Help & frequently asked questions

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

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

Ads are served by Google AdMob as app open, interstitial and native ads. Where the law requires it, you are asked for consent before the first ad request, and you can change your choice at any time in Settings › Ad and data settings (shown where it applies). Details are in section 6 of the privacy policy.

Earlier releases were different: 1.3.x declared no network permission at all, and 2.x did not show ads. This version goes online to request ads and report technical telemetry, and we would rather say so here than let you find out from the permission list.

I tapped some ads and now full-screen ads or notifications have stopped. Why?

That is a guard against repeated and accidental ad taps. When full-screen ads (app open and interstitial) have been tapped several times within 24 hours, Spacely stops showing them for a while; after more taps it also stops sending cleanup suggestions. Everything else in the app keeps working, and both come back as older taps fall out of the 24-hour window.

The count of recent ad taps is kept on your phone only. If an ad reports a tap when nothing touched the screen just before, that tap is not counted; it is only noted on your phone. Details are in section 5 of the privacy policy.

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 ads and to report technical telemetry. What keeps your files out of that path is not a promise: the part of the app that hosts the advertising and telemetry SDKs is compiled without our file model available to it, so a file path is not something it 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.

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. For anything else, you can point Spacely at a folder you choose in Folders — it sees only that folder, and you can revoke access at any time. Android does not let any app be granted the Download folder itself or the root of your storage, so files kept directly there stay out of reach. 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.

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.

What notifications does Spacely send, and how do I turn them off?

All of them are local, and all of them are optional:

• Storage overview (switched on when you allow notifications): free space, total capacity, the time it was measured and a block bar of your storage, in your notification shade. Expanded, it lists up to three more measured figures — such as what is pending in the recycle bin, the size of your screenshots or large files, or Spacely’s own cache. It is silent. Since version 4.0.1 the app keeps it up to date with a foreground service while it is on; switching it off or blocking its notifications stops that service. If you swipe it away it comes back after a moment; to remove it, switch it off in Settings › Notifications.
• Cleanup suggestions: notices that each state one measured fact — for example Spacely’s own cache, free space, Trash items still using storage, or screenshots and large videos taking up space — and open the screen showing the same number. They have a daily limit and are only sent while your screen is on. Most need the phone to be unlocked too; one can be sent when the screen turns on while the phone is still locked, so it may appear on your lock screen (how much it shows there follows Android’s lock-screen notification setting). Besides unlocking, charging and similar system events, a suggestion can follow pressing Home or about 30 seconds after you leave Spacely. You can swipe them away, unless Spacely was installed from an advertising campaign: then they stay in the shade until tapped (on Android 13 and earlier they cannot be swiped away). Notices about screenshots, videos, audio, large files or photos that can be compressed are only sent if you have allowed full access to that media.
• Recycle bin expiry notices, which open the recycle bin, and a daily reminder that is off by default.

What a notification says is measured and composed on your phone. To change them, use Settings › Notifications in Spacely, or turn off Spacely’s notifications in Android Settings › Apps › Spacely › Notifications.

Why does Spacely suggest allowing “auto-start” on my OPPO, realme, OnePlus or Xiaomi phone?

On these phones the system by default stops apps from being woken up in the background. The storage overview in your notification shade and the cleanup suggestions are updated in the background, so with auto-start off they can stay out of date until you open Spacely. Since version 4.0.2, when the storage overview is on, Spacely suggests this once on these phones and takes you to the system setting. Android gives apps no way to read this switch, so Spacely never shows it as “on” or “off”, and it will not ask again. You can always find the same guide in Settings › Auto-start. Allowing it does not make Spacely “speed up” or “save battery”; it only lets the updates arrive.

Which languages does Spacely support?

Fourteen, all shipped inside the APK with no extra download: English, 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. Spacely no longer lists them either: reading other apps’ cache sizes would require usage-tracking access, which we decided not to ask for.

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 has no memory screen and does not itself read memory usage: 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. Photos, videos and audio go into Android’s own system trash, which exists on Android 11 and later — Android decides when they expire, and Spacely shows the real date it reports rather than a number we made up. On Android 8–10 there is no system trash: Spacely says so in the delete dialog, and those items are deleted without a bin. Files from folders you chose go to a recycle-bin folder inside that same folder and are kept for the retention period set in Spacely. Open Recycle bin and tap Restore.

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 identifiers and data described in section 3 of the privacy policy are held by the telemetry provider and by Google. To have the telemetry data deleted, email us with the subject “Data deletion request” and we will pass it on and confirm the outcome. Data collected for ads is processed by Google under its own policy; you can reset or delete your advertising ID in Android Settings (section 6 of the policy).

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.