Do you know how much storage space is available on your BlackBerry® smartphone or BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet? Learn how to view free storage space and more on your smartphone and/or tablet using the steps below.

BlackBerry smartphones

A BlackBerry smartphone comes with built-in media storage for pictures, videos, documents and other media that you can save to your device. Your smartphone can also have a media card installed, which adds to the available space used to store media files. To find out what size of media card your BlackBerry smartphone can support, check out BlackBerry Knowledge Base article KB05461 – Micro SD card sizes supported by the BlackBerry device software.

Follow these steps to view the amount of free storage space on your device:

1. From the Home screen, select the “Media” icon
2. Press the Menu key and select “Memory Use”.

Optionally, when viewing the Memory Use screen, select “Details” and you’ll be provided with a breakdown of how your storage space is being used, as per the following screenshot.

BlackBerry PlayBook tablet

All the apps, games, videos, pictures and other media you download are saved to the tablet’s free storage space. How much storage space you have depends on which model you purchased. To find out how much free storage space is available on your tablet, follow these steps:

1. From the Home screen, tap the gear (Settings) icon in the top right corner
2. While in the Settings menu, tap “About”
3. Select “Hardware” from the drop down menu next to “View information about your tablet”
4. View your Free Storage, circled in red below.

When it comes to managing files on your tablet, you can use the File Manager app, BlackBerry® Desktop Software, or my preferred method — using Wi-Fi® sharing.

Got a question about this post? Leave it below and let us know!

Did you know that you can easily archive and reinstall an application downloaded from BlackBerry® App World™ while using your BlackBerry® smartphone? Archiving applications allows you to manage your BlackBerry smartphone’s application memory in addition to removing applications that you don’t frequently use.

When you are archiving an application, the application files will be placed in the built-in media storage by default. If the built-in media storage doesn’t have enough free space or doesn’t exist on your particular BlackBerry smartphone, an external media card can be used to store the installation files. (Note: If you do not have a BlackBerry smartphone with built-in media storage and you are not using an external media card, you will not be able to archive applications.)

To archive an application, complete the following steps:

1. Open BlackBerry App World
2. Press the Menu key and select My World
3. Highlight the application you would like to archive, press the Menu key and select Archive

In the event that you want to reinstall an archived application in the future, the installation will be even quicker. To re-install an application, all you need to do is open BlackBerry App World, select My World, highlight the archived application, press the trackpad/trackball key and select Reinstall. Just like that, the application will be installed and available to you instantly.

For information on how to archive and restore an application using BlackBerry App World, please review the Knowledge Base article Archive and restore an application in the BlackBerry App World storefront located in the BlackBerry Technical Solution Center.

If you have any questions or comments about the archiving feature in BlackBerry App World, please leave a comment!

Smartphone memory can be tricky to navigate, so we wanted to break it down a bit and help you, our users, get the best use out of your BlackBerry® smartphone memory.

The memory on a BlackBerry smartphone can be broken down into two parts: working memory and storage space. Working memory is built into the device, and is used to store and run all your applications. Storage space is used to hold documents, pictures, music, and any other type of file on your device. Storage space is most often a microSD card which can be upgraded or swapped.

To see how many applications are currently open and running in the background on your device, hold down the “menu” button and you will see a list of icons, as shown in the image at the top of this post.

There are five applications that will always show up here: Messages, Browser, BlackBerry® Messenger, Home, and Phone. Any other icons you see here are additional running applications. You may not have even known these were still running in the background, but they are.

If you exit from an application using the red phone button, that application will continue running in the background, allowing you to return to it later. But if you would rather exit from an app completely, press the menu key to display the menu, and select “close” or “exit” (depending on the application). This will ensure the application is not still running in the background.

To see how much memory is being used on a BlackBerry® Torch™ 9800 smartphone (or any device running BlackBerry® 6 OS), find your main options. This is the “wrench” icon.

After clicking the wrench, go to “Device” and then “Application Management.” BlackBerry 6 OS software offers a detailed look at how your memory is used. At the top of the screen, scroll right until you see “Memory”.

This screen will show you how much working memory is free, and also which applications are using the most.

To see how much memory is being used on any other BlackBerry smartphone, we also start at the wrench icon.

When you click the wrench, you will be presented with a list. Find “Memory”. This screen will detail how much space is left in your working memory (called “Application Memory” here) as well as your storage space.

If you find that your device memory is lower than 10-15 MB, you may want to take actions to increase it.

One method to free a lot of space is to remove any old, unused applications from your device. This can be done right on your home screen on most versions of BlackBerry software. Simply highlight the unused app, click the menu key, and select “delete”. If you are running an older device, you may not have the option to delete right on the home screen. If so, go to your main options > “Advanced Options” > “Applications”. Select the unused app from the list, press the menu button and then select “delete”.

Another way to save space is to store your media files in your storage memory. These files run just as well from a microSD card as they do from your working memory. If you insert a microSD card into your BlackBerry smartphone, a default will automatically be set to save your pictures and movies there, for just this reason.

Closing running applications, storing media on microSD cards, and deleting unwanted apps will all help increase your working memory, and help avoid downtime – allowing you to do more with your BlackBerry smartphone. Try out these simple steps, and see if you notice a difference in the performance of your BlackBerry smartphone.

Let us know if you have any more questions in the comments!