Where should APK files go?

[Android Central Question]

The SD card for my Galaxy 7 is completely full and when I opened it in Explorer to see why, I saw that a data directory I created has an APK folder and there are over 500 APK files in this directory with over 14 GB in used storage. How do I control the location of these APK files and where should they go? And can I purge these files, or at least the older versions of them? For example, I have eight files for AMC Theatres (with different version numbers) in this directory for a total of over 500 MB in space. Can I just delete these files to free up space?

 

[Thacy]

Removing the apk files won't affect the installed apps. If you think you will need the apk files to install apps in the future, then you may move them to PC or elsewhere.

 

[keith0628]

Thanks for the response - do you know why these APK files are getting stored in a common data directory instead of their App directory? Is there a system setting I should look at?

 

[Rukbat]

1. Copy the apk files to your PC. Then, if they ever "improve" an app to the point that it's useless, you can uninstall it, copy that apk to the phone and reinstall the older version.

2. No reason for the apk files to be on the phone. They're just installation files.

3. No idea why they're appearing - but the name of the folder they're appearing in might give us a clue. Some backup apps can be set to run at specific times, and we could tell from the folder name which app it is that's creating the backups. (It sounds like App Backup & Restore or Titanium Backup.)