Why is my Nexus 7 taking up so much memory?

[Android Question]

I had 2.2GB free on my Nexus 7's internal storage, then I decided to download a game that took up 1.55GB. Halfway through the download, it tells me that I have have insufficient memory and it stops the download. I then have around 500MB of storage left, and the app is no where in sight and I don't know how to clear up my memory. I decided to factory restore my tablet and afterwords I have 800MB of internal storage (it should have been around 500MB, but I didn't install some apps I had before). Does anyone know how I could get it back to 2.2GB? Thank you in advance.

 

[SiempreTuna]

My guess is the reason you had the original issue is that the app installation files are sent compressed and are uncompressed on the device during installation. What that means is you likely need somewhere north of double the size of the installation files free in order to run the installation. The compressed files would then be deleted, freeing up a large chunk of that space.

It sounds like when the game install failed, it left the 1.5GB of installation files hanging around .. somewhere. You should be able to find these using a file manager from the Play Store (I use a free one called File Manager), though I don't know where they'd be: try searching for .apk files - I guess the names, sizes or creation dates should tell you which are the right ones. Make sure you tick the options to allow you to see hidden and system files.

Hopefully, you'll be able to delete the files without rooting (getting admin access), but that's beyond my very limited knowledge.