A mobile device includes an automatic archiver program which configures a processor to identify an unused application which satisfies one or more predetermined archiving criteria, and prompts a user to archive the identified application via a user interface. A user interface is provided such that the user may either confirm or decline archiving of the identified application. Upon receiving user input that confirms archiving of the identified application, the application is archived. Several techniques are disclosed to effectively render the application inaccessible by the operating system, so as to prevent the application from executing any background tasks associated with the archived application. The automatic archiver program has root level access to an operating system of a mobile device such that the program may perform access, create, modify and/or delete operations for archiving private data as part of archiving of the application.