[Q] How do you manage App folders created on SD card ? - Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

How do you manage App folders created on SD cards ? There are too .. many get orphaned after a while.. can we have a work around to move them to a folder like program files or something like that ?

i delete them manually, as most of them are pretty self descriptive which app it came from

I agree, even i have too many folders and some of them difficult to identify.
This can be new feature request to google. Suggest you post this in the google forum.

Identify the ones you DO know and move the ones you don't to your PC or Dropbox or something. If after a month and you don't miss any of them, then wipe them out.

Related

Memory card and deleting files

I just got my sprint HTC Pro and I cannot find anywhere in the instructions how to make the darn thing default to saving files to the memory card. Second how in the heck do you delete those annoying music files that come pre-installed?!!
Also once the memory card is inserted i see no easy way to remove it?
Sorry for the nooby questions.
G
Geester said:
I just got my sprint HTC Pro and I cannot find anywhere in the instructions how to make the darn thing default to saving files to the memory card. Second how in the heck do you delete those annoying music files that come pre-installed?!!
Also once the memory card is inserted i see no easy way to remove it?
Sorry for the nooby questions.
G
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Hey and welcome...reading not only the manual but here on XDA will help you alot. You need to install Diamond Tweak and or Advanced Config they will do alot for your device such as storing items to default locations... example pictures, videos, music etc.... If you read, you will educate yourself and get more responses. Typically questions like this go unanswered.
I dont think you can delete system files, but you can try using total commander...do a search for it and see if it will let you.
The music files are actually in the My Documents folder, and I believe there are others in a different folder, though I can't recall the name since it isn't in my device anymore..
The best thing to do and the best way to learn is to use the search button, explore the forum, and explore your device.
Btw when you say to change the default location to save files, what program are you referring to? and what do you mean by installing the memory card, and what would you consider an easy way to uninstall it?
Have fun with your new device! It's really the most amazing on the market

App Developers Listen Up - Put your config and junk data in sdcard/apps!

Hi XDA!
I realise that I'm new here, so I may not get listened to, but I've been using smartphones for a while and this has always been an annoyance for me.
Currently, my internal storage (internal sd as some like to call it), is full of config, backup and other files placed there by app developers. I have a folder called AussieWeatherRadar, one called Cut the Rope, and one called rammanager, just to name a few.
As I have a bit of OCD, I like to keep my internal memory looking tidy, but how is this possible with so many folders, none of which conform to any particular standards?
I am suggesting the following: App developers should use the /apps/ folder, or a similar folder on the sd card to store their data. This way, the user's SD card does not look cluttered, but the data is all still there.
So please, app developers, here my plea! Please use the /app/ directory!
Do you have any comments or suggestions on this? Please comment!
Thanks,
John
TL;DR: App developers should use the sdcard/app/ folder for their junk/config/backup files so that sdcard/ looks tidy.
Second the sentiment.
Third.
10char
+1
10char
+ 1
10char
Sent from my HTC Amaze 4G using xda premium
Yes, please. My phones sdcard is the reason I take xanax anymore.. I can't handle it!
*signed
bump... Surely there's more than 5 people who want this!
+1
Sent from my SPH-M930 using XDA
Developers *HAVE* a default location to place their data if they need to store in external storage. Google dictates for it to be in /sdcard/Android/data
I have made an app that creates in terms an init.d script that auto removes these folders on boot, but that doesn't solve the problem.
Developers wanting to promote their apps create folders with, honestly nothing in them, to show off.
I have created a Google Docs document that I will share tomorrow with the apps I have installed on my phone that create an sdcard folder. Perhaps you could help improve that list.
One afternoon in last December I had emailed all those app developers about this. Do you know how many answers I received to about 10 emails? None..
We should all organize a massive email sendout to them again. After all its their own fault for not sticking to Android guidelines.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2
petsasj said:
Developers *HAVE* a default location to place their data if they need to store in external storage. Google dictates for it to be in /sdcard/Android/data
I have made an app that creates in terms an init.d script that auto removes these folders on boot, but that doesn't solve the problem.
Developers wanting to promote their apps create folders with, honestly nothing in them, to show off.
I have created a Google Docs document that I will share tomorrow with the apps I have installed on my phone that create an sdcard folder. Perhaps you could help improve that list.
One afternoon in last December I had emailed all those app developers about this. Do you know how many answers I received to about 10 emails? None..
We should all organize a massive email sendout to them again. After all its their own fault for not sticking to Android guidelines.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2
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Well put mate!
Totally agree. They messed up my internal storage as well I wonder if I need to de-fragment it using my PC's windows defragment tools
Here is my list of apps that create a folder in the root of the sdcard without giving the option to reconfigure the folder location.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oC3G-MGKzvHW-0GXVaCm13GgGApcAnk4jA1PluRlhjY/edit
Please help improve this list further on so we can email the developers.

[Q] What's on my SD Card?

I was flicking through Root Browser on my SD Card today and I noticed some things that I have no idea what they are. In the past, I deleted them and it messed with my gallery or with other kinds of stuff.
The specific names of the folders are as follows:
burstlyImageCache
LazyList
LOST.DIR
Mikulu
myrecord
.wiyun
.udstate
.config_c38
What are these? what happens if I delete them? I'm not overly concerned, I'm just curious.
Chrisruns said:
I was flicking through Root Browser on my SD Card today and I noticed some things that I have no idea what they are. In the past, I deleted them and it messed with my gallery or with other kinds of stuff.
The specific names of the folders are as follows:
burstlyImageCache
LazyList
LOST.DIR
Mikulu
myrecord
.wiyun
.udstate
.config_c38
What are these? what happens if I delete them? I'm not overly concerned, I'm just curious.
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Click to collapse
generally if you do not know what something is, don't delete it. I think the image cache thing has to do with the camera, and anything with a dot in front of it is a system file, so leave those alone.
Delete it if its unuseful!
generally if you do not know what something is, don't delete it. I think the image cache thing has to do with the camera, and anything with a dot in front of it is a system file, so leave those alone.
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I don't agree!!!
Apps often let unused files in various folders, saturating the memory of the SD Card.
If u don't know what its for, ask (or ask google )
For exemple, wiyun is a chinese game editor. Hence .wiyun is its trash directory. If you don't have any games left from this editor, you can safely delete the folder.
Mikulu folder is probably from Mikulu music player ...
etc.
Directories myrecord & myalbum
Directories myrecord & myalbum are created by the
"Easy Downloader" app and by the "Pro" variant also.
Creating empty files with equal names prevents directory
creation. But uninstalling is the only way to avoid this completely.
Best regards
P.S. I assume that other "Easy ..." apps by the 2Easy Team
developer will create them because of the in app promotion
content.

SD card housekeeping

I have a lot of old redundant data on my SD card. If I have an app installed to SD, when uninstalling it sometimes it leaves the SD data behind. Also, everything on my SD card is as it was on my old desire, I simply put it into my sensation when I upgraded. And I've now rooted and tried various ROMs over the past half a year. So safe to say there's a lot of redundant data on it taking up room.
The thing is, it's not straight forward knowing what's actually used or not, so is there a trick or an app that can help identify which files or data haven't been accessed in ages, suggesting it's redundant?
I use es file explorer, its great because you can look into the folders and see what is actually there . I just cleaned mine out yesterday and found most folders are clearly marked so its not to much of an issue. If there was a folder I did not recognise I looked into contents if I still did not recognise I left it alone. Most folders were easily recognized. Hope this helps
Sent from my Sensation 4G using xda premium
That's just it, I have plenty that I don't recognise, so I'm not sure if they're still needed or not.
Yes I understand you don't want to delete a needed file. For me when I actually opened the folders I was able to see what was inside then took it from there. Hard part for you is finding the old phone files from the new ones. I wish I could be of more help but if your not recognizing the files when opened it makes it really hard. My old application files were clearly labeled so it made my clean out really easy. Perhaps you can find a clue inside to let you know if it was from the old phone or not. Mine was pretty straight forward, I see where yours is much more difficult. Hopefully someone has a better solution for you. I do wish you the best. Sorry I don't have a better answer than looking into the files themself . It worked for me because I was able to recognize my folders. Good luck, I'm sure someone will have a solution.
Sent from my Sensation 4G using xda premium
No problem, thanks anyway.
Most of the folders in the root of the SD card are fairly obvious in most cases. For the ones I'm not sure about I try and Google 'What is (insert folder name)' Android.
The ones in the root will usually be named by the app or publisher name so that helps give a clue.
In the Android/Data folder there will likely be some rubbish. Best thing to do with the folders there is Google them if unsure as they'll usually be named after the APK that they came from.
My SD is fairly clean so I don't have many examples to give unfortunately.

Android 11 and .nomedia file

I was about to post a question about this, but I just figured this out myself. My phone recently updated to Android 11. I have an SD-Card which has music on it - along with a lot of album art. Since the update, all these album art photos have been cluttering up my gallery. Every time I add a .nomedia file in here (which also was there before the update), it seems to get automatically deleted (no, not hidden). I tried copying a .nomedia file from elsewhere on the phone. I even tried popping out the SD-Card and adding the file via PC. As soon as Android touches it, it deletes the file again.
So, here is the issue. With Android 11, it is creating some default folders (I wish it wouldn't clutter up things with these empty folders that I never need or use). Those default folders include: Music, Pictures, Movies. These are created at the top level on the SD-Card and on internal storage. So, if you are also using one of those folders for something, it's going to auto delete the .nomedia file. In my case, I just moved my music into a Musics folder instead(and ensured it has a .nomedia file, of course.
Hopefully this will save someone else from wasting their time trying to figure out why this is happening!
pacaveli420 said:
I was about to post a question about this, but I just figured this out myself. My phone recently updated to Android 11. I have an SD-Card which has music on it - along with a lot of album art. Since the update, all these album art photos have been cluttering up my gallery. Every time I add a .nomedia file in here (which also was there before the update), it seems to get automatically deleted (no, not hidden). I tried copying a .nomedia file from elsewhere on the phone. I even tried popping out the SD-Card and adding the file via PC. As soon as Android touches it, it deletes the file again.
So, here is the issue. With Android 11, it is creating some default folders (I wish it wouldn't clutter up things with these empty folders that I never need or use). Those default folders include: Music, Pictures, Movies. These are created at the top level on the SD-Card and on internal storage. So, if you are also using one of those folders for something, it's going to auto delete the .nomedia file. In my case, I just moved my music into a Musics folder instead(and ensured it has a .nomedia file, of course.
Hopefully this will save someone else from wasting their time trying to figure out why this is happening!
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This makes no sense, please explain in more detail.
android1977 said:
This makes no sense, please explain in more detail.
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If you're storing your music files in any of the default folders, Android is going to auto delete your .nomedia file if you try to put one there. Ergo, the solution is you need to store your music in a folder named something else.
pacaveli420 said:
If you're storing your music files in any of the default folders, Android is going to auto delete your .nomedia file if you try to put one there. Ergo, the solution is you need to store your music in a folder named something else.
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Thanks that's what I did and got lucky, I was so desperate I signed up to XDA just to comment I gotta say XDA I love your site and been reading for a couple year's now, enjoy the information provided, thanks guy's for all your hard work
pacaveli420 said:
If you're storing your music files in any of the default folders, Android is going to auto delete your .nomedia file if you try to put one there. Ergo, the solution is you need to store your music in a folder named something else.
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Thank you for saving my media library! I've been tortured by this issue since using the new phone, finally!
hello, i just get Android 11 on my MI A3, and those folders ( music, pictures, movies )appears on my sd card, they are useless for me, is there a way to delete them?
before Android 11, i didn't have this problem because i choosed " use sd as external support " instead of "use sd as extended memory" when inserting the sd card, but now even if i make the same choice, the folders are there and i can't delete them.
Sort of off topic but not really:
How do I stop it from creating these default folders? It's extremely annoying. I don't have my SD card structured that way and never have. I've deleted the default music, movies, etc folders numerous times now as they just clutter up the root directory and they keep reappearing. Is there a solution to this?
This seems to be a part of Android 11s default folder structure which no one ever bothered to do something about. I wouldn't be surprised if it's there for "security reasons" as well as a communist one. As in you only have the option to use these "secure" folders or else it won't show up in your apps at all.
This might be a way for Google to slowly faze out SDCards entirely while only giving you the option to use said folders for your "private" stuff akin to how IOS (kinda) works. In other words, they are doing it on purpose and no one ever bothered to read the fine print.
Obviously private music and other media collections is the root (see what I did there) cause of the problem. They don't want you to have those at all, And want you to use streaming services instead (tinfoil hat). Which is probably what these folders will probably end up being used for.
Netflix and Spotify allow you to store music on your device, but it's encrypted and will probably end up there at some point in Androids lifecycle. Obviously these files don't need .nomedia since the files are encrypted and will only show up in said app either way which makes the above meaningless.
Most of this is speculation obviously, but we've slowly been moving towards this trend if you look at how System apps were split into app and priv-app and so on. At some point in time only certain apps that has had the blessing of Google will be allowed to read anything off your storage. This happened with Chrome not to long ago where they blocked side-loaded extensions from running.
You will slowly see Android turning into IOS because they (Google) and big-tech in general wants 100% control of what you can and can't do. And everything based on AOSP or LOS is gonna follow suit because no one gives a flying fudge because that's too bothersome. The fragmentation of custom builds based on LOS/AOSP in general already shows that this has always been the case for the last 10 years. Linux in general is no different either as can be seen with wokeism. Except that was through decimation via woke people and not big-tech.
I was going crazy thinking this issue was specific to my samsung's stock rom. I started searching about this once I noticed it on LOS 18. Glad I'm not alone
I tend to be a little OCD about my folder structures but at this point I don't mind making a separate folder to avoid album arts in my gallery.
I believe I found a solution to this. It's been about a week or two with no further incident now. My solution was to delete the default folders from the root of the SD card because I don't use them, then create blank files that used those names. Haven't had a problem since.
I use the top level pictures folder because of a compatibility issue with programs that have small file path character limits that cause the program to hang. I don't use them anymore but I haven't had a reason to move it back where I had it previously and that would only make the default folder issue worse if I did. Or at least it would have until now with this discovery.
I do not use the movies and music folders, and if I move my pictures folder back where I had it I won't use that one either. Having them pop up on their own to clutter my root directory on both my SD card and my phone itself was very annoying. After deleting the movies and music folders off of the root of my SD card for the billionth time and getting rid of the empty default folders on my phone again, I created two blank files on my SD card root called Music and Movies. Ever since then the default folders haven't reappeared. On top of that, it hasn't created any ".thumbnails" folders all over the place like it always used to do either. That includes doing so on the internal phone storage. Creating those files on the SD card seems to have broken the whole process. I imagine the same would work vice versa for OP since it sounds like they use those default folders. Find an empty default folder on internal storage, delete it, create a file and name it the name of the folder you deleted (case sensitive), and that should disable the annoying default folder management process too. I can't vouch for that method, but I can vouch for it working when you do so on the SD card.
I just noticed this today on my tab s7+.
From what I can tell, the .nomedia file nolonger does anything on its own. However, if I add the .nomedia file to a folder, then rename the folder placing a . in front, of course it hides the entire folder. When I rename the folder again, removing the ., the .nomedia file now works. No matter how many times I rename the folder, the gallery does not see it until I remove the .nomedia file.
pool_shark said:
I just noticed this today on my tab s7+.
From what I can tell, the .nomedia file nolonger does anything on its own. However, if I add the .nomedia file to a folder, then rename the folder placing a . in front, of course it hides the entire folder. When I rename the folder again, removing the ., the .nomedia file now works. No matter how many times I rename the folder, the gallery does not see it until I remove the .nomedia file.
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thank you pool shark.. i tried what you did/suggested and it worked. thanks.

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