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Many people associate Google with the popular search engine that they can use to find information on the internet. While this is certainly true, the company has grown over the years to deal in many kinds of ventures that connect to technology and its use. One of the ways the business has done this is through its release of its own Google Play Services.
For the most part, Google Play acts as an app that you can download and use on many of your devices. Its services include connecting various apps that you might use to other Google features. This is separate from the Google Play Store itself, which gives you access to other apps, a large digital library of books, music, movies, games, and other entertainment or work options that can help you do things.
Google Play Services can be quite useful for many people, but some of them wonder why the process seems to take up so much of the free storage space they have on their devices. We will get into this question in our post below. Further, we can try to offer our readers some troubleshooting tips that might help them reduce the amount of space this one app uses.
As we dig deeper, we can discuss whether users should clear the data that Google Play stores as one of the ways that they might free up some of this space. To wrap things up, we’ll talk about the possible consequences of disabling the app altogether.
Table of Contents
Why Does Google Play Services Use So Much Space?
There are a few reasons that may offer us some insights into why Google Play Services might take up so much space on a single device. While it makes sense to explore some of these possibilities in detail, most of them are ones that we can narrow down to helping certain core services on the phone run.
There are certainly things Google Play might do that don’t add much value to the use of your phone or its performance, but various Google apps store data as part of Google Play.
Depending on your operating system or installed apps, you may use Google for services such as cloud storage, email management, calendars, notes, photos, and more. Each of these separate apps cache and store data as part of the overall network that is Google Play Services. The amount of data that these processes use will depend on how much of it you have in each individual app that you run.
For example, having hundreds or thousands of photos that you can store or view through Google’s own app may contribute to some of the data that Play Services stores.
Further, Play Services may duplicate some of the data that your operating system uses. Effectively, this means that the service might store at least one copy of the same data file that it has in its memory already. While this is not uncommon, it can contribute to having a reading that is quite high when you look at the overall storage space that Google Play wants to use on your device.
This sort of thing only gets truly problematic if Google Play Services is on some loop. In rare cases, the process can glitch in a way that makes it check for and cache data it stored at an earlier point. If it is in a loop, it may do this endlessly for some files. Such an action would cause its overall storage needs to creep up slowly.
How Do I Reduce Space for Google Play Services?
The cached data that Google Play Services stores relates to individual app data that needs to sync with your device. This space can grow as you add more apps that might rely on even one of Google’s other services or features.
Every time you perform any kind of search on your device, Google Play Services caches that information and uses it to refine your search patterns later. This indexing process also takes up some space, but there is a way to clear all of this out.
- When you go to wherever you store the apps on your phone, you can search for the Google Play Services one.
- Once you get into the app itself, you will find that its total capacity is something that the device can break down into categories.
- One of these categories is the cached data that Google Play Services stores.
- If you click on this area, you should be able to clear the cache of that data.
- Doing so should free up the space that the cache was taking.
- Clearing the cache only deletes some temporary files, but it can give your device more storage space for other things.
Is It OK To Clear Google Play Services Data?
When we talk about Google Play Services Data, we’re discussing two kinds of data. If you go into the app itself, you can see categories for both standard data and a cache.
We’ve talked about the cache in some detail already, but it usually contains a collection of temporary files that Google Play Services stores about other apps or features. One category may be larger than the other when you look at how the process divides its data, too.
We know that clearing just the cache can clean up some temporary file leftovers. This might have the additional advantage of making your device run smoother or faster. However, there is the other category of data to consider.
If you look at what permissions Google Play has, you will see that many apps connect with it in order to provide you with some services or features. In short, some things that your operating system stores might rely on Google Play Services as a process in order to function correctly.
Should you decide to delete the actual data that comprises Google Play Services, you may find that you cannot use apps or services that rely on Google. This could mean that you cannot sign in to some services or access some of the data that you associate with those accounts.
While this is not a foregone conclusion, it is clear that Google Play Services needs to keep its data intact in order to function. It is also true that many apps or processes rely on this one in order to give you the features that you want.
Once you delete this data, some processes on your device might cease to function or work incorrectly. You may get error messages telling you that some things cannot start. Similarly, the operating system may force other apps to stop running due to a lack of intact Google Play Services data. While all of this could impede the functionality of your device, Google checks the internet often for updates and backups to the account data that you store.
If you find that your phone or tablet no longer works well once Google Play loses its data, you might be able to restore the app and its data using a fresh restart and a solid Wi-Fi connection. Should that tactic prove ineffective, you can still use another device to download and transfer the appropriate files to put Google Play Services back on your device as a fresh install.
If it starts correctly, it should search for and download the necessary data to get your device running properly again. Keep in mind that all of this may make Google Play Services take up more space than it did before.
What Will Happen if I Disable Google Play Services? (What’s the Purpose of It?)
Disabling Google Play Services can have an effect that is similar to deleting its data. However, the service retains its data to the point at which you disabled it.
It simply won’t run in the background or collect updates to that data when you force it to stop. In order to understand what might happen if you disable the service, it is important to understand how it helps your device.
Google Play Services keeps many of the other apps and functions on your tablet or phone running smoothly. In addition, many of the basic features that your device might use tend to rely on Google Play Services by default. There are some operating systems that use features or apps without needing Google Play Services at all.
However, some popular systems come with it once you get the device. In these cases, things like contacts, files, phone activity, information that syncs with online Google apps, and some basic functions that go with your operating system may cease to function altogether. All of this might remain the case until you reactive Google Play Services and allow it to restore functions to their usual state.
Conclusion
Google Play Services can take up quite a bit of space on some devices. However, it also streamlines many processes that run in the background. This is particularly true of any apps that form a relationship with features that Google provides to the system directly.
There are ways that you might free up some of this space temporarily, but the service may look for and download this temporary data again automatically. Further, deleting its core data, forcing it to stop, or disabling it could cause problems with how your device works.
