Though it’s still months away, one of Android 15’s new features has leaked. According to reports, users will have the option to archive apps rather than fully uninstall them from their smartphones in order to free up space. For apps that are downloaded through the marketplace, the Google Play Store currently offers the ability to archive apps. Nevertheless, apps downloaded from other app stores do not support manual control, and there is none. For this reason, an Android 15 operating system-level feature might be far more beneficial.
The strings of codes for this feature were found in the recently released Android 14 QPR3 Beta 2 update, as reported by Mishaal Rahman, a writer for Android Authority. Rahman was able to use the feature even though it was not formally added since he was able to locate and activate the “archive” and “restore” options. When he tried to archive and restore an app, he discovered that all of the user data was automatically stored by the feature. It is said that users won’t need to log in or worry about losing any of the in-app data when they archive them.
In his experiment, Rahman archived his Uber app, which occupied 387MB of storage. After archiving it, the app size was reduced to just 17.64MB. A cloud icon also appeared on top of the app icon. Clicking on the app again began the downloading and installing process. Once it was installed, the cloud icon disappeared. Surprisingly, opening the app showed that his account was already logged in and all the saved locations were also present.
You can find this feature in the Google Play Store right now by going to Settings > Automatically archive apps from the profile icon. But as previously mentioned, this setting will archive apps that you downloaded from Google’s app marketplace but don’t use very often. This does not support any apps that are downloaded from outside sources and will not allow users to manually archive apps.
When a smartphone’s storage is low and you urgently need to create space for another app to install or to take high-definition photos or videos, this feature comes in handy. Users can choose to archive some apps rather than uninstalling them, having to go through the hassle of reinstalling them, setting up their account, and possibly losing some in-app data. Notably, this feature—known as app offloading—is already available on the iPhone from Apple. But this also functions automatically, denying users the ability to select which apps to archive with fine-grained control.
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