Android is about to borrow a nifty feature from the iPhone
Over the course of our smartphone usage, we probably download a ton of apps. Some of these apps we use on a daily basis and can’t live without them, but some might see rare use because they aren’t as useful or have very specific uses that we may no longer need.
For those who are diligent enough, you might clean up your apps every now and then, but if you’re like most of us, you probably have a ton of apps sitting around that are no longer being used. The good news is that Google has announced a new feature for Android called “auto-archive”.
It is pretty much as its name suggests, where this feature, when enabled, will automatically archive apps that you no longer use. This means that if you’re constantly fighting to free up more space on your phone, this feature will be able to help with that by archiving apps that are no longer in use, thus freeing up to 60% of the app’s storage space.
The feature doesn’t completely uninstall the app and will actually keep some of its data on your phone. This is so that if you ever decide you need the app again later on, you won’t have to reinstall it from scratch and lose any data associated with the app in the process.
If this feature sounds familiar, it is because it is a feature that actually debuted on iOS devices several versions back. Apple’s method is similar to auto-archive, so if you’ve used it before, you should be familiar with the process.
That being said, keep in mind that this is an opt-in feature meaning that if you’ll have to choose to turn it on. Also, developers will need to ensure that their apps support archiving for it to work as well as publish their apps using the App Bundle.
Source: Google