Help & frequently asked questions

Is Spacely free? Are there ads or in-app purchases?

Spacely is free and paid for by advertising. There are no in-app purchases, no subscription and no paywall — every feature is available to everyone, and there is nothing to unlock.

Earlier releases (1.3.x) shipped with no advertising and no network permission at all. That is no longer true, and we would rather say so here than let you find out from the permission list.

Where exactly do the ads appear?

Two places, both inline in the page. One in the home suggestion feed, after the fourth real suggestion card. One on the cleanup complete screen, below your result and below the main button. Both are outlined, labelled AD, and their buttons never reuse the wording of ours. If an ad fails to load, the slot collapses to nothing rather than leaving a blank box.

Nowhere else. No ad when you open the app, none while a scan or cleanup is running, none when you press back, none during a swipe session, none in the recycle bin, on the storage map, in a notification, on a widget or on your lock screen. No full-screen ad of any kind and no rewarded video.

Those placements are not switched off — they are absent from the app’s code, so no server-side setting can bring one back. If you ever see one of them, that is a bug and we want to hear about it: email us and we will treat it as a release blocker.

Does Spacely upload my files, photos or scan results?

No. Scanning, size calculation, blur detection, perceptual hashing and SHA-256 hashing all run on your phone, and no file, thumbnail, file name, path or scan result is ever sent anywhere. There is no account, no cloud sync and no server of ours holding your content.

The app does go online — to request the two ads and to report anonymous usage and stability data. What keeps your files out of that path is not a promise: the parts of the app that host those SDKs are compiled without our file model available to them, so a file path is not something they can even refer to, and an automated check fails the build if that ever changes. The full list of what is collected is in section 3 of the privacy policy.

Can I turn the ads off, or see fewer personalised ones?

There is no paid ad-removal option today. What you can do: reset or delete your advertising ID in Android Settings › Privacy › Ads, which stops personalised advertising on your device. Where the law requires a consent form — the EEA and the UK, for example — you can reopen it from the “i” button on any ad slot and change your answer. Declining never limits a feature.

Why doesn’t Spacely ask for “All files access”?

Because we decided not to. MANAGE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE would let us see .apk, .zip, .pdf and other non-media files, and plenty of cleaners ask for it. But Google’s approved uses for that permission are file managers, backup, anti-virus, document management, on-device search, encryption and device migration — cleaners are not on that list. Asking for it anyway would mean claiming to be something we are not.

So Spacely works within what Android grants a cleaner: photos, video and audio through MediaStore, plus its own cache. Large files means your biggest photos, videos and audio — not archives or installers, because we genuinely cannot see those. We would rather tell you that than show an empty list and let you wonder.

How do I revoke a permission I already granted?

Photos, video and notifications: Android Settings › Apps › Spacely › Permissions, then turn the permission off. You can also reach this screen from Spacely: Settings › Permission management.

All files access: Android Settings › Apps › Special app access › All files access, then switch Spacely off.

Usage access: Android Settings › Apps › Special app access › Usage access, then switch Spacely off.

The exact menu names vary a little between manufacturers. Revoking a permission never breaks the app — the affected screen simply falls back to a guidance card.

Which languages does Spacely support?

Fifteen, all shipped inside the APK with no extra download: English, 简体中文 (Simplified Chinese), 日本語 (Japanese), Deutsch (German), Français (French), Español (Spanish), Italiano (Italian), Português (Portuguese), Русский (Russian), Bahasa Indonesia, ไทย (Thai), Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese), Bahasa Melayu (Malay), Filipino and हिन्दी (Hindi).

Change it in Settings › Language, or choose System default to follow your phone’s language.

Can Spacely clear other apps’ caches?

No — Android does not allow any app to delete another app’s cache, and we won’t pretend otherwise. What Spacely does is show you how much cache each app is holding and take you directly to that app’s system storage page, where you can clear it yourself in one tap.

Because we don’t do the deleting, that figure is never counted in the “freed” total Spacely reports.

Can Spacely speed up my phone or free up RAM?

No, and no app honestly can. Android already manages background memory on its own, and force-stopping apps to show a big “released XXX MB” number usually makes things slower, because those apps simply restart.

So Spacely’s memory screen is a read-only dashboard: it shows what is in use and which apps are running, and stops there. There is no button, no invented megabytes and no clearing animation. What Spacely genuinely does is free storage — and every one of those numbers is real.

I deleted something by mistake. Can I get it back?

Usually yes — that is what the recycle bin is for. Photos, videos, large files and duplicates are moved to a bin instead of being erased. Everything this version can delete is media, so it goes into Android’s own system trash — Android decides when those items expire, and Spacely shows you the real date it reports rather than a number we made up. Open Recycle bin and tap Restore. (The 3/7/30-day retention setting in Spacely applies to non-media files only.)

Two things are not recoverable, and the app says so before it acts: items you chose to delete permanently instead of binning, and junk like caches and temporary files, which are erased directly because keeping a copy would defeat the point.

Because a binned file still occupies space, it is shown as pending, never as freed. Extra safeguards remain: protected folders such as DCIM/Camera are excluded from non-media scanning, and anything only suspected of being junk — blurry shots, for instance — starts unselected.

How is the health score calculated?

From three measurable factors, weighted: how much of your storage is free (0.50), how much cleanable junk was found relative to capacity (0.25), and how recently you last cleaned (0.25). Nothing is random. Tap the score in the app to see each factor’s current value and weight.

Which devices are supported?

Android phones running Android 8.0 (API 26) or newer. Spacely is portrait-only and is not adapted for tablets or landscape in this version.

What happens to my data if I uninstall?

Everything Spacely stores on the device — cleanup history, recycle-bin records, theme, language, reminder and retention preferences — lives in the app’s private storage and is removed with the app. You can also clear it immediately from Settings › Apps › Spacely › Storage. Note that items already in Android’s system trash are managed by Android, not by us.

We operate no server of our own. The anonymous identifiers and event data described in section 3 of the privacy policy are held by the advertising and telemetry providers; to have those deleted, email us with the subject “Data deletion request” and we will pass it on and confirm the outcome.

How do I report a bug or suggest a feature?

Email Spacely2026@proton.me. Please include your phone model, Android version, the app version shown at the bottom of the Settings screen, and what you were doing when the problem happened. Screenshots help a lot.