When your Amazon Fire tablet runs out of storage, you can either free up space by deleting stuff or expand the capacity with a microSD card.

Amazon Fire tablets ship with at least 16GB of internal storage, enough to run a few games and download a bunch of shows. The latest Fire tablets support up to 1TB of external storage, making a microSD card an excellent investment. You'll still have to clear storage occasionally, though.

We'll show you how to find the data filling up your Amazon Fire tablet to free up space.

Buy Fire HD 10

Managing Storage on Your Amazon Fire Tablet

If you see the Critically Low Storage error on your brand-new Amazon Fire tablet, you must eventually deal with it. Fortunately, doing so is straightforward.

Amazon Fire Tablet Low on Storage Warning

To manage your Amazon Fire tablet storage, work through the following steps:

  1. Check storage
  2. Delete unwanted apps and games
  3. Delete the apps/game cache
  4. Use the 1-Tap Archive
  5. Clear browsing data
  6. Move data to the cloud
  7. Manage data from your PC
  8. Use a space-cleaning app
  9. Wipe your Amazon Fire tablet
  10. Use a microSD card

Let's look at each of these in turn. Before proceeding, however, it's a good idea to get a microSD card for your Amazon Fire if you don't have one already. You can buy these from Amazon; just make sure to avoid common microSD card mistakes. Sandisk also offers an official "Made for Amazon" microSD card that's great value.

1. Check Your Amazon Fire Storage

Fire tablet internal storage count

Either tap the Manage Storage button on the error message or open Settings > Storage > Internal storage to check your device's storage. This may take a while to load if the tablet's onboard storage is full.

In most scenarios, you'll find that Apps & Games takes up a good chunk of the built-in storage. Tap a category to see a list of the items that take up the most space within it. This can help you decide which apps to clear or remove first.

It's also common to find another couple of gigabytes swallowed up by the unhelpful, non-description of Miscellaneous. By tapping this, you'll typically discover the Others label, which is far bigger than everything else in Miscellaneous. You cannot clear this, unfortunately.

If you have sideloaded apps, i.e. downloaded them from a third-party source, remove any leftover APK installation files from where you saved them, typically the Downloads folder on your Fire tablet. The Files by Google app (see below) can help you clean out individual folders.

2. Delete or Move Unwanted Content

Amazon Fire Tablet Uninstall App

Next, you should manage the space eaten up by apps, games, and media content.

To delete a single app or game, long-tap its icon on the home screen, then select Uninstall.

To manage apps and games in bulk, go to Settings > Storage > Internal storage and tap Apps & Games. By default, these are sorted by name. To remove a game, tap it in the list, check how much storage it's taking up, and tap Uninstall to free up that space.

If you have a microSD card, switch to the SD Card Storage view to check what's already located on your expanded storage. Move any compatible apps and games to your microSD card. Do this in Settings > Storage, using the Move Apps to SD Card option.

If you don't see the Move Apps to SD Card option, the SD card either isn't set up as internal storage on your Amazon Fire tablet, or it's incompatible.

Amazon Fire SD Card Setup Internal or Portable Storage

Try removing the SD card via Settings > Storage > Safely Remove SD Card, then re-add it and see whether the setup screen shown above pops up to offer you the Use As Internal Storage option. This will require formatting the SD card.

3. Use the 1-Tap Archive

Amazon Fire 1-Tap Archive

You might be reluctant to delete apps and games if you've paid for them. However, this really isn't anything to worry about, as digital purchases save to the cloud. This means that you can download them to your tablet again after uninstalling, without cost.

Your Fire tablet lets you easily archive these items to the cloud for re-downloading later. Open Settings > Storage and tap View Content. This feature ignores recent apps. Instead, it groups the apps and games you haven't used for a while, giving you the chance to Archive them for later use.

The 1-Tap Archive feature is one of many Amazon Fire Tablet tips and tricks you have to know.

4. Delete Unwanted Game and App Caches

Amazon Fire Tablet Delete App Data

Next, look at the caches for the apps and games you want to keep. Often, games retain a certain amount of data on your tablet's storage. This even happens with games installed on the microSD card.

Before proceeding, understand that doing so will potentially result in the loss of game updates and even save files.

Open Settings > Storage > Internal storage / SD Card Storage > Apps & games and wait for the list to compile. When ready, browse your apps, one at a time, to see which are taking up the most space on your tablet storage. It's likely that several games are contributing to your low storage. Tap the respective game, switch to its Storage page, and select Clear Cache, which will proceed without confirmation.

While tapping Clear Storage will free up more space, it also completely resets the game.

5. Clear Browsing Data

Amazon Fire Tablet Clear Browsing Data on Silk Browser

Every time you use your browser, it will cache each site you view, so that things will load faster the next time you visit the same site. You can clear your accumulated browsing data using the method described above, but it won't clear everything. Clearing the entire storage, however, might delete too much data.

If you prefer to control exactly which information you're removing, use the following approach in combination with clearing the app cache.

While we demonstrate the process in Amazon's Silk Browser, it works almost exactly the same way in Chrome and Firefox.

Open the browser, tap the three-dot menu icon in its top right corner, then click Settings > Privacy and security > Clear browsing data. You can switch between Basic and Advanced settings, and you can select a Time range. Unless you want to clear saved passwords, auto-fill form data, or specific site settings, we recommend sticking with the basic browsing data.

Select the Time range, check all the items you want to clear, and note the amount of data you'll free up. Generally, clearing your browsing history or cookies and site data won't free up significant space, but cached images and files could amount to a sizable chunk of data.

6. Move Data to Amazon Photos

Amazon Photos Storage

If you regularly create content on your Amazon Fire, then there's a good chance this is eating up your storage. This is where Amazon Drive can help. Almost everything you buy or consume on Amazon is also available in the cloud mirror of your account, so don't worry about losing apps or games. It often retains game progress, too.

Because photos and videos automatically sync to Amazon Drive and Amazon Photos, you shouldn't need to move any data around. Check your Amazon Drive account to see what's synced.

Currently, Fire devices get 5GB of free storage. Amazon Prime subscribers also get 5GB, one of many bonuses for Prime members. If you have both, you get 10GB of total storage!

7. Connect to Your PC for Closer Inspection

Amazon Fire USB Preferences

Another step is to connect the Amazon Fire tablet to your PC via USB and browse its contents using your desktop file manager.

On the tablet, you should see a notification when the device is connected. Be sure to select the File transfer option. If you don't see this option pop up when you plug in the USB cable, go to Settings > Connected Devices > USB and, under "Use USB for," select File transfer.

In your PC's file manager, open the Internal storage to track down what's eating up your storage. This is a slow process, and you might not even locate the responsible app. However, you should at least spot data that are best moved to your microSD card.

8. Clean Up With Files by Google

Files by Google Clean Junk

Can't connect the tablet to your PC? Try a cleaner app. You'll need a bit of free space on your tablet to properly install the app. If you're really short on space, find an app, game, or other bits of data you don't need or can easily reinstall, and remove it.

We couldn't find a reliable app for this purpose on the Amazon Appstore, as Piriform's CCleaner is no longer available. Hence, we strongly recommend installing the Google Play Store on your Fire tablet, so you can use an excellent app like Files by Google. Alternatively, you could download Files by Google from APKMirror.

Within Files by Google, tap the Clean button and follow the cleaning suggestions, which will help you clear junk files, large files, and downloaded files. You can also sort installed apps by size and uninstall individual apps straight from within Files by Google.

9. Reset the Amazon Fire

Amazon Fire Reset to Factory Settings

This is the nuclear option. If none of the other fixes work, you can use a factory reset to clear your internal storage.

For safety, eject your microSD card beforehand if you have one. Make sure you've backed up your personal data to the Amazon Cloud Drive, because doing this will erase everything on your device.

To reset the tablet, open Settings > Device Options, and tap Reset to Factory Defaults. Hit Reset again to confirm the decision and wait while the tablet restarts. You'll need to reconnect to your local network and sign in to the device again once it restarts. Everything should seem faster since it's a fresh start.

10. Confirm the SD Card Is in Use

Amazon Fire SD Card Storage Settings

Resetting your tablet is an excellent time to get a microSD card and take advantage of the expanded storage it offers. Pay attention to where media is downloaded, and you should never have to go through any of this again!

Install the card with the tablet switched off, and the card should mount when you restart the device. The tablet will then present you with the option of downloading media.

To confirm these options, open Settings > Storage and scroll down. Ensure each switch in the SD Card section is enabled. Meanwhile, use the Erase SD card option if you need to wipe the card.

It's also possible to remove the microSD card from this menu. Use the Safely Remove SD Card button at the very bottom to stop all tasks. You'll then be able to eject the microSD card from your Amazon Fire tablet safely.

Freeing Up Space on Your Fire Tablet Is Simple

By now, you should have created some extra space in the interior storage of your Amazon Fire tablet. Perhaps you had some games taking up too much space, or maybe hidden files were eating up the storage. With a microSD card installed, your tablet should have some free space, which will help to speed it up.