PUBG Mobile can swell past 5 GB, but you don’t need to nuke your whole install to breathe again. Here’s how to reclaim gigabytes while keeping your rank, loadouts, and progress intact.
Delete Map and Mode Packs You Never Load Into
The single biggest space-saver lives inside the game itself. PUBG Mobile installs a fairly small core app and then downloads separate resource packs for every map and several game modes. Open the in-game Settings, head to the resource or download section, and you’ll see individual entries for Erangel, Miramar, Sanhok, Vikendi, Livik, Karakin, and Nusa, plus mode packs like Metro Royale and Payload.
Delete the ones you never load into. If your daily grind is Erangel and Livik ranked, there’s no reason to keep a full Miramar or Sanhok pack sitting on your phone — each one can run from a few hundred megabytes to well over a gigabyte. The game re-downloads a map automatically the next time you actually queue for it, so you lose nothing permanent, only the storage.
While you’re in there, switch off auto-download resources over Wi-Fi. Left on, it quietly re-pulls everything you just deleted the moment you connect. The one trade-off: if you get matched into a map whose pack you removed, you’ll sit through a short download at the loading screen. Keep packs for your current ranked rotation and clear the arcade and seasonal extras first.
One habit keeps this working long term: after every major seasonal update, revisit the resource list. Big patches love to re-add packs for limited-time modes and events you’ll play once, and those linger long after the event ends. A thirty-second cleanup after each update stops the bloat from creeping back.
Clear the Cache Without Wiping Your Account
Both Android and iOS let PUBG hoard temporary files that serve no ongoing purpose. On Android, go to Settings, Apps, PUBG Mobile, Storage, then tap Clear Cache. This is completely safe — it wipes throwaway files and forces the game to rebuild only what it needs on the next launch, often recovering a few hundred megabytes after a big update.
Be careful with the button next to it. Clear Data is not the same thing — it removes downloaded resources and logs you out, and on a Guest account that has never been linked, it can cost you the account entirely. Only ever use Clear Data if your progress is bound to Facebook, Google, X, or another login you can sign back into.
iOS has no cache button, but it has something better here: Offload App. In Settings, General, iPhone Storage, tap PUBG Mobile and choose Offload App. That strips out the heavy app binary and downloaded resources while keeping your documents and settings, so a quick reinstall from the App Store puts you right back where you were, minus the bloat.
Drop HD Resources and Extra Voice Packs
PUBG lets you choose between a Basic resource pack and an HD resource pack, and the HD version bundles high-resolution textures that can add well over a gigabyte. If you play on a mid-range phone at Smooth or Balanced graphics, those textures never even render — you’re storing detail you can’t see. Switch to Basic resources and delete the HD pack.
The same goes for the extras the game accumulates over seasons: fancy lobby themes, high-quality visual effect packs, and multiple language voice packs. You almost certainly don’t need three languages of character voice lines installed, so trim them to the one you actually hear. And if you’ve ever tapped “yes” on a prompt to grab extra resources for a specific event, that pack is probably still sitting there too.
Dropping to Smooth graphics does more than reclaim space — it stops the game from re-fetching HD assets, runs cooler, and saves battery in long sessions. The honest trade-off is visual clarity: HD textures can make distant enemies slightly easier to pick out. If ranked spotting matters to you, keep HD and delete unused map packs instead. You don’t have to do everything on this list.
Wipe Recordings, Screenshots, and Replay Files
PUBG’s built-in recorder, death replays, and highlight clips are some of the sneakiest storage hogs on your phone, because they don’t always show up in the app’s own size number. A handful of saved matches can quietly add up to several gigabytes. Open the in-game recordings or album section and clear out clips you’re never going to rewatch.
It’s worth checking your phone’s gallery too. Saved gameplay videos often land in your DCIM or a dedicated PUBG folder in internal storage, and every loadout screenshot and end-of-match result you’ve ever grabbed piles up there. Back up the few clips you actually care about to Google Photos or iCloud, then delete the local copies.
If you record a lot, build a habit around it: pull your best moments off the device weekly and wipe the rest. Recordings are pure overhead for the game — deleting them never touches your rank, your loadouts, or a single unlock, so there’s no reason to let them accumulate.
Free Up Headroom Around the Game So It Runs Better
Here’s the part people miss: PUBG needs free scratch space to patch and load smoothly. If your phone sits at 95 percent full, updates fail halfway, matches stutter, and the game may refuse to launch after a version bump. Aim to keep at least a few gigabytes genuinely free, not just free inside the app.
That means looking beyond PUBG. Move your photo and video library to the cloud, uninstall apps you haven’t opened in months, and clear the caches of your other heavy games — they hoard temporary files exactly the way PUBG does. Every gigabyte you free elsewhere is headroom PUBG can borrow when it patches and loads into a match.
As a genuine last resort — not a first move — a clean reinstall with your account safely bound resets years of accumulated bloat in one shot. It costs you a full re-download, so save it for when the game is truly misbehaving. Ninety percent of the time, deleting a couple of map packs and clearing the cache gets you all the room you need.
