I ran into some space issues while working through the React Native tutorials.

I initialized a new React Native app for the millionth time, opened my Android Virtual Device, and got ready to start working. Once I ran the run-android command, something weird happened.

My terminal window kept running into an error. I tried running the command over and over, but nothing worked. I was way too tired to research the issue. Stackoverflow can be a maze at times and I really only wanted to start the next app and move on.

I looked through the error statements to see if I could find any clues. I saw something about a storage issue and had an idea. What if the virtual device was out of room to install new apps? I opened the settings menu and sure enough, the phone’s virtual storage was at 3.96/4 GB.

Apparently these tutorial apps take up a lot of space! Some of them are between 50 and 100 MB and all they do is display some text and styling on the screen. I went through and uninstalled the apps I made thus far and sure enough, I was able to install my new app successfully.

I’ll keep an eye on the storage in my virtual devices as I move forward with mobile development. Or I can wait until they fill up and uninstall everything again. Either way, it’s a win-win.

-CF