A cool feature on Android 15 will free up space when you need it without deleting the app

Google has an interesting new feature coming to Android 15 called App Archiving. According to Mishaal Rahman, writing for Android Authority, this feature will allow an Android user to create more space to download an app or save another image, or for any other reason. But here’s the thing; instead of uninstalling the app and then reinstalling it when you need it again, you’ll be able to archive the app instead of uninstalling it; this will save you from reinstalling it when you need to use it.

App archiving is currently a Google Play Store feature, not an Android feature. But that will change when Android 15 has been released and the feature will run at the OS level. Rahman realized this after discovering on the Android 14 QPR2 beta update that Google supports OS-level app archiving. It managed to show the “Archive” and “Restore” buttons in the settings app. Rahman adds that after the release Android 14 QPR3 Beta 2, managed to fully enable Android’s built-in app archiving feature.

In the video we’ve embedded in this article, Rahman shows how he archives the Uber app, which takes up 387MB of storage space. After pressing the “Archive” button, the Uber app weighed in at just 17.64MB, a 95.4% reduction. When Rahman hits “Restore,” the app is downloaded from the Google Play store and reinstalled, and not only is he still logged into the account, the app hasn’t lost any data in the process.

In Android 15, users can turn on the Android version of app archiving that can automatically archive a little-used app

The Android version of app archiver will not only archive apps manually, it will automatically archive apps that you don’t use often. On an app’s app info page, if you turn on “manage app if not in use,” Android will remove permissions, delete temporary files, stop notifications, and archive the app if it hasn’t been used in a while.

With Android 15, if you run out of storage space, you'll get this message - Cool feature on Android 15 will free up space when you need it without deleting the app

With Android 15, if you run out of storage space, you’ll receive this message

While Rahman managed to launch the feature in the latest Android 14 QPR beta, says we shouldn’t expect the app archiving feature to be ready for prime time until Android 15 it was released.

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