Update 03/08/11
NotEnoughSpace has finally graduated to the Android Marketplace!
Beta testers can currently get it at its "thank you" price of $0.99.
I will set the regular price in a week so hurry
*** *** *** ***
Note #1: your phone needs to be ROOTED to use this application.
Note #2: so far, only tested on Droid Incredible and HTC Desire.
From the built-in help:
About this application
This application's goal is to help you understand and possibly work around a common vexation of using Android; i.e. these messages:
"not enough space"
"Low on space. Application data space is low."
What is happening?
You've checked your phone's vitals and it appears that it has plenty of space left, both internal storage and SD Card storage. So, what's happening?
Android allows your applications to store their data, primarily, in a dedicated partition whose size happens to be much smaller than even the phone's internal storage space. Generally south of 150 MBs.
This is the partition that fills up so quickly and that Android has been complaining about.
And the help goes on and on so I'll stop here.
The short version
Using this application, you can see which applications use up most of your phone's data space and decide what to do with them.
You can also move the biggest directories to the phone's SD Card.
Additionally, you can use the app to cleanup the Dalvik cache but it's not the app's primary function.
Please, help test it!
I will gladly welcome any constructive criticism; I expect most of it to be along the lines of "The tool is not quite accurate" and that's what I wish to address first.
To create a debug report (these are very important):
Simply select the "Debug" menu and follow the on-screen instructions.
The whole email business is so that you can copy/paste from a desktop client.
The .apk can be downloaded from nexus.zteo.com/projects/beta/
Update 12/04/10
The application should now display correct stats for phones/ROMs that use Busybox. If you have already tested it and it said "NaN" please try it again.
This should be interesting, maybe kinda Android GpartED?
cyansmoker said:
Using this application, you can see which applications use up most of your phone's data space and decide what to do with them.
You can also move the biggest directories to the phone's SD Card.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Curious, does this mean you can move and symlink data, or are you talking about Froyo Apps2SD?
teorouge said:
This should be interesting, maybe kinda Android GpartED?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Obviously not, he's managing what's there, he's not partitioning anything.. Did you read?
khaytsus said:
Obviously not, he's managing what's there, he's not partitioning anything.. Did you read?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Come on, what's the matter dude? I did read, and from what I read I thought whole partition handling was the only thing this app would be missing. Single files is a good start, but making that "kinda GpartED" would be killer. Though I fear you should be in bootloader/recovery to work on those, don't know how Android deals with them (i.e. in Windows you have programs you can change partitions size "on the fly" with). Now that I elaborated more, are you still angry?
This application would be genius. I'm wondering however, will the phone still be able to access that data once it is moved off of the system memory and onto the SD Card? And is it possible to actually partition the /data/data section so that it will use more than the allowed 150mb that it has, like open it up so that instead of it being partitioned to a small amount, it just roams free with the rest of the 748mb or whatever that is in the system memory.
A promising app, thanks.
Navigon, however, doesn't like its data to be moved to SD card. Even after moving it back with the app, it FCs (Android 2.1). I think I have to reinstall. So be careful if you're trying to do the same.
Edit: After reinstalling the .apk (without doing anything with the maps), Navigon works again. The packet installer didn't ask me if I wanted to replace the existing installation (as is otherwise usual in such a case).
Edit2: There seems to be a general problem. The next app I tried was mediaU. It has a large database which I moved (using NES) to the SD card. It also FCed after having moved its database, and restoring to the old location (again using NES) also didn't succeed. No error message during restore, but app still won't run.
Phone: Galaxy 3, Android 2.1 (original ROM).
mizch said:
A promising app, thanks.
Navigon, however, doesn't like its data to be moved to SD card. Even after moving it back with the app, it FCs (Android 2.1). I think I have to reinstall. So be careful if you're trying to do the same.
Edit: After reinstalling the .apk (without doing anything with the maps), Navigon works again. The packet installer didn't ask me if I wanted to replace the existing installation (as is otherwise usual in such a case).
Edit2: There seems to be a general problem. The next app I tried was mediaU. It has a large database which I moved (using NES) to the SD card. It also FCed after having moved its database, and restoring to the old location (again using NES) also didn't succeed. No error message during restore, but app still won't run.
Phone: Galaxy 3, Android 2.1 (original ROM).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tonight I'm gonna try for sure and report back, this does look promising! Did you succeed with some apps?
teorouge said:
Did you succeed with some apps?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
K9 seemed to work. However, I had to reflash for another reason, and now K9 reports its lib as being in the standard location (reported by NES). For now, I have stopped testing NotEnoughSpace so I can not say more.
mizch said:
K9 seemed to work. However, I had to reflash for another reason, and now K9 reports its lib as being in the standard location (reported by NES). For now, I have stopped testing NotEnoughSpace so I can not say more.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
eh? K9 has native use of the SD card if you enable it... Why would you use this on it?
Thanks for doing this testing, guys.
I will install these apps and test them myself.
teorouge: you moved the database/ directory, is that it?
mizch: so, you re-installed K9 after reflashing, right?
Everybody: what about the "free space" numbers reported by the app? Do they seem correct to you? I had to use a dedicated algo to compute them, taking block size in account, and I've had reports of fairly surprising discrepancies.
Free space doesn't seem to update after moving, though I see the difference in the Titanium Backup count: tried for a couple of apps (G Earth and well... don't remember!) and it did move everything, free up space on /data and I can still use those apps. Still afraid to move many apps, just moving one at the time and test.
I just tested it out on my Droid 1, which is running CM6.1RC5 (Not sure if thats relevant or not), and it doesnt seem to work very well on my phone. All apps came back as 4KB, at the top it showed this... Total:261.8MB Used:NaNKB Free: 259.1MB Database NaNKB Files: NaNKB Preferences:NaNKB Cache:NaNKB.
Heres the debug report: 1:/dev/block/mtdblock6 268032 224572 43460 84% /data
2:62855 /data/data
3:4096/0/265352
Sorry - never mind; found the info in FAQ.txt after downloading
cyansmoker said:
Note #1: your phone needs to be ROOTED to use this application.
Note #2: so far, only tested on Droid Incredible and HTC Desire.
From the built-in help:
About this application
This application's goal is to help you understand and possibly work around a common vexation of using Android; i.e. these messages:
"not enough space"
"Low on space. Application data space is low."
What is happening?
You've checked your phone's vitals and it appears that it has plenty of space left, both internal storage and SD Card storage. So, what's happening?
Android allows your applications to store their data, primarily, in a dedicated partition whose size happens to be much smaller than even the phone's internal storage space. Generally south of 150 MBs.
This is the partition that fills up so quickly and that Android has been complaining about.
And the help goes on and on so I'll stop here.
The short version
Using this application, you can see which applications use up most of your phone's data space and decide what to do with them.
You can also move the biggest directories to the phone's SD Card.
Additionally, you can use the app to cleanup the Dalvik cache but it's not the app's primary function.
Please, help test it!
I will gladly welcome any constructive criticism; I expect most of it to be along the lines of "The tool is not quite accurate" and that's what I wish to address first.
To create a debug report:
Simply select the "Debug" menu and follow the on-screen instructions.
The whole email business is so that you can copy/paste from a desktop client.
The .apk can be downloaded from nexus.zteo.com/projects/beta/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you have more details about this program anywhere? I went to the download page but see no further info...
Help Section Typo
Under A Quick user guide in your user guide(?) that prompts when you run the apk for the first time there is a typo in the last sentence:
You can touch any application to explore its content and figure out what is taking up some much space.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So far I havent run into any issues with the apk...
Not to burst anyones bubble, but Choose Install Location has been doing this in a comprehensive way for weeks. http://www.appbrain.com/app/choose-install-location-free/com.beidl.chooseloc
Free Memory?
bdt1995 said:
I just tested it out on my Droid 1, which is running CM6.1RC5 (Not sure if thats relevant or not), and it doesnt seem to work very well on my phone. All apps came back as 4KB, at the top it showed this... Total:261.8MB Used:NaNKB Free: 259.1MB Database NaNKB Files: NaNKB Preferences:NaNKB Cache:NaNKB.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm having the same problem as bdt1995. Running CM 6.1 RC1.. the only difference is the total memory is 196.2 and the free is:194.3 MB cuz I'm using a Nexus.. CM6 might be the problem?
bdt1995 said:
I just tested it out on my Droid 1, which is running CM6.1RC5 (Not sure if thats relevant or not), and it doesnt seem to work very well on my phone. All apps came back as 4KB, at the top it showed this... Total:261.8MB Used:NaNKB Free: 259.1MB Database NaNKB Files: NaNKB Preferences:NaNKB Cache:NaNKB.
Heres the debug report: 1:/dev/block/mtdblock6 268032 224572 43460 84% /data
2:62855 /data/data
3:4096/0/265352
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same here (total 196.2MB, Free 194.3MB, all apps 4KB), system details in my sig. Using apps2sdext, over 200 apps.
Debug info:
Code:
1:/dev/block/mtdblock5 200960 112144 88816 56% /data
2:96070 /data/data
3:4096/0/198951
Same problem as above with Cyanogen 6.02, However it looks promising.
I Think that moving data to standard SD can leads to security issue, because SD can be readed and written by any apps. Should be better if the app recognize /EXT partition, if exist, and move data here.
i'd like to try it and i get my lil sis to try it also she gets this problem a lot i have the droid incredible and my sis has the droid eris.
bdt1995, rnh16, britoso, mmorselli:
Thanks for the debug info. Indeed Cyanogen is a tad "exotic" for NES at this point.
Please download the latest version of NES -- I just uploaded it. It contains an extra debug line which should allow me to make it work so please paste your debug output here one more time.
JerseyFF:
Oops, thanks.
lhinsz:
Because it is a beta version, it hasn't been released yet and all the information you may need is contained in the Help screen. I tried to make it comprehensive.
BigNate:
Should work with HTC devices, yes. Could you or you sister paste her phone's debug screen here?
Zandog:
I do not think that both apps share the same goal so no lives should be lost (Seriously, not much of a bubble to burst?)
OK. Got my new TF Saturday (love it!). Been using Titatnium Backup/root on GTab and multiple NCs but as the TF is not rooted (yet!) what are others using to back up to uSD?
I plan on rooting eventually and bringing aboard my copy of TB Pro but...until then backing up to uSD would be really spiffy.
Suggestions?
I use File Expert to backup the apps... it cannot directly save them to your microSD (yet), but it creates a /backup_apps folder in the main storage space, and you can easily move it.
I'm using MyBackup until I get around to rooting. Saves apps, settings, home screens etc. Though, this is "in theory" since I haven't actually tried restoring the backups yet!
Thanks guys. Appreciate the input. About to go the root avenue once I get ADB to function.
on my 4th ROM now, comfortable with the process...but i'm still not super clear on the best way to backup.
i use titanium backup, and i have it set to batch twice a week, i go in and manually nandroid backup once a week or so, and i figured out that if i do a backup in LauncherPro (my favorite launcher) that i don't have to re-do all my screens again, just the clock widget. i also backup my bookmarks in Dolphin.
something tells me i have a bunch of unnecessary steps. can you guys streamline my process? or am i failing to understand how to use titanium (i suspect this is the case)?
appreciate any advice.
Sounds pretty good. Are you also copying off your backups to a PC or network share? That's important in case you lose your phone. Set Titanium to backup to Dropbox and do that periodically.
hmmm no i have not been backing up to PC. should i just copy the entire SD card to PC periodically? i did figure out the trick to get TIBU to synch with my dropbox without having to pay for it, though.
Nandroid backups are useless if you are swapping between ROMs, as they are pretty much a snapshot of your entire phone at the time that you create it. If you just want a complete backup of everything exactly the way it is, then this is all you need to do.
For most other purposes, Titanium Backup is all that you will need to use, it WILL backup the layout of your screen when it creates the backup for LauncherPro, so that's a wasted step. It also gives you quite granular control over how your applications are restored (and which ones). One thing to take note of is that things like SMSs and call logs may not be compatible when swapping between certain ROMs and restoring with titanium backup. To get around this, use a dedicated SMS backup utility from the market (there are plenty of free ones) since it saves the SMS and call log in a different format.
When swapping from something like gingerbread to ICS (for example), you may find that some applications WILL NOT work if you try to restore them. There really isn't any way that you can get around this, and it isn't the fault of any of your backup methods.
Also, its probably worth the five or so dollars to buy Titanium Backup, assuming you want to get the most out of your phone. There are a lot of pro only features that are quite powerful.
innocencio said:
hmmm no i have not been backing up to PC. should i just copy the entire SD card to PC periodically? i did figure out the trick to get TIBU to synch with my dropbox without having to pay for it, though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'd just copy the nandroid backup directory to your PC periodically. The only downside is that the file is pretty big. No need to copy anything else to your PC as long as your syncing Titanium to Dropbox.
Folks
I really need some help here.
I backed up my data using Helium, and cannot restore it at all. At this point I am primarily interested in whatsapp because I have a whole lot of messages there. I backed up my data to the internal SD card, copied the carbon folder, wiped my phone and put the carbon folder back. I have tried reading other threads of doing the PC download and copying my data over among other things, nothing works. I really need to get the data back, just for one app. Even tried opening the .ab file based on this: http://android.stackexchange.com/qu...ta-from-a-full-backup-made-through-adb-backup still no go. Tried to restore it from here, still no go. Please help!
What I really dont understand about Helium is if it does not support deleting and recopying the folder back on the phone, why even give an internal SD card option!! Apparently the paid version works great with dropbox et al. Itis just so damn frustrating to see an app that claims it works on internal SD, but the use case doesnt seem that useful unless all you want to do is restore the data without any kind of wipe. A warning would have been nice, clearly stating it atleast once considering the developer has put it on his wiki.
Thanks, sorry about the frustrated rant.
I'm sorry, I don't have an answer to your question.
Just wanted to say, titanium backup is known as the best for a reason. After you hopefully settle your issue....try it.
Unfortunately, I don't have an answer for you either, but I had a very similar experience with that app about a year ago. It was the paid version and Dropbox/Google Drive restores were no more useful than what i had copied locally. Now I just use Titanium and command line adb.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk
So I selected photo to delete and it somehow selected albums. So now Almost all my important pictures and videos are gone. I downloaded several apps and got back a good bit of pictures but I did not recover any videos. I read several pages about rooting the phone to actually get all the stuff back. Is this something that needs done? Also doesn't rooting wipe your phone so would that get rid of the deleted items? I am so devastated those pictures were my life and like an idiot I didn't back them up. Any ideas on how I can recover them?
Any ideas? I read an article saying you can root the phone and still recover deleted items but want to see what you guys think.
Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk
If your files were stored internal there's a big chance that the rest might've got overwritten by other applications. On SD-Card you might be able to get more back but if you worked with it (meaning storing other files or probably even editing), it will most likely overwrite them.
Since every phone behaves different I can't say what you should use. I can only say what I read the most people suggesting.
They talk about the program recuva, which runs on your computer. After connecting your phone to your pc, they say you should run a 'deep scan'.
I never used it myself so I can't say if it works. You'd have to search how to use it.
(Program Link: Piriform - Recouva)
Rooting might also help in your favor, because those apps have more access to the storage and can perform actions normal apps can't do in there rather limited workspace.
But rooting also means writting/modifying data on your phone which could use the space where the remainings of your files are stored (deppends if they are internal or external/sd-card).
But from my expirence on pc, chances are very slim that you get all of your files back. I accidentally formatted my hard disk and after force stopping the process I only could restore about ~30% of my files (and most of them were corrupted).
You see formating or deleting doesn't actually delets stuff.
You could see all your stored files as a book and the index is that what you can see in your file manager. When you delete something it doesn't touches the file at first, it only deletes the entry in the index that a file was at that point in your storage and tells the system that place is free to use again. So apps will begin using that free space. After that it becomes almost imposible to get the file back.