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I am running out of room on internal storage.

I hope someone can help me. I have a 16 gig GS3. When I plug it in to the computer It says I have 1.5gb free out of 11.9gb. This is after I deleted all but the rom I am using and most of my backups. I've tried using directorybind to move some apps but shadowgun was the only big one I had and I just deleted it. Also, if I check the properties on all the files in the sd card it comes to 8.5gb. That leaves 2gb of unseen files. If that is the OS then why do I only have 11.9gb available. I am kindof wondering if I am making a new partition everytime I flash one of these wonderful roms peope are making. Does anybody know how I can free up some space on here. I'm not storing anything on there and it wont be long before I have no room what so ever.

Nate Rules said:
This is after I deleted all but the rom I am using and most of my backups.
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Click to collapse
What recovery are you using? How exactly did you delete most of your backups?
If you're using some version of CWM 6, it stores the meat of your backup in the /sdcard/clockworkmod/blobs directory. If you delete the backups in the backup folder, the blobs it references won't be deleted. Reboot into recovery, backup and restore, and free up nandroid space. That will delete any blobs that aren't associated with a backup. See if that gets you your space back.
Oh, and never delete stuff in the blobs folder, at least not if you expect your backups to work.

lazarus2405 said:
What recovery are you using? How exactly did you delete most of your backups?
If you're using some version of CWM 6, it stores the meat of your backup in the /sdcard/clockworkmod/blobs directory. If you delete the backups in the backup folder, the blobs it references won't be deleted. Reboot into recovery, backup and restore, and free up nandroid space. That will delete any blobs that aren't associated with a backup. See if that gets you your space back.
Oh, and never delete stuff in the blobs folder, at least not if you expect your backups to work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, before I do this, let me make sure I understand you completely. I don't think I have done any restoring. So are all my backups stored in the blob? And a backup and a restore will take it down to one backup? Do I delete the blob and then do a new backup? I'm pretty sure this is my problem, because I was wondering why my backups were only about 20 megs.

lazarus2405 said:
What recovery are you using? How exactly did you delete most of your backups?
If you're using some version of CWM 6, it stores the meat of your backup in the /sdcard/clockworkmod/blobs directory. If you delete the backups in the backup folder, the blobs it references won't be deleted. Reboot into recovery, backup and restore, and free up nandroid space. That will delete any blobs that aren't associated with a backup. See if that gets you your space back.
Oh, and never delete stuff in the blobs folder, at least not if you expect your backups to work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry Lazarus, I reread your post and realized that free up nandroid space must be an option. I did it and it cleared up 3gb of space. So I have some breathing room. But that still leaves 7gb of stuff on my internal sdcard. Seems like alot when I am trying to minimize stuff on there. Also, I still feel like my partition is shrinking. I am pretty sure there was at least 13gb there a couple weeks ago and now there is 11.9gb.

Nate Rules said:
Ok, before I do this, let me make sure I understand you completely. I don't think I have done any restoring. So are all my backups stored in the blob? And a backup and a restore will take it down to one backup? Do I delete the blob and then do a new backup? I'm pretty sure this is my problem, because I was wondering why my backups were only about 20 megs.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First, don't delete blobs. Bad stuff will happen.
When I said "reboot into recovery, backup and restore, and free up nandroid space", I meant in navigating the menus in CWR. When you get into recovery, select "Backup and Restore", then go to "Free Nandroid Space". If you already deleted the 20mb backup files you don't need, selecting that option will free the rest of the space. Also, any time you make a new backup, CWR will try to do the same thing before starting the backup. This way, you can selectively keep the backups you need and discard the ones you don't.
Again, don't delete any blobs and expect your backups to work. If for some reason you wanted to get rid of all your backups, you could delete the entire clockworkmod folder, and CWR will remake any directories it needs when you make your next backup. The downside of freeing space this way is you'd loose all of your backups, of course.
The reason this changed in CWM6 is to save space. Instead of backing up whole partitions in one huge file, it backs up each individual file into the blobs folder. If you back up often and much doesn't change much in between backups, CWR will only make another copy of files that actually changed. Smart, eh?

Backing up CWM6 backups

I have CWM 6.0.1.0 as my recovery and I have a good number of backups saved on my sdcard spanning a number of different roms (mostly cm10 official nightlies). I understand that the newer CWM backs up roms using a different method than before. When I look in my Clockworkmod directory on the sdcard, I see a BLOBS folder and a BACKUP folder. The latter contains the backups, but they are very small in size. So do I understand correctly that the bulk of the backup information is in the BLOBS folder?
Assuming that's true, how do we safely:
1) Delete individual backup? If I delete a backup from the BACKUP folder, how will it know what to delete from the BLOBS folder? Do we have to actually delete the backup from within recovery in order for it to delete the proper BLOBS info? Or can I delete an individual backup from the BACKUP folder from Root Explorer? If I do that, won't the BLOBS folder continue to grow in size with outdated information?
2) Back up the CWM backups to my PC? I assume I have to back up the entire BLOBS folder to my PC, right? And then I can just back up individual backups from the BACKUP folder, right? But I would need BOTH the individual backup and the entire BLOBS folder back on my phone to restore a backup, right? If so, then I revert back to question 1 and ask how to I pare down the BLOBS folder without messing up individual backups?
Thanks!

You can delete backups from Rom Manager or if using the newest version of cwm you can delete it from recovery. As far as backing it up. I just deleted all but the one(s) wanted and copy the cwm folder to my computer. Hope that helps.

ren274u said:
You can delete backups from Rom Manager or if using the newest version of cwm you can delete it from recovery. As far as backing it up. I just deleted all but the one(s) wanted and copy the cwm folder to my computer. Hope that helps.
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Click to collapse
So we have to delete old backups using Rom Manger or from within Recovery? I delete some of them from Root Explorer, so does that mean the Blogs info will still retain old data. Or will it know to clear that space simply because the old backup files are missing?

Travisimo said:
So we have to delete old backups using Rom Manger or from within Recovery? I delete some of them from Root Explorer, so does that mean the Blogs info will still retain old data. Or will it know to clear that space simply because the old backup files are missing?
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Click to collapse
I'm not sure how the blog info works. I just assumed if you delete from cwm it knows whats the data incorporated with the specific backup and it deletes it with it.

Wow, I tried copying the Clockworkmod folder to my PC via USB and it took over an hour just to index and then it just stopped and failed. I imagine because there are so many individual files in the Blobs folder that it causes Windows indexing to crash. I deleted all the old backups I didn't need, did the free up space thing in CWM and it's still impossible to copy to my PC. I have 3 backups left (from different roms), so I supposed the Blobs folder is going to be pretty large.
So I can see how this backup method works out good on the phone itself because it makes backups easier and faster. But trying to back them up to PC is ridiculous. The old way where I could just copy over an individual backup was much easier.
Isn't there a better way? Someone suggested zipping the Blobs folder up on the device first and then copying to PC, but zipping the Blobs folder is taking forever as well...

Nand backup only like 16megs, what am I doing wrong?

After just rooting first thing I want to do is a nand backup, but after backup complete it is only like 16meg!
Am I missing something here?
Cheers

You are doing nothing wrong... Inside the Clockworkmod folder is 2 other folders... Backup and Blobs...
Backup backs up settings and preferences, Blobs backs up the system data, apps and so forth...
DON'T delete the blobs folder or you won't be able to re-install backup.
Every backup uses the Blobs data files so the actual backup file is very small. Use your file manager to check the properties of the clockworkmod folder and it will be a bit bigger, same with blobs...

ultramag69 said:
You are doing nothing wrong... Inside the Clockworkmod folder is 2 other folders... Backup and Blobs...
Backup backs up settings and preferences, Blobs backs up the system data, apps and so forth...
DON'T delete the blobs folder or you won't be able to re-install backup.
Every backup uses the Blobs data files so the actual backup file is very small. Use your file manager to check the properties of the clockworkmod folder and it will be a bit bigger, same with blobs...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi thanks for the reply,
ok i found the blods folder.
Problem now is i deleted old backups from recovery, but the blods folder seems to be the same size, i.e. taking up a lot of room on internal mem.
What's up with this?
Clockwork normally made backups in an individual folder, then you could delete the folder/backup, that was it...

Restored nandroid, what's with the sdcard?

Hey guys,
a nandroid backup is a really convenient method to backup your complete phone and restore everything or partially data. All partitions (/system, /data, /cache) were being backed up.
But what happens with the sdcard?
Before I flash/install a new rom, I always format my sdcard with my PC, hence I make sure, that it’s clean and has no remains from older roms.
On first boot, the android system creates a lot of folders contaning data, which both are modified during the daily use. For example the folder “DCIM” contains all the taken pictures and videos.
But what’s about these?
- .android_secure
- .dta
- .estrong
- and especially “Android” and subfolders
What happens, if I make a full nandroid of my phone, format my sdcard, so that all the folders and data, which were created while using the rom, were deleted. After that I restore the complete backup and boot up the phone.
My question is, how the restored system will react, if it notices, that these folders and their contents were not available?
- will they be recreated?
- does the system not boot
- after booting it will show some error messages?
- something else?
Thanks in advance!
@@RON

Hi
Greeting
Nandroid only backups phone memory
It does not backup sdcard
And their is no need to format sd card everytime before flashing Rom (i haven't formated my sd card even once ) every thing works f9
Even if u remove all the file from sdcard which u mentaion then the phone recreate these file againg and causes no problem
Basically a Rom has to do nothing with the sdcard the phone runs completely even without sdcard . Sd card is just an expansion of memory to phones
And you do whatever with it , it does not affect the way your Rom runs
Sent from my HTC Sensation XE with Beats Audio Z715e using xda premium

@@RON said:
Hey guys,
a nandroid backup is a really convenient method to backup your complete phone and restore everything or partially data. All partitions (/system, /data, /cache) were being backed up.
But what happens with the sdcard?
Before I flash/install a new rom, I always format my sdcard with my PC, hence I make sure, that it’s clean and has no remains from older roms.
On first boot, the android system creates a lot of folders contaning data, which both are modified during the daily use. For example the folder “DCIM” contains all the taken pictures and videos.
But what’s about these?
- .android_secure
- .dta
- .estrong
- and especially “Android” and subfolders
What happens, if I make a full nandroid of my phone, format my sdcard, so that all the folders and data, which were created while using the rom, were deleted. After that I restore the complete backup and boot up the phone.
My question is, how the restored system will react, if it notices, that these folders and their contents were not available?
- will they be recreated?
- does the system not boot
- after booting it will show some error messages?
- something else?
Thanks in advance!
@@RON
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When making a nandroid backup, system, data, boot and cache partitions are saved. Also, the android_secure from the SDcard is saved. As for the other folders, they are not kept. EStrongs is the guys who make ES File Explorer, and I believe this folder has something to do with the app. I don't know about the other folders, but they are not required for running the ROM. If they are missing, they will be recreated.
I believe I answered some of your questions above, but I'll answer the rest here:
-As I said, the restore won't create the folders, but the ROM might create them. At least one of the folders you listed is of an app, and there are many more apps that create folders on your SDCard, that's just cache or some data, which is not a problem to restore.
-The system will boot. That's the idea of a nandroid backup (if those folders were required, they would have been backed up)
-It will not show error messages, it will resume just like when you made the backuo.
-Something Else? You name it. There is no need to format your SDCard every time you flash a ROM, as usually it doesn't create problems. It can get a bit messy, but besides that, it's fine to keep it the way it is.

astar26 said:
When making a nandroid backup, system, data, boot and cache partitions are saved. Also, the android_secure from the SDcard is saved. As for the other folders, they are not kept. EStrongs is the guys who make ES File Explorer, and I believe this folder has something to do with the app. I don't know about the other folders, but they are not required for running the ROM. If they are missing, they will be recreated.
I believe I answered some of your questions above, but I'll answer the rest here:
-As I said, the restore won't create the folders, but the ROM might create them. At least one of the folders you listed is of an app, and there are many more apps that create folders on your SDCard, that's just cache or some data, which is not a problem to restore.
-The system will boot. That's the idea of a nandroid backup (if those folders were required, they would have been backed up)
-It will not show error messages, it will resume just like when you made the backuo.
-Something Else? You name it. There is no need to format your SDCard every time you flash a ROM, as usually it doesn't create problems. It can get a bit messy, but besides that, it's fine to keep it the way it is.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, you're right!
I clicked through the folders on my sdcard and the most directories are named "cache" etc. Only some exceptions for e.g. whatsapp message database or downloaded maps for htc locations ...etc.
So it seems, that the android system and the installed apps create folders for their use. If a nandroid will be created, the last mentioned folder should be backed up, too ... but manually. Thus the first mentioned folders (.data ...) are unnecessary.
You said, that there is no need to format the sdcard everytime a new rom will be flashed. I think it is, because every new rom deserves a clean sdcard, which has no remains from older roms. So the rom can expand themself and have a great feeling
No joke, in my opinion it will be the better way, if there are no possible complications with older existing files.

@@RON said:
Yeah, you're right!
I clicked through the folders on my sdcard and the most directories are named "cache" etc. Only some exceptions for e.g. whatsapp message database or downloaded maps for htc locations ...etc.
So it seems, that the android system and the installed apps create folders for their use. If a nandroid will be created, the last mentioned folder should be backed up, too ... but manually. Thus the first mentioned folders (.data ...) are unnecessary.
You said, that there is no need to format the sdcard everytime a new rom will be flashed. I think it is, because every new rom deserves a clean sdcard, which has no remains from older roms. So the rom can expand themself and have a great feeling
No joke, in my opinion it will be the better way, if there are no possible complications with older existing files.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What needs to be cleaned is cleaned when you wipe the phone. Anyway, formatting the SDCard is your choice. Files of apps that are not installed just won't be used. I like your idea of starting fresh, but it's quite a hassle to format and rearrange the SD every time I flash a ROM.
It's nice to have it clean without many directories (Imust say that I managed to reach such a situation with my own documents, with directories I created myself and have no idea what they are for. But I guess that's what you get when you don't clean your "room" for a couple of years.

Where is mmssms.db located in a TWRP backup of Nougat>

I am trying to extract the file mmssms.db from several nandroid (TWRP) backups of Nougat. I know that in Nougat this file was moved to "/data/user_de/0/com.android.providers.telephony/databases". I can browse to this file on my phone but if I browse through the contents of the data partition backup from the nandroid backup files (data.ext4.win00X) the path "/data/user_de/" does not exist. Can anyone tell me where this file can be found in a TWRP backup archive? Otherwise I will have to completely restore these backups one by one to pull each iteration of the file off the phone.

I think that TWRP doesn't backup this folder for the simple raison that Nougat is quite new.
Maybe it backups only a list of folders in /data (but I can't confirm it)
I got just ****ed right now, me too.