pCloud on your PC, you’ll get the option to sync the files you placed in the pCloud folder. Clicking on a sync will upload the specified files to the cloud.

However, to recover your files from pCloud, tap the options menu at the right corner of the file you wish to download. Select the download option to create a local copy of that file.

Delete junk files and irrelevant WhatsApp databases

Another way to create space on your mobile device without losing important files is to delete irrelevant and redundant files. Whenever you uninstall an application from your device, chances are that the parent file remains somewhere on it.

Go to your file manager – search for the parent files in the directory in which you installed them and delete them. To remove WhatsApp databases, go to the WhatsApp directory, tap database and delete all the databases in that directory.

Get an external hard drive for your PC

Getting an external hard drive for your device is another smart way to free up space. Once you discover that your internal hard disk is getting filled-up – connect an external hard drive to your PC. Next, transfer the files or folders you wish to back-up to the new external hard disk by cutting them from the internal hard drive. Paste them in the external drive. Once that’s done, you can always access the files in the external drive by connecting it to your PC.

Conclusion

Cloud offers us the opportunity to save, quickly access and also share our files with others. On the cloud, many people can access a file, work on it, and save it back to the cloud – all you need do is provide a link to the file you wish to share with your colleagues and you’re good to go.

You can also play around some of the stuff mentioned in this article – when you do, you’re likely to discover even greater features beyond what this article has covered. Feel free to share them with us.

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