Why does my Cached Data fill up so quickly?

[AC Question]

I have a Samsung Galaxy S4, I just cleared the Cached Data because it was taking up 3 GB of storage when I don't even have many apps installed and it seems like it fills up really quickly, getting back up to GB territory by week's end. Is there a way to keep this in check?

I may open and run apps but before I get off the phone I hold the Home button down and "Close All" apps, habitually as to not allow things to keep running. I keep getting frustrated with the messages around my phone being full! Please help! Thanks

 

[srkmagnus]

Are you talking about cache or RAM? Because those are two different things and it seems like you are referring to RAM by closing apps, but then you are referring to full memory.

If you are referring to cache taking up storage, then you can go into system settings > applications > sort by size. You can see which apps are using the most cache. However, clearing cache is the short term fix since apps need it to work efficiently and provide the data you need quicker. Rather than rebuilding and putting the data together every time you open an app.

The long term fix is to clear data elsewhere - photos, downloads, delete unused apps, etc.

 

[Rukbat]

As srkmagnus said, RAM and cache RAM are different animals. Android wants as much RAM in use as possible at all times (unlike Windows, which wants as much free RAM as possible). Apps save temporary date in their cache - since Android can kill an app at any time, then bring it back and tell it to continue, it has to keep its current state saves at all times. When you close the app normally (using the back button or the app's Quit or Exit function), it usually clears out its cache. If you kill the app manually, the cache doesn't get cleared - it shouldn't, because it's there in case the app gets killed

Stop killing apps. Close them when you're done with them, and you'll probably end up using a lot less cache. (I generally run about 25MB-75MB cache, which is about normal. I was experimenting the past few days, and yesterday had almost 2GB of cache in use - which I cleared, of course.)