Your phone is full again, and the warning appears at exactly the wrong moment. Suddenly you can’t update apps, record a video, or save another photo.
The cause is rarely one giant file. Storage disappears in a steady drizzle of leftovers: temporary files an app creates and forgets, caches that grow in the background, and downloads you no longer need. None of it is dangerous, but it can gradually fill your phone’s storage.
Junk Cleaner is a new tool in Malwarebytes for Android, available from version 5.22. It finds that clutter, shows you what’s using space, and lets you decide what to remove.
What Junk Cleaner finds
Junk Cleaner looks for three broad categories of storage clutter:
- Leftover and residual files: Temporary and system-generated files that apps leave behind.
- Old and large downloads: Files you saved but no longer use or remember.
- (Coming soon) Hidden app caches: Storage used by apps in places Android keeps out of easy reach.
A file showing up in one of these categories doesn’t mean it’s harmful. It just means it’s taking up space and might be worth removing. That distinction matters because Junk Cleaner is about storage, not threats. It works separately from Malwarebytes malware scanning and web protection, and it doesn’t touch your photos, messages, or documents.
Scan, review, clean
Junk Cleaner scans the relevant areas of your device in parallel, guided by a set of rules that can be updated as we learn about new kinds of leftover files. The results are grouped by category and show how much space each item is using.
After the scan, you review the findings and choose what to clear. Nothing is deleted until you confirm the selection. The results are presented as a simple list showing each category and how much space you could recover.
A quick look under the hood
Junk Cleaner uses rules to identify patterns of clutter. These are not malware or phishing signatures. They describe file types and locations that may be worth reviewing when you need more space.
The scanner checks the relevant directories, matches files against those rules, measures how much space each hidden cache occupies, and combines the results into a single review screen.
Junk Cleaner automates a repetitive Android chore without turning storage cleanup into another complicated job.
Built at a hackathon
Junk Cleaner began as an internal hackathon project, an idea one engineer wanted to explore over a few focused days. The prototype proved useful enough to grow into a shipping feature, and reached all users in Malwarebytes for Android version 5.22.
Turning the demo into a product meant more than polishing the screen. The team added Android permission handling, cache cleaning, and review experience needed for a feature people could rely on across different devices.
We like that origin story because many useful features begin the same way: someone scratches an itch, builds something quickly, and turns a rough idea into a tool that can help millions of people. Future updates will bring smarter sorting, finer filters, and more control over what’s included.
Make room for what matters
Running out of space always seems to happen at the worst possible moment. Junk Cleaner clears away the leftovers that quietly build up, leaving more room for the photos, apps, and moments that actually matter.
Junk Cleaner is available in Malwarebytes for Android from version 5.22. Open the app, run a scan, review the results, and reclaim your space in a few taps.
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