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[Q] freeing up space on galaxy s 4g

I know this issue has been more or less beat to death, trust me one google search proves that. and after 2 1/2 days searching and researching I have come up with an idea to rid us of this limited application space problem once and for all. At this point I am stuck realizing that android doesn't use an fstab file like any ol' standard linux install....so what's the android equivalent?
a little explaination....
I came across a solution used on another phone where via a custom rom someone was able simply hardlink /data/app, /system/media, etc... to a copy stored on a ext2/3/4 partition on the sd card, I guessed roughly 2~3 gb of space would be sufficient. I created the partition, copied the folders, and just before I was going to start hardlinking things, I realized I had to manually mount the ext2 partition, it wasn't done automatically, and therefore won't be done at boot. So...this is where I'm stuck. if I could figure out how to get the ext2 partition to mount at boot then problem solved
Any thoughts, suggestions, ideas, etc would be appreciated. I apologize in advance if I may have missed something someone may seem as "obvious"....I've been at this for over 2 days reading more webpages than I care to recount and quite frankly my brain is fried.....so please keep the "flaming" to a minimum...

dude just overwrite the FOTA files and it will free up 250mb.

Are you sure you searched these forums? It's in the dev section.

did the fota fix, got about 290mb free (already done before I posted this). call me greedy but ~300 mb just seems not quite enough.....my solution sounds simple enough if I could only fix that blasted mount on boot issue....
as for searching, I apologize but I viewed so many pages yesterday that I couldn't possibly list them all, but fota was one of them and already done.....I'm looking for a more permanent solution (assuming that ota updates will become available for this phone before it becomes obsolete)

Wouldn't that have to be a script initiated by the kernel? I could be way off, but it seems like thats how they fixed the problem with the G1 app mem issue using cm. You might read on cm+G1. Like the way your thinking though!
Check THIS out. I think it's along the right lines, if it could be ported.

Not sure what you think needs more than a few hundred MB in the "real" mount of /data.
Several ways you can install other apps on the SD card, both native using package manager (pm), as well as using tools like app2sd without a custom kernel and boot sequence.

[Q] Will future versions of the Android OS fix this blasted "out of space" problem?

[Q] Will future versions of the Android OS fix this blasted "out of space" problem?
So I have been an avid fan of Google for many, many years. I was looking forward to the Google phone before any Android details came out. So I naturally jumped at the chance to own one. But lately, I'm starting to have a change of heart. These constant out of space warnings are really getting annoying.
So much in fact, I don't know that I want my next phone to be an Android device sadly. I really want to want another one. But this experience is starting to sour my taste for them.
I currently run a rooted (virtuous) Dinc. I have gotten the out of space notification many, many times. I have now started to get it again after installing the Google Music app after being invited into the beta. I have removed about 15 programs, but I still only have about 17MB free on that stupid 149MB partition!
This is beyond annoying. If the phone has something like 8GB of internal memory, why can't I use it? Why can't the apps install there? Why limit this massive amount of storage to a measly 150MB? What year is this, 1995?
I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but I am fed up. I don't know what else to do here and I'm ready to walk away. Someone please tell me that Google has saw the light and is going to fix this glaring bug of theirs in Gingerbread or Ice Cream Sandwich!

Why did you create a partition so small? You should create a larger partition to prevent these notifications so often since you'll have more space and use up the extra space not being used. Also, it's not the Android OS's fault that your phone has a small partition made. Since the partition is so small, and you have hardly any memory left (17mb) then it's just one of the phone's functions to notify you about this which should be a good thing to let you know.

theonew said:
Why did you create a partition so small? You should create a larger partition to prevent these notifications so often since you'll have more space and use up the extra space not being used. Also, it's not the Android OS's fault that your phone has a small partition made. Since the partition is so small, and you have hardly any memory left (17mb) then it's just one of the phone's functions to notify you about this which should be a good thing to let you know.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Umm...I didn't make the partition...Android did. Trust me, if it were my choice it would be bigger!

ned4spd8874 said:
Umm...I didn't make the partition...Android did. Trust me, if it were my choice it would be bigger!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Android doesn't just make partitions by itself. Maybe the rom you have did that. try getting a new rom because this is not normal.

theonew said:
Android doesn't just make partitions by itself. Maybe the rom you have did that. try getting a new rom because this is not normal.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wrong. At least on the HTC Droid Incredible, ROM's have a standard 150 megabyte \data\data partition. For either odexed or deodexed ROM's space is taken in that partition by pretty much every installed application. I've seen contacts hog nearly 70 megabytes of that partition for some handsets, and Sense takes a lot of it, too. Odexed ROM's allegedly require less of the space.
I've run several Froyo ROM's and they all have that limitation. I cannot speak for AOSP ROM's, only Sense ROM's.
There is an app which I have used (but don't seem to be able to find in the Market any more, and the dev isn't responding to PM's here at xda, but I digress) called NotEnoughSpace which allows some portions of the contents to be shifted elsewhere. I found it was very helpful when I was on Froyo, but it does not appear to work on GingerSense. On the other hand, the partition appears to be bigger in GingerSense. The flip side is that the GingerSense ROM's are so fat, there's less RAM available for applications to run.
Pick your poison. I agree it's a stupid limitation that somebody should figure out a way to fix.

hgoldner said:
Wrong. At least on the HTC Droid Incredible, ROM's have a standard 150 megabyte \data\data partition. For either odexed or deodexed ROM's space is taken in that partition by pretty much every installed application. I've seen contacts hog nearly 70 megabytes of that partition for some handsets, and Sense takes a lot of it, too. Odexed ROM's allegedly require less of the space.
I've run several Froyo ROM's and they all have that limitation. I cannot speak for AOSP ROM's, only Sense ROM's.
There is an app which I have used (but don't seem to be able to find in the Market any more, and the dev isn't responding to PM's here at xda, but I digress) called NotEnoughSpace which allows some portions of the contents to be shifted elsewhere. I found it was very helpful when I was on Froyo, but it does not appear to work on GingerSense. On the other hand, the partition appears to be bigger in GingerSense. The flip side is that the GingerSense ROM's are so fat, there's less RAM available for applications to run.
Pick your poison. I agree it's a stupid limitation that somebody should figure out a way to fix.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, thanks for explaining that much better than I could!
I do have NotEnoughSpace and don't use it for that purpose anymore. I just use it to see how much space I have available and to clean up the dalvik cache. When I was using it to get more space, my apps kept disappearing on me and I would have to re-install them constantly!

is this just a droid problem? i have an epic 4g and it allows me to use the entire 485mb for app storage. what about an apps to sd option? i know at least half of my apps have the option of being stored on the sd card. just wondering.

darksideauto said:
is this just a droid problem? i have an epic 4g and it allows me to use the entire 485mb for app storage. what about an apps to sd option? i know at least half of my apps have the option of being stored on the sd card. just wondering.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Every app that can be moved to the SD is. But I still have only 17MB available.

ned4spd8874 said:
Every app that can be moved to the SD is. But I still have only 17MB available.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This does not make any sense. If an app is moved to the SD Card, the space it took up on the device (some if not all) should be gained back since it's not there any longer. Whenever I move an app to the SD Card, I get back my space. There really must be something wrong with your rom/phone.

You sir have alot of apps then.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

The small internal Storage is a massive problem. I agree to you.
But I know there are several ways to fix this. What I don't know is how...
There are several ROMs who support different kinds of app2sd scripts so you get more 'virtual' internal storage on the sd card.
As you can see on the pictures attached i have approx. 550 mb free internal storage but more than 40 apps that could be pushed to sd.
To get this it is necessary to re-partition your sd-card and install the correct scripts.
Unfortunately, as i said, i'm not able to tell you exactly how to get this work. I just followed a step-by-step guide somwhere in this forum.
The ROM i use, uses D2SD automatically, if the SD-card is partitioned the right way.
I'm sure you will find something that fits to the ROM you use.

darksideauto said:
You sir have alot of apps then.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have 75 non-standard/included apps. I've read where other people have hundreds!

pistolero0 said:
The small internal Storage is a massive problem. I agree to you.
But I know there are several ways to fix this. What I don't know is how...
There are several ROMs who support different kinds of app2sd scripts so you get more 'virtual' internal storage on the sd card.
As you can see on the pictures attached i have approx. 550 mb free internal storage but more than 40 apps that could be pushed to sd.
To get this it is necessary to re-partition your sd-card and install the correct scripts.
Unfortunately, as i said, i'm not able to tell you exactly how to get this work. I just followed a step-by-step guide somwhere in this forum.
The ROM i use, uses D2SD automatically, if the SD-card is partitioned the right way.
I'm sure you will find something that fits to the ROM you use.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've used the app2sd and notenoughspace programs in the past, but it seems they have done more harm than good. Apps would stop working. They would disappear completely. The system would crash, etc. I kinda gave up hope on using those approaches.
I was hoping the Google Android team would wake up and just fix this instead of us paying users have to perform work-arounds just to use our devices.

ned4spd8874 said:
I've used the app2sd and notenoughspace programs in the past, but it seems they have done more harm than good. Apps would stop working. They would disappear completely. The system would crash, etc. I kinda gave up hope on using those approaches.
I was hoping the Google Android team would wake up and just fix this instead of us paying users have to perform work-arounds just to use our devices.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Then you are pretty unlucky. I never had problems with this stuff. All works just fine as it should.
But, of course you are right, i can't understand why they don't give us a GB or so as internal storage either.
Damn scrooges.

ned4spd8874 said:
I've used the app2sd and notenoughspace programs in the past, but it seems they have done more harm than good. Apps would stop working. They would disappear completely. The system would crash, etc. I kinda gave up hope on using those approaches.
I was hoping the Google Android team would wake up and just fix this instead of us paying users have to perform work-arounds just to use our devices.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try using a cleaner ROM for your DInc (ie "stock Android"- no Sense UI). I just got a DInc yesterday, switching from an Aria. Did a factory wipe, rooted, and installed the CM7 nightly 100. I believe I currently have s2e on my 8gb MicroSD (just swapped it from my Aria, which had s2e and CM7). Anyway, I have 118MB used, 630MB free internal storage space for apps. This clearly isn't a Google/Android problem. Could be an HTC Sense problem, I suppose.
edit: My Aria even has 185MB available for apps. Not a huge amount, but considering it has a lot less internal space than a DInc, yeah, OP something is wrong.

[Q] Insufficient storage

My Nexus S (GT-I9020)keeps giving me an "insufficient storage" message. Particularly when updating "Google Newstand".
So I have cleared out lots of Photos and music and stuff. Cleared caches. Moved stuff to SD etc. Still keeps happening.
So while connected to my PC by USB, I ran "Treesize" on it, and it tells me that I have 9.87Gb free. What is the problem?
Of the few Gigabytes that are used, by far the biggest folder is called "DCIM", I know that this is where pictures are stored, but I have cleared out loads of photos. The largest file in there is called " thumbdata", at 966Mb by far the largest file on the entire phone. What is this waste of space? Can I delete it?
It seems that whenever I take a pic. with my phone, it is stored there, then a little while later a second copy appears thanks to Google upload or something, but the new copy is not as high res as the original. I do want Google to upload my photos back to my PC, but why does it have to send them back to the phone? How do I stop this? I spend too much time deleting copies of pics that are already on the phone in original. I think that the thumbnails folder is a result of all this.
The biggest memory hog after DCIM is Clockwork Mod, within it a folder called "blobs". What is it and can I delete it?
The Next biggest memory hog is called "TWRP". What is it? Can I delete it?
Is there a guide to what all these things mean and do, for us learners?

monkey shoulder said:
My Nexus S (GT-I9020)keeps giving me an "insufficient storage" message. Particularly when updating "Google Newstand".
So I have cleared out lots of Photos and music and stuff. Cleared caches. Moved stuff to SD etc. Still keeps happening.
So while connected to my PC by USB, I ran "Treesize" on it, and it tells me that I have 9.87Gb free. What is the problem?
Of the few Gigabytes that are used, by far the biggest folder is called "DCIM", I know that this is where pictures are stored, but I have cleared out loads of photos. The largest file in there is called " thumbdata", at 966Mb by far the largest file on the entire phone. What is this waste of space? Can I delete it?
It seems that whenever I take a pic. with my phone, it is stored there, then a little while later a second copy appears thanks to Google upload or something, but the new copy is not as high res as the original. I do want Google to upload my photos back to my PC, but why does it have to send them back to the phone? How do I stop this? I spend too much time deleting copies of pics that are already on the phone in original. I think that the thumbnails folder is a result of all this.
The biggest memory hog after DCIM is Clockwork Mod, within it a folder called "blobs". What is it and can I delete it?
The Next biggest memory hog is called "TWRP". What is it? Can I delete it?
Is there a guide to what all these things mean and do, for us learners?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
how many apps in your device? u can check your remaining storage at setting>apps>downloaded...if the remaining is under 100mb...u need to delete some apps to update some apps...

Re:insufficient storage
cshnz said:
how many apps in your device? u can check your remaining storage at setting>apps>downloaded...if the remaining is under 100mb...u need to delete some apps to update some apps...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have 51 countable icons for apps, 102 in the list of "All apps." which includes all sorts of android stuff.
Under "downloaded" (36 apps) internal storage shows 784Mb used, 224Mb free.
Under USB it shows 3.4Gb used, 9.9Gb free. Aha! so that's what Treesize is looking at.
I get it, my 1Gb of internal storage is being used up. I will try and move more apps to USB.
Is that it?

also check your system partition, google apps often go there, if you're not rooted you wont be able to free space on it, the system partition is about 500MB large so it gets easily filled up, it contains your android rom and system apps
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

monkey shoulder said:
I have 51 countable icons for apps, 102 in the list of "All apps." which includes all sorts of android stuff.
Under "downloaded" (36 apps) internal storage shows 784Mb used, 224Mb free.
Under USB it shows 3.4Gb used, 9.9Gb free. Aha! so that's what Treesize is looking at.
I get it, my 1Gb of internal storage is being used up. I will try and move more apps to USB.
Is that it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes i think you must move some apps to sd, or delete it.... hope it will work

[Q] FIXED....Too much used space

I've got 10.46 gigs used on this thing, and that's with only a couple of downloaded apps. It's the 8013 variant, and I've had it rooted since the day I bought it. I've installed and uninstalled a couple of ROMS on it since then as well. The problem I'm having is not having any free space for anything anymore. When I go into Root Explorer I've got all these directories pointing to the same files. Root/Sdcard, Root/storage/emulated/0, Root/storage/emulated/legacy, Root/storage/sdcard0.
If I go into settings it says I've got 6.51 gigs of miscellaneous files, but when I open it to see what is there it only shows a couple hundred megs worth.
Back to Root Explorer. ... If I delete a file in one directory. It's gone in all the rest. I think the 0, and legacy folders are for different users. As far as the rest. I'm not sure. So I guess my question is are these all just links to to the same place? And if so, what is taking up so much space on my SD? And Is there a way to re-partition the storage?

Never mind FIXED.
Sorry for wasting space on xda. I decided go into TWRP and format the data. I lost everything, but it wasn't much to begin with. I now have 514.51 megs used, and 11.23 gigs free. I guess there was just a bunch of cap left over from old apps and roms. Thank you.

1.2gb of space available but cant install apps

Hi, i am tired and stressed from researching, i cannot find a solution to this problem and i have come here for professional help.
The problem, i was going to install a game(32mb) through google play, and when the download finishes i get the insufficient storage message which is weird considering i always watch and keep track of my storage space, so i clear some cache and decide to download and once again i get the message, this time i decide to delete useless stuff via CCleaner lite and delete useless apps, i download again, and no space message again, i checked my total available space and it says 1.2gb
id place some screenshots but i have another problem with phone that makes me unable to browse my phone via usb on pc's or laptops
im going to check this thread every day, i really need the help, thanks in advance.
A few things to keep in mind:
1. I wont keep uninstalling apps, it works but i cant uninstall important ones
2. I already deleted all of the cache. literally every solution i researched told me obvious stuff i have already done
3. I wont uninstall photos or files
4. Remember i have ''1.2gb of available space'' so no need to do any of the above
5. I acknowledge that sometimes phones might prevent you from downloading apps just to save some space for cache and app data
6. I have a sd card(2gb) but my phone doesnt have the option to move apps to external space and i cant force it even through root
7. I have android 4.0.4
8. My phone is rooted, but its kinda broken(''kingo'' root, not to be confused by ''king'' root), every time the phone restarts or turns off something makes the main root app(the ones that grants root permission to other apps) to get corrupted and not start up(crashes on start) making me having to reinstall it using a backup

1337Potato said:
Hi, i am tired and stressed from researching, i cannot find a solution to this problem and i have come here for professional help.
The problem, i was going to install a game(32mb) through google play, and when the download finishes i get the insufficient storage message which is weird considering i always watch and keep track of my storage space, so i clear some cache and decide to download and once again i get the message, this time i decide to delete useless stuff via CCleaner lite and delete useless apps, i download again, and no space message again, i checked my total available space and it says 1.2gb
id place some screenshots but i have another problem with phone that makes me unable to browse my phone via usb on pc's or laptops
im going to check this thread every day, i really need the help, thanks in advance.
A few things to keep in mind:
1. I wont keep uninstalling apps, it works but i cant uninstall important ones
2. I already deleted all of the cache. literally every solution i researched told me obvious stuff i have already done
3. I wont uninstall photos or files
4. Remember i have ''1.2gb of available space'' so no need to do any of the above
5. I acknowledge that sometimes phones might prevent you from downloading apps just to save some space for cache and app data
6. I have a sd card(2gb) but my phone doesnt have the option to move apps to external space and i cant force it even through root
7. I have android 4.0.4
8. My phone is rooted, but its kinda broken(''kingo'' root, not to be confused by ''king'' root), every time the phone restarts or turns off something makes the main root app(the ones that grants root permission to other apps) to get corrupted and not start up(crashes on start) making me having to reinstall it using a backup
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You have plenty of storage but that doesn't mean you have room for apps because apps are installed in /data partition, there is a difference. You have storage space but only a portion of it is allocated as space for apps, the rest is storage. You can repartition the device to give your /data partition more available space. Do not repartition your device unless you understand exactly what you are doing.
I DO NOT PROVIDE HELP IN PM, KEEP IT IN THE THREADS WHERE EVERYONE CAN SHARE

Droidriven said:
You have plenty of storage but that doesn't mean you have room for apps because apps are installed in /data partition, there is a difference. You have storage space but only a portion of it is allocated as space for apps, the rest is storage. You can repartition the device to give your /data partition more available space. Do not repartition your device unless you understand exactly what you are doing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know, but before i could keep installing apps until i had 200mb of space left for app storage, why would it be different now, i have a total of 2gb internal storage small i know, but still no reason to stop being able of installing apps at 1gb left, makes no sense, and i'll research about repartition carefully if there isnt another good answer to my problem

1337Potato said:
I know, but before i could keep installing apps until i had 200mb of space left for app storage, why would it be different now, i have a total of 2gb internal storage small i know, but still no reason to stop being able of installing apps at 1gb left, makes no sense, and i'll research about repartition carefully if there isnt another good answer to my problem
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You might be full of app data from apps you've uninstalled, uninstalled apps can leave data behind, look in your Android/data folder. You might also be storing logs somewhere taking up space.
Have you used any apps to analyze your internal storage? It should tell you everything you have stored there, files sizes and locations.
I DO NOT PROVIDE HELP IN PM, KEEP IT IN THE THREADS WHERE EVERYONE CAN SHARE

Droidriven said:
You might be full of app data from apps you've uninstalled, uninstalled apps can leave data behind, look in your Android/data folder. You might also be storing logs somewhere taking up space.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It turns out there was an odex files messing with the instalation, when deleted them i could start installing again, sorry for the trouble and thanks for the help!