If you were thinking Google was going to hide a few key features of Android 15 before its official release, you were wrong. The internet is doing its usual thing, this time detailing a new feature called App Archiving, coming soon to an Android phone running Android 15 near you.
Detailed by Mishaal Rahman, App Archiving allows you to free up space on your device without having to delete an app entirely. Instead, when archived, the OS will strip everything but the app’s icon and code to restore the app via Google Play when the icon is tapped. By all accounts, the app is removed from the device, but this is where the magic happens.
An example was provided, showing App Archiving in action. Uber was used, a rather hefty app weighing in at nearly 400MB. After the archiving process, all that’s left is 17.64MB, which is a massive decrease in storage being used on your device. However, once the app is restored, it’s shown that all of the app’s data hasn’t been erased and you don’t need to log back into the app.
As of right now, it’s detailed that the feature is powered by Google Play, but at launch, it should run at the OS level, meaning we expect it to launch as an Android 15 feature. Furthermore, it’s expected that Android 15 will be able to automatically archive apps you aren’t using often.
It’s noted that with the feature being baked into the OS, it won’t be limited to working solely with Google Play. It could work with other Android app stores, too. That’s a big bonus for some users.
I definitely have some apps that could stand to get archived, such as Uber, that only get used when I travel. This will be handy.
// Android Authority
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