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The Play Store’s Uninstall Manager can suggest which apps to uninstall to free up space

It looks like the Play Store is now showing pop up windows inside the app to users — at least some — whose onboard storage is running out of free space, according to an Android Police tipster…

With apps getting bigger and bigger all the time — and games in particular — it is no wonder that more than a few people run out of space on their devices, despite the multitude of cloud services which usually help lighten the load (think of Google‘s own Drive and Photos services).

The first thing people usually do is go and delete some unused apps, but Google is seemingly doing half the work for you.

It is not clear whether the apps suggested by the Uninstall Manager are simply listed in decreasing order of size or thanks to an algorithm that works out which ones are heavier among the ones you use less often.

The only image we have seems to support the former theory, but we wouldn’t doubt Google’s ability to intelligently provide a list of apps with data going a little beyond a simple list based on one metric.

Other than redirecting you to the Storage page within settings, the window tells you how much space is needed to install your app of choice and the amount of data already installed apps use, giving you a sense of the storage that needs management.

Also, the Uninstall Manager doesn’t suggest uploading files to Google’s cloud storage options, such as Google Drive, Photos, or Play Music, which is a tad weird — and maybe a reason why the feature hasn’t gone live publicly yet.

There’s in fact no way of manually switching this feature on, as it is probably a server-side thing Google itself needs to activate. Have you seen it on your device? Let us know in the comment section down below.

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Avatar for Edoardo Maggio Edoardo Maggio

Italian. Tech geek, video games, photography and music lover, comics-based movies enthusiast, and a sucker for good design. Amateur photographer (VSCO, 500px), writer and reporter for 9to5Google.


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