How To Fix “Amazon FireStick Critically Low on Storage”

In many ways, the Amazon Fire Stick is the greatest streaming device in the world. However, it isn’t a storage device which is a big issue for people who want to keep their favorite content on a portable device.

In this guide, we’ll take a look at a common problem that modern content streamers run into when they use their Amazon Fire Sticks as if they were an HDD rather than a streaming device: the “critically low on storage” error.

We want to begin this guide by saying that this storage error can be fixed rather quickly. Let’s take a look at some of the best solutions that can get rid of the “low on storage” issue.

Reset Your Amazon FireStick

This is the most fundamental step when it comes to solving any issue with your Amazon FireStick. That includes any problems with storage that you’re having. Here’s how you do it properly:

1. Go to the FireStick home screen by clicking the Home button.
2. Click Settings.
3. Click System/My Fire TV after scrolling to the right.
4. Click Reset to Factory Defaults after scrolling down.
5. Ignore the warning message that says “You are about to reset your Fire TV to its original factory settings and hence your sign-in information along with personal preferences will get deleted.“
6. Hit Reset.

You’ve successfully reset your Amazon Fire Stick. This will allow you to free up space on your FireStick, but you’ll have to login to your device again and make any changes to your personal preferences that you needed. However, once you’ve done that, you should now have plenty of available disk space. If not, keep reading.

Change Profile

Let’s say you didn’t reset your FireStick because you didn’t want to lose all of your data or apps. Or maybe resetting your FireStick didn’t free up space as much as you’d hoped.

What’s the next step you should take?

The next thing to try is having multiple profiles on your FireTV Stick. It’s not always possible to have two functioning profiles on an Amazon FireStick but if you have two, try switching between them to see if the “critically low on internal storage space” error goes away.

In that case, the only solution would be to get a new FireStick. You could maybe offset the cost by selling your old Fire TV device.

Contact Customer Support

No one likes contacting customer support, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t necessary sometimes. In some cases, you don’t have a choice but to contact Amazon customer support and ask for help. You can use their app and send them a message if you like.

Maybe your problem isn’t caused by an app or data taking up all the storage on your device. Maybe the problem is a lot deeper.

Uninstall Some Apps

The latest iterations of the Amazon Fire TV Stick device come in two models. One is the vanilla Fire TV Stick and the other is the Fire TV Stick 4K. Both offer just 8GB of internal space. Since the operating system is going to take a bit of space as well, you’re left with around 5 GB of disk space for apps and data.

To get rid of the “Fire TV Stick low on storage space” error you need to get rid of all the apps that you don’t use or don’t need. Here’s the best way to do it:

1. Go to the Fire TV Stick home screen and then to Settings.
2. Go to Applications and then Manage Installed Applications.
3. Select an app or two that you don’t need.
4. Uninstall the apps.

When you click on an app, a menu should pop up on your Fire TV device that gives you the option to delete it. Depending on your Amazon Fire TV Stick model you may have to click Uninstall again after a new prompt comes up for confirmation. Either way, this will help increase your available storage, even if you uninstall just one app.

Clear the Cache and App Data

Sometimes, getting rid of unused apps may not be enough for solving the “Fire TV Stick low on storage” error. You may have to start clearing the cache and app data to free up some disk space. But what are the cache and app data and where do they come from?

As your Fire TV Stick device gets older and you keep installing and using apps, they generate data in the background. Some of this built-up data is known as a cache file and it takes up storage space on your Fire TV device. While they do help to make your Fire TV Stick perform better, these files fill up space pretty quickly which can cause the “Fire Stick low on storage” error.

Clearing these cache files can sometimes solve the “Fire TV Stick low on memory” issue even without uninstalling the offending app. Note that once you clear an app’s cache files and other data, it’ll be as if you performed a factory reset on the app. In other words, the app will look as if you just downloaded it to your Fire TV Stick.

Your preferred settings along with other personal touches will also go away. If you only clear the cache the only thing you’ll lose is data belonging to unimportant things including temporary files. Here’s the best way to clear the cache to free up some disk space on your Fire TV Stick:

1. Go to the FireStick home screen.
2. Go to Settings.
3. Go to Applications.
4. Click on Manage Installed Applications.
5. Choose one of your apps whose cache you want to clear.
6. Click on Clear Cache.
7. Click on Clear Data to do a factory reset on the app.

This should give you some more disk space on your Fire TV Stick.

Deregister Your Amazon Fire TV Stick

We’ve already mentioned that one of the most effective ways to get rid of the “Amazon Fire TV Stick low on memory” issue is to perform a factory reset. You’ll lose all your data, apps and personal information including account credentials but you’ll get rid of the problem and have more free disk space on your Fire TV Stick.

However, before taking such a drastic step you can try to deregister and then register your Fire Stick again. A few users have reported that doing this helped them get rid of the “Fire TV Stick low on memory” issue. Here’s the best way to deregister your Fire TV Stick:

1. Go to the Fire TV Stick home screen.
2. Click on Settings.
3. Click on My Account.
4. Click on Amazon Account.
5. Click on Deregister.
6. Click any subsequent button that asks you for confirmation.

Get Rid of Kodi

While Kodi is a great app, the fact is that it requires a lot of storage to keep it going. Many users have reported that they’ve fixed the “Fire Stick low on memory” issue by uninstalling Kodi and reinstalling it. Some have managed the same by performing the Clear Data and Clear Cache actions on the Kodi app.

Another way people with rooted FireSticks have fixed this error is by getting rid of the mbcache.db error. If you know your way around rooting your FireStick device and connecting it to your computer then you should look for the location marked /data/data/com.amazon.tv.launcher/databases/mbcacche.db.

Reddit user Creep recommended going to this forum and this forum for more discussions regarding storage errors caused by Kodi.

Conclusion

If you don’t have 500MB of free space on your Fire TV Stick it’ll give you the “Amazon Fire TV Stick low on storage” error. This problem can cause many other performance issues. Generally, freeing up space until you have 1GB free gets rid of the problem.

Apart from the obvious things you can do like using ES Explorer to delete IPTV content, movies and APK files that you’ve downloaded in the past, you can also use the methods we’ve mentioned above to clear up space on your Fire TV Stick.