You don’t have to keep deleting apps from your Android phone anymore just to free up internal storage. One of the main reasons users uninstall apps is to free up space. To prevent unnecessarily uninstalls and help users get more out of their devices, Google has released a new feature that comes with Android 13. Android 13 archive feature now allows you to archive apps, thus freeing up space for additional downloads. With this option, data stored on the app is compressed and kept in the background of internal storage. When needed, archived apps can simply be enabled instead of having to be downloaded once again.
Archiving apps is a new functionality that allows users to reclaim ~60% of app storage temporarily by removing parts of the app rather than uninstalling it completely. Using the Android 13 archive feature app will remain on the device and can easily be restored to the latest available compatible version, whilst preserving the user data.
Storage tends to be a big issue for budget phones with low capacity, and Google was searching for multiple ways to find the best solution. Seems like this feature will come in handy, especially for new Galaxy S23 devices where Android OS takes up to 60GB capacity of internal storage. However, keeping lots of apps archived may result in performance issues. It may not be an issue for flagman devices, but budget phones might struggle to support lots of archived apps in the background.
