What Happens When You Clear Data of an Android App: Popular Apps Explained

In general, if you have a problem with an Android application on your phone or tablet, you should have been asked to clear its cache or data. When you hit the Clear Data button, you will be greeted with the message that it will delete your account and files. Now it could shake anyone. And we would be curious to know what happens if they erase data from an Android application?

We will try to answer all your questions in this article. We will explain the consequences of data deletion for popular applications such as Facebook, Instagram, Google Play Store, Contacts, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, etc.

Let’s start with erasing the data, followed by the aftermath of data erasure.

How to Clear App Data on Android

You will find the Clear cache and Clear data options in the application information settings for each application. Here are the steps:

Step 1: Open Settings on your phone and go to Applications or Installed application or Applications and notifications.

2nd step: Tap the application whose data you want to delete. Let’s say WhatsApp.

Step 3: Tap Storage, then tap Clear Data or Clear Storage, depending on the option available.

What Happens When You Erase Data

When an application is installed, an application data directory is created on your phone. The directory or folder contains account details, customizations to application settings, and offline files.

When you clear data or storage from an application, it deletes the data associated with that application. And when that happens, your app will behave like a freshly installed app. You will need to log in again, grant the necessary permissions, change the notification settings, etc. This applies to all applications.

In other words, erasing data is equivalent to resetting an application. Consider erasing data as the combined process of uninstalling and reinstalling the app, except to download the app again. Since erasing the data clears the application cache, some applications such as the Gallery application will take a long time to load.

Deleting the data will not delete the app updates. When you open the app after erasing its data, you will see the latest version previously installed on your phone.

Similarly, erasing the data will not delete any of your accounts. You will only be logged out of most applications. For example, if you delete data for the Twitter application, your account will still be active. You just need to reconnect. So make sure you know your account username and password before pressing the Clear Data button.

Deleting data is different from resetting app preferences on Android
because it deletes data from certain applications in addition to resetting the application settings. This is not the case with resetting application preferences, which mainly restores the settings of all applications to their original values.

Now that you know the basics of data deletion, let’s check out what’s going on by deleting data for popular apps.

What Happens When You Erase Android Launcher Data

Deleting data from an Android launcher will remove the customizations you made to your Home screen, your app drawer, and other features through that launcher. I use Nova Launcher, and if I erase its data, I will have to configure everything from the start, like the home screen, folders, gestures, appearances, type of notification badge, etc., like if I had installed the Nova app for the first time. time on my phone.

You can save your customizations from the launchers by creating a backup from the launcher settings before erasing its data. Deleting the data will not delete the backup files. However, we suggest that you save it to the cloud if the application allows you to do so.

What happens when you delete data from Google Play Store and Play services

The Google Play Store often irritates users due to various issues such as waiting for a download, a blank screen problem, a pending download, etc.

When you delete data for Google Play Store, the apps on your phone and their data remain intact. Even your subscriptions will not be affected as they are linked to your Google account. Only settings inside the Play Store, such as app download preferences, theme, automatic download, etc. will be reset, including the Play Store search history.

You won’t be signed out of Play Store because it uses a Google account, which appears in Settings> Accounts. Deleting data from the Play Store or any other Google app will not delete or unlink the Google Account.

Likewise, Google Play services are also known for errors such as updating, Play services stopped, etc. To correct them, you can delete their data. The deletion of data for Play services will not affect any of your personal data or data associated with an application.

What happens when you delete data from the Phone, Contacts and Messages app

Regarding the Phone application, we are concerned about the history and contacts. Deleting data from the Phone app will not delete your call history or contacts. But, as is obvious, all customizations made to the app settings will be reset.

Likewise, deleting data from the preinstalled Contacts app or a third-party contacts app will not affect your contacts – both local and synchronized. That said, we strongly suggest that you make a local backup of your contacts and synchronize them with Google or any other backup service before erasing their data to avoid unnecessary damage. If you accidentally delete your Google contacts, learn how to restore deleted contacts from Google.

Note: Deleting application data from the contact storage system in Settings> Applications will delete your contacts.

Even messages are not changed when you delete the data from the Messages application on your phone. Only the application settings such as notifications will be reset.

What happens when you delete data for camera and gallery

Deleting data from the Camera app only resets its settings such as the front camera image size, HDR, grid lines, etc. Likewise, also for the Gallery application, only parameters such as sorting mode, themes, etc. will be changed. Your photos and videos will not be deleted by erasing the data from either of the applications.

What happens when you delete data for Google Photos

Google Photos is a gallery app in addition to being a photo storage tool. Thus, erasing its data or uninstalling the application will not delete any of your photos or videos. After erasing the data, the application may take a while to rebuild the thumbnail database. So be patient.

Point: If you want to free up space on your phone, use the Free up space feature in Google Photos.

What Happens When You Erase WhatsApp Data

When you erase WhatsApp data, you will need to check your WhatsApp account again, as you did when you installed it on your phone. Make sure you have access to the same number as the one registered with WhatsApp. And yes, your cats will be deleted by erasing their data. However, you can restore WhatsApp messages from your local backup or from Google Drive.

Other settings that are reset include personalization settings such as WhatsApp wallpaper, font size, and storage usage.

Items that are not affected by WhatsApp data erasure include your profile picture, privacy settings, blocked contacts and previous local backups. You will not be removed from your WhatsApp groups. They will reappear when you sign up for WhatsApp but without the previous chat history. Your downloaded media files, such as images, videos, etc., are still accessible through other supported applications such as the gallery.

Point: Find out what happens when you uninstall WhatsApp and delete the WhatsApp account.

What happens when you erase data for Instagram and Facebook

Many users fear that deleting data for Instagram and Facebook apps will delete their accounts. But this is not true. You will only be logged out of your accounts on these applications by erasing the data. The data for these social media apps is stored in the cloud, not on your phone. The same goes for applications like Twitter, Pinterest, etc.

Your activity or data such as photos, comments, publications, groups, messages, stories, etc. on these social media websites will not be deleted. Even the media downloaded to your phone from these applications will still be available. For example, if you save your story from Instagram to your phone, you can still see it in Gallery. After clearing the data, re-enter your account details to view the data in these applications.

Point: Find out what happens when you uninstall Instagram from the phone.

What happens when you erase data for Facebook Messenger and Gmail

WhatsApp stores data only on your phone (if it is not backed up). However, Facebook Messenger, Gmail, and similar apps synchronize them with cloud storage. So even if you erase data or uninstall the app, your messages or contacts will not be deleted.

However, you will be logged out. After logging back in, you can view your messages. If you don’t want to log in, you can access messages or emails from their website. All customizations made to applications such as theme, discussion heads, notification settings, etc. will be reset.

Point: Know what’s going on by uninstalling Facebook or Messenger.

What Happens When You Erase Data for Cloud Storage Services Applications (Google Drive, OneDrive)

Apps for cloud storage services like Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, etc. save your files to the cloud. Thus, deleting them on your Android phone will not delete the files associated with these services. You will be logged out of the app after erasing the data. Reconnecting will bring back the files.

What happens when you delete data for YouTube

You should now know that deleting data for the YouTube app will not delete your account and the published videos. Even your playlists, your search and search history are not affected. They are linked to your Google account. However, the offline videos that you have downloaded will be deleted as well as the personalization settings defined in the application, such as autoplay, download settings, etc.

What Happens When You Clear Data in Shopping Apps

Do not worry. Deleting data from a shopping app will not cancel your order or delete your wish list. Of course, you will be disconnected but you will reconnect to restore your orders, past purchases, payments and other information.

What Happens When You Clear the Cache of an Android Application

The cache contains temporary data from your applications so that the data can be accessed quickly when the application needs it later without downloading it again. For example, when you open Facebook, your phone saves viewed data such as profile photos, images, etc., as cached data. Next time, when you open the app again, it will first check the cached data and show you the same thing. So save data and other phone resources because it no longer downloads them. At the same time, the app will check if there has been a change in the actual Facebook data. If something has changed, you will see the new data.

Now when you clear the app cache, it only deletes these temporary files, without affecting any of your personal data like messages, images, accounts, files, etc. Typically, Android handles cached data independently. So you don’t have to delete it manually. However, if an application encounters a problem, you can try to clear the cache.

Is it okay to clear application data

As you saw above, the end result of data erasure depends on the application. The examples above describe generic behavior. Some applications may behave differently.

So you should only clear data from an app if clearing the cache or other solutions doesn’t work, and resetting the phone is the ultimate option. It is useful in cases where an application does not offer an integrated disconnection option. Instead of uninstalling the app, you can erase the data and reconnect. Deleting data also frees up space in many applications.