Apps take up a ton of area. And though firms are making smartphones and tablets with extra storage than ever earlier than, the apps that fill them stay chock filled with pointless bloat. Enter App Archiving for Android, introduced immediately by Google.

App Archiving is a characteristic that primarily removes all of the elements of the app with out eradicating the info that’s particular to you. It not solely frees up treasured machine cupboard space but additionally ensures that when you want the app once more, you may reinstall it and shortly choose up proper the place you left off.

In a post on its Android Developers weblog, Google mentioned that App Archiving would assist customers reclaim as much as 60% of the cupboard space on their units. But the primary purpose for the archiving characteristic is to assist bolster app retention.

“One of the main reasons users uninstall apps is to free up space,” write Google’s Lidia Gaymond and Vicki Amin, Product Managers at Google Play. “To prevent unnecessary uninstalls and help users get more out of their devices, we started working on [this] new feature.”

Android will generate a brand new kind of app bundle to facilitate releasing up area, known as archived APKs. They’re smaller than typical APK packages, and so they protect solely the person knowledge till an app will get restored. Google mentioned it’s going to begin creating these archived APKs now although they received’t be useful till this characteristic goes stay to shoppers later within the yr.

Recent variations of the Android OS, beginning with Android 11, have prompted customers to take away an app or replenish permissions in the event that they hadn’t used it for some time. The newer iterations of Android are programmed to make sure apps aren’t recording customers’ knowledge within the background and to remind customers that rarely-launched apps are taking over area.

But Google’s been working deep in Android’s core to make App Archiving a necessary a part of the working system. Last yr, the corporate introduced builders must begin adopting the Android App Bundle slightly than the usual APK publishing format in anticipation of this transfer. Android tinkerers and lovers have been apprehensive about what that may have meant for sideloading, although they’ve since discovered strategies round it.

The idea of ditching not often used apps isn’t new within the tech business. Apple additionally archives unused iOS apps, a characteristic launched with iOS 11. On the iPhone and iPad, it’s known as Offloading. The characteristic leaves the icon and person knowledge intact, after which when the person needs to make use of the app once more, they’ll faucet to obtain it and log again in. Consoles just like the Nintendo Switch make the most of this type of file archiving for video games since storage is proscribed to the SD card dimension. The perform permits sooner entry to video games they’re really taking part in. And when you’re craving to play by means of a title you’ve archived, you may obtain it once more and choose up proper the place you left off.

We’ve requested Google for clarification on whether or not App Archiving might be bundled into the Android 13 software program replace anticipated later this yr or if Google plans to push it to older units by means of a separate Play Store replace. The firm hasn’t made public what visible type the characteristic will take, both. But we do know the characteristic might be useful for customers with low-end and mid-range units with restricted area—the identical clients that assist the Android platform proliferate in all corners of the world.