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
Related
So my sister has her phone when she does anything this message comes up she getting very pissed off any way on solving this ? she has space and she has a sd card ... whats the deal.
Sent from my SGH-T889 using xda premium
xxjrsmith3xx said:
So my sister has her phone when she does anything this message comes up she getting very pissed off any way on solving this ? she has space and she has a sd card ... whats the deal.
Sent from my SGH-T889 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The deal is that we only have 2GB of internal storage, which is where the camera defaults to. This can be filled very easy if one likes to take lots of pictures. There are a lot of ways around this, but the easiest for a non techie is to download a 3rd party camera app and set the storage to the external card. You could also swap mount points or try to symlink it as well.
dispozable said:
The deal is that we only have 2GB of internal storage, which is where the camera defaults to. This can be filled very easy if one likes to take lots of pictures. There are a lot of ways around this, but the easiest for a non techie is to download a 3rd party camera app and set the storage to the external card. You could also swap mount points or try to symlink it as well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have a hard time understanding this, too. Settings>Storage tells me that I have only about 60 MB free in "USB Storage." It also tells me that I have 93 MB of "Pictures, Videos" there. The trouble is, I have no pictures or videos in USB storage. It's all on the external SD card. The camera saves to the external SD card, and all my music, photos, and videos are there, not in internal storage. It even tells me I have 3.4 GB of "Miscellaneous files" in USB storage, which is impossible. That 3.4 GB is actually what's on the external SD at the moment. It tells me that over 1 GB of apps are stored there, even though the apps actually there come to far less---maybe there's app data that's adding to the total.
The only time it becomes a problem is when I run NewsRob, which invariably tells me it doesn't have enough memory to work.
ubizmo said:
I have a hard time understanding this, too. Settings>Storage tells me that I have only about 60 MB free in "USB Storage." It also tells me that I have 93 MB of "Pictures, Videos" there. The trouble is, I have no pictures or videos in USB storage. It's all on the external SD card. The camera saves to the external SD card, and all my music, photos, and videos are there, not in internal storage. It even tells me I have 3.4 GB of "Miscellaneous files" in USB storage, which is impossible. That 3.4 GB is actually what's on the external SD at the moment. It tells me that over 1 GB of apps are stored there, even though the apps actually there come to far less---maybe there's app data that's adding to the total.
The only time it becomes a problem is when I run NewsRob, which invariably tells me it doesn't have enough memory to work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For pics and such, use Google drive, drop box or sky drive. Mine is set to upload over WiFi only. After my pics are up, I delete them from gallery. Also, make sure all music is on external sd . Then go to settings/storage erase SD card. This should clean up any uneccesary files or clutter. Last, move all possible apps to SD and clear all caches. FYI , if on any cm 10 variants don't clear the caches to fast or the phone will freeze for 20-40 secs. That is all
jbats said:
For pics and such, use Google drive, drop box or sky drive. Mine is set to upload over WiFi only. After my pics are up, I delete them from gallery. Also, make sure all music is on external sd . Then go to settings/storage erase SD card. This should clean up any uneccesary files or clutter. Last, move all possible apps to SD and clear all caches. FYI , if on any cm 10 variants don't clear the caches to fast or the phone will freeze for 20-40 secs. That is all
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, I made an interesting discovery last night. I found that, even though I had set the PodKicker app to store podcasts on the external SD card, it had somehow reverted to internal USB memory, and had dumped a bunch of large files in there.
I also found that my Kindle app had deposited a bunch of files in internal USB memory. There's no way to tell Kindle to put them on the external card, but I supposedly only had a few books residing there. An examination of the kindle cache, however, disclosed almost two hundred, taking up a big chunk of memory. I deleted the whole directory, started Kindle, and let it re-download the few that I need. I think somewhere along the line I had to re-register the Kindle app, and it just left a bunch of old files there that it couldn't use anymore.
Between these two purges I freed up about 150 MB of internal USB storage.
150mb isn't much and will be eaten quickly.
a lot of apps install to the internal but load a bunch more on the external.
Camera ICS + is a good camera replacement that can save directly to the external SD.
Also, run ES File Explorer and use it's SD card analysis to see what is taking up space. I know that if you have your google photos synced, even just the thumbnails database file will be up to 1gb.
Move any Titanium or CWM backups to the external SD, but make sure you remember where they are when you go around deleting things.
I also found a trash can folder that was huge so I'm pretty sure that the internal SD card isn't fully freeing up memory when you delete things.
Also go to your App Manager and see which things are taking up a lot of space. I know that Google+, Gmail, Chrome, Facebook, Grooveshark and a few others take up a lot of space.
Okay so this phone has an internal memory that is split into internal storage (2GB) and phone storage (10GBs). I've been going through the memory and trying to clear it out because it always seems full. After freeing up some space it says I have 1.43GBs being used on my phone storage for all my apps, music (which is really just a couple of podcasts consisting of 550MBs), and my gallery only 90 photos. This leaves only 1.6GB free out of 10 on that partition? Where is all this missing space? I completely cleared the app cache and like I said there is no video or music of any kind. I figured the OS was part of the internal storage as well so what could be taking up the other storage?
I forgot exactly how its split up, and I think whether your are ICS, JB or AOSP it gets displayed a bit differently. But I think its 2 GB for apps, 4 GB for the OS, and 10 GB is user accessible storage (basically an SD card, just internal or "virtual"). I don't think the OS takes any of the 10 GB of user accessible storage ("phone storage").
Are you rooted/bootloader unlocked, and have TWRP backups or Titanium Backup data, because both of those take up lots of space on the SD (phone storage).
Do you have any apps, like games, that may have had additional content data downloaded after you started up the app the first time? These can often take up a lot of space on the SD (phone storage) as well. You will often see them in folders specially named after the app or the software company (such as Gameloft). This data is obviously needed to play the game or run the app.
Also take a look and see if you have a LOST.DIR folder. Sometimes corrupted files will get dumped in here, and never deleted until you do it manually. I think I found a couple hundred MB worth of files in here once. Unless you know you have corrupted files that you want to recover (like photos you took), this data is safe to delete.
Also use es file explorer. Go menu -> manager -> sd card analyst it will tell you where your storage is being used
Sent from my VENOMized HoxL
area51avenger said:
Also use es file explorer. Go menu -> manager -> sd card analyst it will tell you where your storage is being used
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Great tip. Thanks. I love ES File Explorer, and its my go-to file browser app for the time being. But I don't think I ever knew that feature existed.
The longer I have my Shield Tablet, the internal storage space seems to slowly vanish more and more. I have been constantly clearing cache, as well as uninstalling more and more apps. The entire internal storage folder (labeled storage/sdcard0), takes up a total of only 3.77 GB according to ES File Explorer, yet I have less than 2 GB free. I have noticed there is a folder labeled: storage/emulated. Within this folder are "0" and "legacy"... Both of these folders appear to be complete clones of the sdcard0 folder (each are exactly 3.77 GB as well). All three of these folders add up to equal the total storage used on the internal storage. So can I really only use a third of the internal storage since everything is duplicated 3 times? Is it safe to delete the contents of either of the 2 folders within storage/emulated? What is the purpose of these folders?
They are all the same directory - they're legacy ways of accessing the storage and are kept for backwards compatibility. Erasing any one of them will erase them all.
If you are on lollipop, the reason for shrinking space is usually the linking of apps to sdcard1 either using android, link2sd, Folder Mount, or the like. The lollipop system apparently reads the storage incorrectly, counting the linked files as still being on the sdcard.
Sent from my SHIELD Tablet using Tapatalk
ailima said:
They are all the same directory - they're legacy ways of accessing the storage and are kept for backwards compatibility. Erasing any one of them will erase them all.
If you are on lollipop, the reason for shrinking space is usually the linking of apps to sdcard1 either using android, link2sd, Folder Mount, or the like. The lollipop system apparently reads the storage incorrectly, counting the linked files as still being on the sdcard.
Sent from my SHIELD Tablet using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is exactly right. I am using FolderMount for all of my big games, and my "storage" tab in settings shows that I am using 18GB (when we all know you only get about 12 usable), yet when I look in TitaniumBackup, SDMaid, or the like, it shows that I still have over 9GB free.
I'd use a different method of checking how much storage you're using, because (like the battery stats) the storage stats are totally broken in Lollipop.
ailima said:
They are all the same directory - they're legacy ways of accessing the storage and are kept for backwards compatibility. Erasing any one of them will erase them all.
If you are on lollipop, the reason for shrinking space is usually the linking of apps to sdcard1 either using android, link2sd, Folder Mount, or the like. The lollipop system apparently reads the storage incorrectly, counting the linked files as still being on the sdcard.
Sent from my SHIELD Tablet using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My tablet is no longer rooted since I've been on Lollipop so I no longer use Folder Mount. I have moved as many apps as I can to the SD card through the stock app manager. I did use Folder Mount on KitKat, and noticed the weird storage usage, but I did a factory reset after updating to Lollipop. I have installed LOTS of apps, but I reached a point where I wasn't installing any new apps and my storage is slowly disappearing, and now I'm starting to have to uninstall apps... I've had this same issue on every android device I've owned, I eventually have to back up my data and do a factory reset, then reinstall all my apps again, then I suddenly have more free space then before with all the same apps installed...
Is it possible one of the apps you have installed is the culprit? (I.e. filling up your storage?)
Sent from my SHIELD Tablet using XDA Free mobile app
Can you run Disk Usage and Storage Analyzer from the play store?
Apps like Google Plus tend to use a lot of cache and data. Have you checked up on them using something like a disk usage analyzer or 1Tap cleaner?
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
I noticed disk usage app even shows some game data that is not moved but just copied to SD.
Also this helps save me up to half a GB.
Its a hidden folder, in DCIM named thumbnails, it keeps a db on all your pictures an can get big quickly if you have a fair amount of pictures an wallpapers.
I found trick here on XDA, sorry can't remember who to credit but, delete that thumbnail folder an contents an make a new file not folder in the DCIM folder named,
.thumbnails an that is gone for good.
WR
ailima said:
Can you run Disk Usage and Storage Analyzer from the play store?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, I used the app DiskUsage and a large chunk of used data is "System data"... It seems to fluctuate is size very much, but overall, it keeps increasing in size...
CaleTheKing said:
This is exactly right. I am using FolderMount for all of my big games, and my "storage" tab in settings shows that I am using 18GB (when we all know you only get about 12 usable), yet when I look in TitaniumBackup, SDMaid, or the like, it shows that I still have over 9GB free.
I'd use a different method of checking how much storage you're using, because (like the battery stats) the storage stats are totally broken in Lollipop.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi guys, I'd loveto know that differentmethod of checking used storage
Also, if i keep installing games and moving to sd, won't it give me a "Not enough disk space" due to those wrong stats?
Thanks!
Hello all, last night when I went to sleep I had about 1.5 GB free on my internal storage.
This morning I woke up and it was full (1MB free).
Wifi was off overnight.
What happened? Any ideas?
This is a wifi only shield with the most uptodate lollipop version.
Thank you all
You can analyze your SD card with ES File Explorer or check which apps are hogging the most internal storage from your settings. Both of those ideas come to mind right about now.
Sent from my Galaxy S5
primetechv2 said:
You can analyze your SD card with ES File Explorer or check which apps are hogging the most internal storage from your settings. Both of those ideas come to mind right about now.
Sent from my Galaxy S5
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you. I tried ES File Explorer - and according to it - I have in fact only a tiny amount of free space - but all folders are small. So if I add them up (estimating manually) there is no way that the total of them fills up the whole internal memory card.
Is it possible that there is a large file or folder sitting somewhere, but it is not seen by ES File explorer?
Most of the large apps are moved (with folder mount) to the external SD card.
Now I removed a few apps that were on the internal sd card. I should have about 4GB free now - but have only about 1 GB free. No idea where the space is.
I am totally puzzled...
A question. I am using now the "Disk Usage" app.
It shows that I am using 3.7GB for apps - makes sense.
It also shows that my system data is over 6GB.
When I try to see what is inside system that takes up that space, the app crashes with the following message: java error: no more data
Can please someone tell me how big is your system folder when using the free Disk Usage app?
How can I check what is taking space in the system folder?
Which disk usage app is this? Disk Usage by AndUtil? DiskUsage? Neither of these have anywhere you can see where system space has been used.
ES File Explorer, like the other options, says I have 11.95GB disk space total, between what I've used and what's still left.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
primetechv2 said:
Which disk usage app is this? Disk Usage by AndUtil? Disk Usage? Neither of these have anywhere you can see where system space has been used.
ES File Explorer, like the other options, says I have 11.95GB disk space total, between what I've used and what's still left.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The app is called DiskUsage - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.diskusage&hl=en
With Folder Mount, even though you've moved files to the external SD, they're still linked to the internal storage and will report as used space unfortunately (even though they're not actually taking up space on the internal).
If you detach the pairs, you should see the free space revealed.
Also, the hidden (cache?) file in the thumbnails folder in the DCIM folder always seems to be excessively large (showing up as 3.5GB on my shield )
Sent from my SHIELD Tablet using XDA Free mobile app
An Droid said:
With Folder Mount, even though you've moved files to the external SD, they're still linked to the internal storage and will report as used space unfortunately (even though they're not actually taking up space on the internal).
If you detach the pairs, you should see the free space revealed.
Also, the hidden (cache?) file in the thumbnails folder in the DCIM folder always seems to be excessively large (showing up as 3.5GB on my shield )
Sent from my SHIELD Tablet using XDA Free mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you. I switched foldermount off to ensure that the data I get is accurate.
I also deleted the contents of the dcim folder but no real impact.
I will do a factory reset now . that should solve this I hope
Gadgetguy2005 said:
Thank you. I switched foldermount off to ensure that the data I get is accurate.
I also deleted the contents of the dcim folder but no real impact.
I will do a factory reset now . that should solve this I hope
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OK. After factory reset and reinstalling ALL apps I have 6GB free. (where before I had 1.5GB available)
Problem seems to be solved for now - but I still dont have the faintest idea what has happened.
Did you scan your storage with ES file explorer (see in Tools in ES, there is a free storage analyzer)? I was also thinking about DCIM thumbnails, a recursive storage eater on my devices, but it could be another app cache : pocket, Google play books, there are many... but you should see this in settings/applications (filter by app size).
Gadgetguy2005 said:
OK. After factory reset and reinstalling ALL apps I have 6GB free. (where before I had 1.5GB available)
Problem seems to be solved for now - but I still dont have the faintest idea what has happened.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Disk and Storage Analyzer Pro is the best tool I've found, though I'm sure there are others.
Thank you all for the suggestions.
I have used various tools (from ES File Explorer to various folder size apps) - and I was unable to find the culprit.
Some applications actually suggested I have 5GB free (based on adding up the storage used) - while my Shield told me I had only 1.5GB.
I think the problem was with a file in the system area (which many folder size apps do not diagnose well).
A factory reset solved this - and for now all is good.
If it ever happens again (I hope not!) I will do more digging.
Gadgetguy2005 said:
Thank you all for the suggestions.
I have used various tools (from ES File Explorer to various folder size apps) - and I was unable to find the culprit.
Some applications actually suggested I have 5GB free (based on adding up the storage used) - while my Shield told me I had only 1.5GB.
I think the problem was with a file in the system area (which many folder size apps do not diagnose well).
A factory reset solved this - and for now all is good.
If it ever happens again (I hope not!) I will do more digging.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The app I was talking about can read the entire /data partition and sees everything. I'm sure other apps may have this functionality as well though I love this one's UI.
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!