Over time, Android phones and tablets accumulate a lot of junk files that take up space and clutter your storage. I found a wonderful free app that makes it easy (and fun) to clean up the mess. It even has a “feature” for keeping or deleting personal files just by swiping right or left on them.
What is SD Maid
An open-source app meant for spring cleaning your Android phone
SD Maid 2/SE is an open-source Android app that cleans up junk files and ghost files left by apps you have already removed. You might recognize the name “SD Maid”, which was the original project by the same developer. It was a popular app back in the day, but it couldn’t keep up with modern versions of Android, so the developer had to rewrite it from scratch. That new version has new features and works better on modern versions of Android (although it has some bugs on Android 15 and 16). It’s basically a collection of special tools, and I’ll be showing how to use some of them.
It’s available on the Google Play Store, as well as the free and open-source store F-Droid. There are no ads, and the app claims not to collect or sell any user data. Since the project is open-source, anyone can audit that claim.
The app has 10 different tools for analyzing and clearing storage. Out of those 10, only four are free to use. There’s a fifth tool, which you can use with a little bit of a workaround. I’ll only be reviewing tools that are either free to use or can be benefited from for free. The other features have to be unlocked with a one-time fee.
CorpseFinder
Erase leftover junk
The first tool on the list is CorpseFinder. Sometimes, when you uninstall apps, they leave data behind, cluttering up your storage with those leftover files. When you hit the “scan” button, the app will scan through your storage, marking files and folders that do not have a corresponding app installed. If it discovers any remnants, it’ll show you how much storage you can free up, alongside a list of files that you can review for safe deletion.
System Cleaner
Clear useless system files
Next, we have the System Cleaner tool, which scans your phone for junk files. The app has a list of “expendable” files and folders which the Android system generates. It scans your storage and matches those files against its list of filters. I’ve used this feature before, so I didn’t find much to delete on the second pass. After the first round, it cleared about a gigabyte of storage for me. Some people on Reddit say they’ve reclaimed as much as 5-10GB.
You can set up a Shizuku link with SDMaid2, which provides it with system-level access to files the app otherwise cannot touch. Shizuku uses the ADB interface to grant those advanced permissions to apps without rooting the device.
AppCleaner
Analyze and clear app cache
Your installed apps often keep hidden caches and databases, which can eat into your storage space. AppCleaner is meant to free up that storage. Just “scan” under the AppCleaner and wait for it to find all those caches and files on your device. It’ll give you a list of expendable items and how much storage you can free up. As you can see, the tool can free up 9.2GB for me.
Now, if you try to tap the Delete button, the app will throw up a paywall. However, we don’t need the app to automatically delete anything for us. We can clear that data manually. Most of that 9.2GB is divided between just a handful of apps. You can tap the little book icon to see just how much cache data each app is storing.
For example, Droid-ify is an alternative app store for Android, and it’s taking up almost 2GB of storage on my phone for no reason. I might want to keep the YouTube cache because it likely belongs to the videos I downloaded for offline viewing.
To clear that, I can just go to the app settings by long-pressing the app’s icon and tapping the i or App Info button. Then I can just press the Clear Cache button under the Storage settings and reclaim that space. Rinse and repeat for other apps. Just like that, I’ve cleared almost 10GB of storage for my personal files.
Swiper
Swipe left to delete, and swipe right to keep files
Another feature that comes in handy is the Swiper tool. It shows you previews of files in a folder, and you can swipe right to keep them and swipe left on the files to delete them. If you want to clean up your gallery but don’t want to lose files you care about, this tool takes the hassle out of it.
You can tap the plus button under Swiper and add a folder you want to declutter. This will create a new session and show you files you can swipe through. It’ll let you create two sessions and swipe through 50 files each before throwing up the paywall. It’s probably not that helpful if you have a large media gallery. However, if your gallery is small or if you’re clearing out a specific folder (for example, screenshots), it could come in handy.
9/10
- SoC
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Google Tensor G4 with Titan M2 security coprocessor
- Display
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6.3-inch, 1080 x 2424 (422 PPI), Actua display, 1,800-nit peak brightness
- RAM
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12GB
- Storage
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128 GB / 256 GB
If you’re running low on storage, run this free app before deleting any personal files
There are a couple of other free tools too, like Storage Analyze, which flags apps, user files, and system data with how much storage they’re taking up. If you want to find the biggest “storage offenders,” this is the tool for it. I only recommend paying the fee if you want to support the developer. For most people, the free version of the app should suffice.
Stephan is the sports journalist for the Maple Grove Report.
