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in Android phones, there are settings related to the phone's internal storage.

I am interested in two of those settings, "delete all RAM data for all Apps", & "delete all CACHED data for all Apps", because each is larger than 100MB already according to the displayed info.

  1. I thought until now that "cache" is part of "RAM"? Or what is the difference? There are two different options available so there must be some kind of difference I guess.

  2. I like to know if it is totally OK to delete those 2 things (ram+cache) from time to time (& for all apps)? I know that deleting cache has no negative effect, because I deleted cache of apps sometimes. But I never deleted RAM data. And the thing is also, the setting says "...for ALL apps". So there are apps like "contacts" "calendar" or other system relevant apps included. I am not sure if you can wipe RAM/cache of those kind of apps, too?

Thank you for help

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  • Cache is on persistent storage, which the OS itself clears as the storage runs short. You can also clear that manually for individual or all apps. RAM is volatile memory which the kernel allocates as the processes are created, executed, exited and killed. So clearing RAM doesn't make sense to me.
    – Irfan Latif
    Commented Dec 6, 2019 at 1:31
  • Is it safe to manually “clear cache” of apps on Android?
    – Irfan Latif
    Commented May 29, 2020 at 10:17

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I thought until now that "cache" is part of "RAM"? Or what is the difference? There are two different options available so there must be some kind of difference I guess.

RAM is the space in main memory used by running processes. Similar to the RAM used in desktops and laptops.

Cached data includes the files, images, scripts and other media files stored on your device by an website or app. Data is stored on your devices in a reserved space, so the next time when you are visiting the app or website, information is already available.

I like to know if it is totally OK to delete those 2 things (ram+cache) from time to time (& for all apps)? I know that deleting cache has no negative effect, because I deleted cache of apps sometimes. But I never deleted RAM data. And the thing is also, the setting says "...for ALL apps". So there are apps like "contacts" "calendar" or other system relevant apps included. I am not sure if you can wipe RAM/cache of those kind of apps, too?

There is no problem if you clear cache and RAM. In fact, you should do that regularly to keep your phone efficient. Even after you clear RAM, some processes would restart; so ignore them. Otherwise it would stop all processes that are not being utilised at the moment.

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  • thx. Cache is all right. but why do you think RAM is ok to clean regularly? The apps will either way -restart automatically again and the RAM will increase again. Or do you assume there could be Apps running, which after clearing RAM, would NOT restart again?
    – johnsmiththelird
    Commented Dec 5, 2019 at 23:34
  • It is absolutely okay to clear RAM. If you are working on some app, then don't clear the RAM, because you would have to open the app once again. For eg, if you are downloading something on chrome, clearing RAM will stop the download as chrome will close, and you have to manually start it again. But if your device is idle, there will be NO problem if you clear the RAM. Processes like that of social media apps will restart themselves when required. In other words, there would be no app that would not be able to restart itself if it requires to do so.
    – Wrichik Basu
    Commented Dec 6, 2019 at 8:29
  • But remember clearing RAM will free up space to make your phone fast, it will not give you space where you can save your photos and media, unlike cache. Read this: androidpit.com/ram-management-on-android
    – Wrichik Basu
    Commented Dec 6, 2019 at 8:31

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