Analyze Android Storage Use

Martin Brinkmann
Apr 19, 2016
Updated • Apr 19, 2016
Apps, Google Android
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11

Storage Analyzer & Disk Usage is a free application for Android that reveals the files and directories that take up most of the space on the device.

If your Android device runs out of storage space regularly, you may have an idea why that is happening.

Maybe you like to shoot a lot of photos and videos using the device, like to download files to the device, have copied your mp3 collection to it, or like to play games.

Sometimes however, it may not be as easy to tell why your device's disk is filled to the brim with data.

While the disk storage situation gets a bit better on Android even for lower end devices, there are still plenty that ship with 16 Gigabyte or less.

Analyze Android Storage Use

android disk uage analyzer

Storage Analyzer & Disk Usage is a free application for Android that works similar to Windows programs such as Diskovery, TreeSize Free or the excellent WizTree.

The program requires only one extra permission (access to photos/media/files) which is always refreshing especially when you compare it to the data hunger of many other Android apps.

Storage Analyzer & Disk Usage runs a scan on the device on start and displays information about free, occupied and total disk space shortly thereafter.

The program scans the main drive only by default but you can add SD cards and other connected storage types with a tap on the plus icon on the screen.

The very same screen separates storage into "external" and system", and displays a pie chart at the bottom of the same screen that highlights different types of data.

You can swipe left and right to display the data in different ways. You may display the top largest files on the device for instance, or display a list of weighted file categories to better understand where all that free storage went.

storage analyzer disk usage

Some menus enable you to dive deeper into the data. A tap on temporary files lists all directories and files the app has filed under that category.

While that is useful in itself, the delete option that is presented to you next to each listed file or directory is probably even more useful than that.

You can use it to delete listed files or directories to free up space. While you won't find options to clean up disk space automatically, it is still easy enough to check out the largest files on the device and delete those that you don't need any longer.

A Pro version is available that improves the free version further. It adds options to create custom file groups to the app, display more than the ten largest files in the top largest files listing, or show the /data folder as well.

Closing Words

Storage Analyzer & Disk Usage is a free application that is well designed and easy to use. It visualizes disk and storage use on Android in several different ways, and if there is one thing that could be better, it is better automation when it comes to the deletion of files.

An option to clear the temporary files or files in other locations would be a useful addition. All you can do right now is to clear the files or folders manually, or use a different program for that.

Summary
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Author Rating
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5 based on 3 votes
Software Name
Storage Analyzer & Disk Usage
Operating System
Android
Software Category
System
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Comments

  1. Jim said on April 26, 2016 at 9:11 pm
    Reply

    I found Disk usage to be much better. Storage Analyzer data visualization is far less informative than Disk Usage’s for me.

  2. someone said on April 20, 2016 at 11:30 pm
    Reply

    Permission: FULL NETWORK ACCESS. why?! it makes no sense for what it is supposed to do… unless they want to show me ads and “track my usage to improve their services”, in that case, no thanks, I’ll pass.

  3. Joel said on April 20, 2016 at 9:24 am
    Reply

    I’ve been using DiskUsage on Android & WinDirStat on windows for this info…
    Though so far I’ve never seemed to actually take advantage of the info, I’d like to keep all the data I have, and barely got any “random temporary accumulating” data that requiers a magic tap and *poof* I get few more gigs of space…
    But it’s still good to have such apps\programs… especially for the non-wary users i’d say…

    Any special advantage for the apps\progs mentioned in the article over the common DIskUsage & WinDirStat? just wondering…
    gl&hf

    1. ben said on April 21, 2016 at 2:01 am
      Reply

      Another vote for DiskUsage! And Disk Space Fan for Windows.

  4. DComedian said on April 19, 2016 at 6:57 pm
    Reply

    All seems fine using Inoreader. :)

    I agree with Red about just showing a (reasonably detailed) preview of the article if you want to drive traffic to your site.

  5. Red said on April 19, 2016 at 5:23 pm
    Reply

    Unrelated, Martin, have you changed something in the last couple of weeks regarding the site’s RSS?

    In Feedly, Ghacks appears with bold as having new articles but without the number of the articles. I have around 300 subscriptions, Ghacks is the only one doing that.

    The others appeard in bold and also having the number of the new/unread articles.

    Is it just mine?

    Also, you should consider choosing to release in RSS only a preview of the article. As a tease, to make us go for the site, although your fairness is appreciated.

    1. Jojo said on April 21, 2016 at 9:10 am
      Reply

      No problems using Inoreader.

    2. Martin Brinkmann said on April 19, 2016 at 5:25 pm
      Reply

      Red, I did not change anything but don’t use Feedly so cannot say if that issue is caused by Feedly or the RSS feed itself. Anyone else noticing issues?

      1. Red said on April 20, 2016 at 5:29 pm
        Reply

        Seems fine today :)

      2. Josh Gunderson said on April 19, 2016 at 10:05 pm
        Reply

        Feed looks fine via Inoreader in Firefox.

      3. svim said on April 19, 2016 at 7:05 pm
        Reply

        I haven’t noticed any change in your RSS feed, using Liferea.

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