Factory reset impact on app size

[itslikeimsayin]

Hello: My Nexus 4 is about 16 months old and recently had started acting a little laggy, so I decided to do a Factory Reset. I did it last night and then restored everything afterward. Everything seems to have gone fine. A few apps didn't update automatically, but what I find interesting (and the reason for this thread) is that the factory reset cleared up more than 3 GB of storage from apps alone. Prior to the factory reset, I know the "Storage" meter said my apps were consuming more than 5 GB of space. Now my apps only take up 1.83 GB of space. I got rid of a couple small apps in the process, but nothing that would make 3 GB worth of difference. What exactly changed? Had my apps built up more than 3 GB of bloat/unneeded files over time? Thanks.

 

[B. Diddy]

Some apps can build up pretty big loads of cache or data (especially games), so resetting to factory condition can certainly clear that up.

 

[zorak950]

Sometimes it's bloat, but mostly it's legitimate caching. Many apps keep stuff they download that they think you'll want to access again to save time and data costs. For example, Facebook will hold onto recent posts for a while and Google Play Music will keep songs you've played. Caching is mostly a good thing; some apps don't do it very intelligently, though.

If you ever want to free up that storage space without a factory reset, you can do it by going to Settings -> Storage and tapping Cached data. You can also clear the cached data of individual apps from Settings -> Apps.