We shall try to answer all your questions in this post. We will explain the after-effects of clearing data for popular apps such as Facebook, Instagram, Google Play Store, Contacts, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and more.
When you clear data or storage of an app, it deletes the data associated with that app. And when that happens, your app will behave like a freshly installed one. You will have to log in again, grant necessary permissions, change notification settings, and similar things. That holds true across all the apps.
clear data on facebook app for android
Similarly, clearing data will not delete any of your accounts. You will only be logged out from most of the apps. For instance, if you clear data for the Twitter app, your account will still be active. You just need to log in again. So make sure you know your account username and password before you press the Clear data button.
When you clear data for Google Play Store, the apps on your phone and their data will remain intact. Even your subscriptions will remain unaffected as they are linked with your Google account. Only the settings inside the Play Store, such as app download preferences, theme, auto-download, etc., will be reset including the Play Store search history.
Clearing data for the Camera app will only reset its settings such as front camera picture size, HDR, gridlines, etc. Similarly, for the Gallery app too, only settings such as sort mode, themes, etc., will be changed. Your photos and videos will not be deleted by clearing the data of either app.
Your activity or data such as photos, comments, posts, groups, messages, stories, etc., on these social media websites will not be deleted. Even the media downloaded on your phone from these apps will still be available. For instance, if you save your story from Instagram on your phone, you can still see it inside Gallery. After clearing data, re-enter your account details to view the data in these apps.
The apps for cloud storage services such as Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, etc., save your files in the cloud. So clearing data for them on your Android phone will not delete the files associated with these services. You will be logged out from the app after clearing the data. Signing in again will bring back the files.
Having trouble with unresponsive apps? It may be time to give them a good spring cleaning. Don't worry, you don't have to uninstall the app or reset your phone. Instead, clear the app's cache or data. When you do this, any problematic files or bugs in the app will be deleted. You can also use your phone's Device Care features to limit background apps and help your battery last longer.
Open Settings, and then swipe to and tap Apps. Select or search for the app you want to clear. Tap Storage, tap Clear data, and then tap OK. This will completely wipe the app and reset it to the original settings.
Many users believe that Android should handle app cache and that interfering with default caching behavior is asking for trouble. But the truth is far murkier. Some apps don't use cache space responsibly, some break when they use too much cached data, and others won't start after an update without being manually cached. Blanket statements aren't helpful here. It's useful to understand what app cache is, why it matters, and why you might want to clear it on your Android smartphone.
While we often mention clearing cache and data in the same breath, they're two distinct actions on Android. When using the Spotify app, for example, it holds onto information like new artists you viewed, album art browsed, and search history as cache. When the app cache is cleared, all the mentioned data is cleared.
The application stores more vital information like user settings, databases, and login information as data. When you clear the data, both the cache and data are removed. Clearing data is the equivalent of starting an app from a clean slate as if you just installed it for the first time.
The primary reason for someone to clear the application cache would be to free up storage, which might impact the phone's performance. But clearing data is a much more dramatic step, which is generally reserved for when an app is buggy or fails to start. This could result from corrupted cache files, untested server-side changes, misbehaving software, or a new OS update to Android.
The option to clear data is a useful feature in solving many issues and is unique to Android. But we could use an automated solution similar to iOS for when an older device becomes full. At some point, it's worth looking into the best new Android phones. Newer phones tend to have more storage and faster speeds.
What is Documents and Data on iPhone? Documents and Data is made up of cached files and cookies (such as log-in data and preferences) and downloaded files like images and videos. These files are created and stored in order for the app to perform more quickly and efficiently for you on repeat visits to the app. However, it can soon eat up lots of space on your iPhone. You may find yourself wanting to clear out this data to make space on your iPhone - especially if it's an app you rarely use!
For example, I took 4 popular apps - Snapchat, Facebook, Safari and WhatsApp - and in a matter of minutes, I was able to tap into their Settings and clear search data, browsing data, history logs, caches and stored media. Let's see how it's done...
The images below show 2 different pages within the settings of the Facebook app on iPhone. As you can see, we need to access different pages in order to clear browsing data and other information like search histories.
For example, if you're interested in accessing and clearing your Facebook browsing data: Tap the menu icon (3 horizontal lines) > Settings & Privacy > Settings > Media and Contacts > Browser> Tap "Clear browsing data".
If you want to use an application again, you have to remove it. You either reinstall it or clear the App data and the Cache of the app. This guide will help you understand how you can Clear App Data and App Cache on Android Devices.
Now that you understand what 'cache' really means, it is also easier to understand the term 'clear app cache'. When you perform this step, what essentially happens is that all the temporary data related to an app is manually deleted.
When you clear an app's cached data, you remove the temporary files placed there, and you'd be surprised how often this simple step works. You should also note, however, that it doesn't guarantee better performance, and the app may even be temporarily slower the next time it's used.
If you haven't noticed yet, 'clear app cache' and 'clear app data' ('clear app storage' on newer phones) are two distinct steps. What you should note, however, is that clearing app data is a more severe step. While the cache can be cleared with little risk to app settings, preferences, and saved states, clearing the app data will delete/remove these entirely.
If you are on an older version of Android, you have the option to clear all cached files with a single click. To do this, all you need to do is to go to Settings > Storage > Cached data and select Clear Cache. This option is no longer available on newer Android versions including Android 10 and 11.
Your first step towards fixing a problematic app should be clearing the cache, as this is the least intrusive method for quickly fixing apps. If that fails, or if you wish to free up a larger volume of storage space, then clear the data. Just remember that anything stored or saved in the app, including audio, video, or image files, will also be removed.
1: Pressing the Clear Data button automatically clears the cache too. This is can be seen on the screen right then because when you press the Clear Data button and once the data is cleared, you will notice that under the Cache section, Cache shows 0.00KB and the Clear Cache button is disabled too.
By pressing Clear data on any app, you're clearing application's data, stored in /data/data/[package.name]. It doesn't contain any images of yours, nor you can access it unless you root your device. Cache also belongs to data, and it's inside /data/data/[package.name]/cache. Your images, on the other side, are in /sdcard/DCIM/ (probably, it differs from manufacturer to manufacturer). You see how the whole path is different? Because they are in the completely different parts of the device. You know how you have C:\, D:\, etc. partitions on Windows? Well, these folders are on the different partitions, they just don't have drive letter prepended to them.
So, for the gallery app, if you press Clear data, you are in reality deleting /data/data/com.android.gallery, and I suppose most of it is taken up by cache, which is made up of thumbnails. You see, loading gigabytes of photos in memory just to display a small preview isn't terribly efficient. And because it's slow and memory-hungry, Gallery resizes those multi-megapixel images to something smaller and puts those small images, thumbnails, into /data/data/com.android.gallery/cache, so it doesn't have to recreate them every time. If you delete them, it'll be smart enough to do it again next time it needs previews - take the whole picture, read every 16th pixel (for example), make a new picture out of it and store it in cache. If you go ahead and access all pictures in Gallery now, you'll have those 50MB back in no time (I suppose there isn't a bug in the application and it cleans cache properly).
There are several scenarios which may raise the need to clear the cache and data of your Facebook messenger app. One of these is when you reach a point and you notice that the device starts to hang or the Facebook messenger app becomes slower than normal. Another scenario is when the phone storage starts to fill up. The internal storage of your phone may over a period of time become depleted and you face the need to free up some space. You can as well be in need of resetting the app preferences and you are not sure where to begin from. All these scenarios raise the need to clear the device cache and data. 2ff7e9595c
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