Cool feature on Android 15 will open up space when you need it without deleting an app

Google has an interesting new feature coming to Android 15 called App Archiving. According to Mishaal Rahman, writing for Android Authority, this feature will allow an Android user to generate more space to download an app or save another picture, or for any other reason. But here's the thing; instead of uninstalling an app and then reinstalling it when you need it again, you'll be able to archive an app instead of uninstalling it; this will save you from having to set it up again when you need to use it.

App archiving currently is a Google Play Store feature, not an Android feature. But that will change when Android 15 is released and the feature will run at the OS level. Rahman figured that out after he discovered on an Android 14 QPR2 beta update that Google is supporting app archiving on the OS level. He was able to bring up buttons for "Archive" and "Restore" in the settings app. Rahman adds that after the release of Android 14 QPR3 Beta 2, he was able to fully enable Android's built-in app archiving feature.

In a video that we embedded in this article, Rahman shows how he archives the Uber app, which takes up 387MB of storage. After pressing the "Archive" button, the Uber app weighed in at only 17.64MB, a 95.4% decrease. When Rahman hits "Restore," the app is downloaded by the Google Play Store and is reinstalled, and not only is he still signed into the account, the app didn't lose any data during the process.

The Android version of App Archiving will not only manually archive apps, it will automatically archive apps that you don't often use. In an app's App Info Page, if you toggle on "manage app if unused," Android will remove permissions, delete temporary files, halt notifications, and archive the app if it hasn't been used for some time.

While Rahman was able to get the feature up and running in the most recent Android 14 QPR beta, he says that we shouldn't expect the app archiving feature to be ready for prime time until Android 15 is released.