Now that phone makers have mostly removed microSD card slots from their devices, managing storage limits has become an increasingly serious concern, especially for those who install very demanding games and perhaps handle 4K media files at the same time. or even higher resolutions. Although many phones are sold with the possibility of choosing between multiple memory sizes, very often the additional outlay required is not within everyone’s reach. If there isn’t much to do for multimedia files, except relying on some cloud service and having a very fast connection available, for applications there is an interesting solution that should be active right away.
Last year Google introduced the idea of ​​app storage to help people manage their precious storage space, but now there’s another evolution to that and the company is changing the program so that works automatically.
The new Android auto archive feature can theoretically reduce the size of an app by nearly 60%, but without completely removing it from your phone.
The interesting thing is that thanks to it all personal data and settings will not be touched or deleted, with all due respect to those who are afraid of losing game progress or the settings of an app that is rarely used, but still considered useful. On balance, we’ll still see the app icon in the launcher, but Google will strip most of the code and resources to save space, then automatically re-download from the Play Store when needed.
Unfortunately, not all apps are eligible for the AutoArchive feature, as developers are forced to use the App Bundle format, which ensures that only the necessary assets are downloaded to your phone when installing an app.
Users who want to join the AutoArchive program can do so by trying to install a new app when their phone is at capacity. After starting the installation, a pop-up window will ask them if they want to enable auto-archive. If the user gives consent, previously unused apps will automatically start the archiving process to free up the space needed for the new one.
