System data and application files can gradually fill up a significant portion of free smartphone storage, RTU MIREA senior lecturer Andrey Rybnikov told Life.ru.
Rybnikov noted that many smartphone owners observe their available storage capacity steadily shrinking over time, even when they rarely install new applications or save additional photos and videos to their devices. He explained that the lost space is consumed by background data generated during the routine operation of installed programs and the underlying mobile operating system.
According to Rybnikov, almost every mobile application continuously creates cached temporary files designed to help software open more quickly and prevent the repeated downloading of identical information. He pointed out that over extended periods of normal device use, these accumulated junk files can expand to occupy multiple gigabytes of free memory.
How app cache impacts smartphone storage
RTU MIREA, also known as Russian Technological University, is a public technical university in Moscow that trains specialists in software engineering, computer science, and information technology. Department lecturer Rybnikov specializes in instrumental and applied software development. Modern mobile operating systems utilize application caching to boost user interface speed, storing temporary web pages, media thumbnails, and database indices directly on the device.
If a smartphone experiences a sudden drop in available memory, Rybnikov advised opening the device settings menu to investigate the issue. He noted that users should look beyond the initial installation size of an application and examine the total volume of data each app has accumulated during operation.
To reclaim storage space and prevent future memory depletion, Rybnikov recommended turning off automatic downloads for unnecessary files and manually deleting old offline content, such as saved media files and cached documents.
Managing system tools and background applications
In addition to managing general app cache, tech specialists from the online portal Android Police previously reported that removing the AICore application from Android smartphones can free up internal storage space and eliminate intrusive notifications.
Android Police is a digital technology publication that reports on mobile software, device hardware, and operating system updates. AICore functions as a background system service on select Android smartphones, handling local machine learning features and artificial intelligence tasks, which can accumulate data and trigger background notification prompts.
