Skip to content Skip to sidebar Skip to footer

Types of Junk Files on Android Phones

Types of Junk Files on Android Phones

Did you know that every cell phone always has something called junk in the form of files or files. The junk doesn’t seem to have any impact on the cell phone, but in fact, it is the junk that disrupts the cell phone’s ecosystem and causes a degradation in performance.

Fortunately, there are several apps that can help you quickly remove all of the junk on your phone. But that doesn’t mean that you can delete the entire recycle bin with one tap, because of course there are also junk files that you can only delete yourself.

In this article we are going to share a list or different types of junk files often found on Android phones. You can study it and delete it if you find a recycle bin that looks like the list below.

Some types of junk files on Android

1. App cache files

The main thing, of course, is the cache file of all installed applications. By default, the cache is automatically cleared at the time set by the application, typically 1 week.

However, too much cache will cause it to continue to accumulate, so this will affect the depleted memory. For example like Instagram which caches the most recently viewed video files. Of course, if a lot of videos are viewed, the cache size will continue to grow.

2. Unused folders

Rather, this refers to the leftover folder of applications that have been uninstalled, rendering them obsolete. Sometimes the cleaning app still can’t detect something like this, so the user has to uninstall it by himself.

One example is a game Minecraft PEwhere when you delete the game the rest of the folders on the internal and external storage will still be there. Even if there are files like. contains save game, but it still belongs to the Trash from Unused Folders category.

3. Empty the folder

Unlike the unused folders, this empty folder is usually created by the phone owner himself. Most make a lot of it just to hide a secret file that is really useless at the moment.

Why is it useless? Because there are many uses protection against former privacy. Even on the cell phone Samsung The Safe Folder feature is available to protect all files and applications from the public.

An empty folder that you have created cannot be larger 1 kilobyte, but with so many empty folders loading in the file manager will only be a little longer than usual.

Also Read: Quickly Clean Up Empty Folders On Android

4. Hidden files and folders

On Android, you can hide a file or folder from the default file manager application by simply adding a dot symbol to the prefix of the file or folder name. And sometimes an application applies this to its additional data as well.

Overall, this is almost the same as having an unused folder as the hidden folder or file is put on the phone even though the application has been deleted. And the solution is to check manually with a file manager application progressive how X-plore or ES file manager.

5. LOST.DIR folder folder

I’m not sure if this LOST.DIR folder is still in use today. But on Android OS Kitkat and below that the folder is still valid if a file is suddenly deleted from the system.

If your file, e.g. For example, if a picture or video is missing, it may be in the LOST.DIR folder. And the size of the folder can be large depending on the number of files lost due to system errors.

6. Gallery Trash

Sometimes deleted photos or videos are not actually deleted and are moved to the trash. The trash can function in the gallery is now available on all mobile phones. In fact, this feature helps in recovering accidentally deleted content.

It’s just that cell phones sometimes take up a lot of storage space when trying to record video. So if your phone storage is empty, please also check the trash in the gallery, maybe there are dozen of discarded videos still stored there.

7. Browser storage

When surfing a website, our mobile phones unconsciously carry some additional data that is loaded into the browser. The data is a file Cache and Cookies. It doesn’t affect the phone’s performance, but it does have a significant impact on the phone’s storage.

The storage in the browser can be set via the application settings. Usually there is an option to clear some things like cache, cookies. Browsing history and more.

8. Former download files

Surely you downloaded files from the internet, right? Be it documents, applications, pictures or videos. Sometimes we forget when the downloaded file is no longer important. An example is the application file (APK).

The application file is only used once and of course once the application is installed it becomes useless. However, most cleaning apps usually show a notification to delete the APK file after the installation process is complete.

9. Pictures and videos from chat apps

Some chat applications, for example WhatsApp, save image and video files in a special folder. It will still be saved and can be managed directly from the gallery.

When a lot of files are stored, space is definitely wasted. If the pictures or videos in the rest of the chat are no longer useful, it is better to delete them so that they can free up space on the phone.

10. Saved clipboard

The clipboard function is mainly available in keyboard apps on Android. But in some phones there is also the clipboard function directly from the system, for example on the Samsung Galaxy Note phone.

Although it’s just a copy of some text and an image in total, it can still be called a recycle bin if you don’t need it in the future. But even if you don’t delete it, it won’t have much memory impact. Because the clipboard takes up very little space.


There are 10 types of Android Recycle Bin shared above. Perhaps there are many types other than the above. And if you know about it, please share it in the comments to let other users know.

Hopefully useful and good luck