Hi everyone
This may seem like a stupid question, but when new OS upgrades come out, do they replace the old one entirely or does it sit alongside the old OS? Additionally when apps update do they replace the old app files or does it mount on top of the already existing app? The reason I'm asking this is because my old HTC Wildfire S (which I had to root soon after using Link2SD to improve storage) had poor internal storage by default and the only for me to get an app to update was to uninstall it and install the latest update straight from the Play Store.
My current Motorola Moto G 4G only has an advertised 8GB internal storage and I can no longer update any more apps because it is full.
I've moved several apps already to my SD card (the ones I rarely use) leaving the apps I use daily on the internal storage for better performance.
Relating to SD cards, if I have apps installed on my SD card and I backup that SD card on NTFS external HDD for example, wipe my SD card and transfer the backup to the SD card, will the apps installed continue to work?
Many thanks
Will
Sent from my XT1039 using XDA Free mobile app
So regarding your first question, when your internal storage is full, you can't update apps because android first download the complete apk file and then updates it. If you don't have space then it can't be updated which means to update a 30 MB app, you need more 30 MB free.
Then regarding your second question, yes, if your apps have data installed on your SD card, they will work when you backup and put the SD card back hence giving them the data back. But make sure its completely installed on your SD card.
Hope I helped.
Hey all,
Does the Z3 support installing every app fully to the SD card? I ask because 16gb seems a bit limiting if you can't fully use the SD card.
I just came here to ask the same question. In Kitkat 4.4.4 (and maybe other versions?) the 'Move to SD' is disabled/not there and it is up to the phone manufacturer to enable/add it. There is no option in settings on the Z3 to move app data to your SD card. It is very easy to enable apps to be able to use the SD card, either manually or using an app such as SDFix (but you will need to be rooted).
Here are some questions I would like answered if anyone knows:
There are folders on the SD card for most apps in /Android/data/ for example, 'com.microsoft.skydrive'. That same folder is also in the same place (/Android/data/) on the phones memory and contains data for the app. Can that just be moved with a file explorer to the SD card? If so are there any other steps to take?
Is there an app to automate moving data or a way to add the button in settings, apps?
Cheers
Wait till 5 ! It's was disabled is kk
You can use FolderMount to transfer game data to external storage (sdcard)
I use it and it is really essential to me
installed 4 big games
I'm trying to free up some space with an app called "Storage Analyzer" and there's this enormous greyed out slice of the pie (88% of my internal storage) that is called "android/inaccessible"
1) does anybody know what it is? it's not spotify premium offline files, because I've deleted all those to try to free it up
2) how can I gain access to it, to hopefully delete some of the files & free up space
*this is probably not my android filesystem (I would presume) because theres a separate field called "android overhead" which only takes up 16MB (2.8%)
Phone Specs:
AT&T Galaxy S5 SM-G900A
Android 5.0
16 GB internal memory
64 GB external (but I can't move any of my files over to the SD, since the files in question are "inaccessible" and greyed out)
XDA Visitor said:
I'm trying to free up some space with an app called "Storage Analyzer" and there's this enormous greyed out slice of the pie (88% of my internal storage) that is called "android/inaccessible"
1) does anybody know what it is? it's not spotify premium offline files, because I've deleted all those to try to free it up
2) how can I gain access to it, to hopefully delete some of the files & free up space
*this is probably not my android filesystem (I would presume) because theres a separate field called "android overhead" which only takes up 16MB (2.8%)
Phone Specs:
AT&T Galaxy S5 SM-G900A
Android 5.0
16 GB internal memory
64 GB external (but I can't move any of my files over to the SD, since the files in question are "inaccessible" and greyed out)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I guess it's the space on the internal storage, which is not accessible by the storage analyzer app.
If your device is not rooted, your apps can not access all system folders ... only your user space.
If you want to free some of the system space, you will have to root your device.
There are different clean up apps available, but keep in mind, that deleting system files is risky and may cause issues on your device.
BTW ... here is the [INDEX][FAQ][Q&A][ALL-IN-ONE][ATT][SM-G900A][Jul.01.2014] by ted77usa thread with many useful information and links to other threads for your device.
It's an help thread too.
So please register on xda and ask there to get answers from users having the same device like you.
Good luck !
Hello,
I have a GoClever Aries 785 (M7841) Tab, and supposedly it is an 8 GB tab, since I can ot post any images because I am a new user this will be harder, I will try to transcript from the screenshots I have taken, here we go:
1. You see this when you press the "Storage" tab in settings:
Storage
Rom information
Internal Rom 8192 MB
System 7528 MB
User Available 664 MB
Okay so, What does all this mean? Am I missing something obvious here? Internal Rom as I understand is the total memory the device has? And System is how much is currently being used as a total? User available is self explanatory. I am not new to flashing Android Roms and such, but this is confusing me for some reason. Moving on to the next image and closer to the main question
2 In the same "Storage" tab I see a section called:
Flash storage
Total space: 5.06 GB
Available: 664 MB
(And on it goes with how much storage the apps, pics and so on occupy)
As I understand, this Flash Storage is an emulated internal SD card or something
3. Another section is:
Internal storage
Total space: 0.98GB
Available: 287MB
Apps (SYSTEM APPS IN FACT) and cached data takes about 500MB
So that adds up to what? 6 GBs? As I understand 3 GB is hidden and used by the Android system?
The point of all this is this leaves me with like a half a GB to download apps and install them because they all go to internal storage and not flash storage or SD card. WTF? I am constantly having issues of low storage and when I reach a certain limit Google Play does not even let download apps. I can have the Flash storage as empty as I want and an SD card as large as I want but because the internal storage has only 300 MB available I am not able to download apps. I can download apps if there is free internal storage and move them to flash storage from the app manager, but the system still leaves some data in the Internal storage and I do not think I can move them to an SD card, so since when I move an app to the Flash storage and it leaves some data in Internal, I come to a point when it is full again and there is nothing I can do about it. I cant select the default write disk to be Flash stage or SD, but I think it is only for the camera, voice recorder and etc. How do I work around this? Is there a way to reparation the storage so there would be more space of Internal storage? Or maybe some thing else I could do? I can not even have apps like Facebook or the Google Docs that I need, I have to constancy clean cache so I cant at least get like 20 MB more.
Device is rooted, I can access device internal storage with ES file explorer.
If you have gotten this far, I thank you for reading my novel, I have tried to explain everything as clear as I can and to include as much info as I can, some of it might have been useless. Sorry for a long post.
No one has the answer?
Hi !
If the device has been rooted then some improper storage readings may occur
Install DiskInfo from playstore for a better image of your storage
You can use but be careful with SdMaid from playstore as well
Basically , a 8GB Rom is the total storage your device has been built with which actually means 7629.39 mb in real
From this amount , 3 gb may be the system which you can`t fill it up with user`s apps or personal files , the rest of it is the user`s space storage from which 500 mb is the cache
In the end , without any personal files or user`s apps , the amount of available storage may be 4291.53 mb so , try to remove all the personal (media) files away (audio , video, downloads ...) and check how much free space you`ll get
Your system may be capable of moving user`s app to flash storage but this is limited to certain folders like data folder of the application , the obb won`t move out
A good application is Apps2Sd from playstore but again , be very careful and properly read the xda`s thread before doing anything
Good luck !
Dear all,
the following problem might be unusual and the opposite of what other people want, but as the title says:
Is it possible to prevent Android 11 (and custom ROMs based on it) from writing to the external SD card? That is, I don't want apps or the O/S itself to store any data there. You now probably are asking yourself whether I have gone totally crazy, putting an external SD card into the phone and not wanting it to be used, so I'll give a bit of background:
I have a Samsung S9 plus Duos (G965F/DS) and have installed a custom recovery (TWRP 3.5.2) and a custom ROM (ArrowOS 11) onto it. Then I have installed SSHelper 13.2 and have put an external SD card into the phone.
I am taking backups very seriously. I don't want to root my phone, but nevertheless want bit-for-bit backups of all partitions or data, respectively. I don't have much data on the phone, but the data and the O/S configuration I *do* have must be regularly backed up no matter what. The backup must *not* be in the cloud. That led me to the following idea for the backup process:
- Boot into TWRP
- Let TWRP make the backup, using the partitions of the internal storage as source, and using the external SD card as destination
- Reboot to system
- Fire up SSHelper
- Copy the backup from the external SD card to a PC, e.g. via WinSCP.
That process works like a charm; I have done it several times.
[ Side note: The SSHelper / WinSCP combo is ingenious. It enables me to transfer data (e.g. backups) between my PC and my phone without involving the cloud and without having to pull out the external SD card all the time. Doing the latter every other day would probably damage the phone or the external SD card quite fast. ]
Now I have only one small problem left: Android itself of course recognizes the external SD card as well and installs a folder structure on it (e.g. Downloads, Movies, Pictures etc.). Although I actually haven't seen files (other than placeholders) in there yet, I have no clue if and under which circumstances apps or the O/S might put important data in these external SD card folders. I have to prevent the latter, because it would render my backup method (backup internal storage completely to external SD card) useless.
Hence the question: Is there a method to tell the O/S and all apps that they may read the external SD card, but under no circumstances must place data there?
Thank you very much in advance for any ideas!
P.S. I have seen many threads where users had problems with the external SD card, e.g. not being able to make apps use it or not being able to see its contents. But I somehow have the opposite problem: Of course, I need to see the external SD card's contents (which is no problem), but I want to prevent normal apps and the O/S from writing something there.
No you can't prevent android from creating default folders on it, but I'm pretty sure you can exclude them from backup.
Thank you very much!
However, excluding these folders from backup wouldn't be wise if Android or an app would have put data in them ...
D9yHyi8Fe3mo1YgM said:
Thank you very much!
However, excluding these folders from backup wouldn't be wise if Android or an app would have put data in them ...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Then don't exclude the whole Android folder, just some folders inside. Like /obb folder or system apps data inside /data
Or just exclude "LOST" or other cache folders.
D9yHyi8Fe3mo1YgM said:
Dear all
Is it possible to prevent Android 11 (and custom ROMs based on it) from writing to an SD card? That is, I don't want apps or the O/S itself to store any data there.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Assuming you are speaking of an External SD-card ( Note: As with Android internal storage memory by default is named SD-card ).
As long as you don't use an external SD-card ( completely or partially ) as Adoptable Storage by default neither apps nor OS itself write to it ( store data on it ).
@jwoegerbauer Thank you very much! This what I have experienced, too. I have seen the folders, but no data in them. I am still wondering why it creates those folders at all if it doesn't put data in them.
I eventually have missed it, but I think I have gone through every option of ArrowOS, but didn't find a menu item where I could activate (or inactivate) the external SD card as adoptable storage. Therefore I suspected it would do that automatically, depending on circumstances.
Another mystery (for me) is that (AFAIK) data would go into subfolders of the "Android" folder on the external SD card. But the Android folder is nearly empty, while the rest of the folder structure (Documents, Pictures etc.) is at the root level of the external SD card (i.e. at the same level as the "Android" folder).
P.S. Yes, I was speaking of the external SD card. I'll check if it's still possible to edit my posts and make that clear.
Thank you very much again!
XDHx86 said:
Then don't exclude the whole Android folder, just some folders inside. Like /obb folder or system apps data inside /data
Or just exclude "LOST" or other cache folders.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you very much again!
I should have made myself more clear: My plan is to have all data only in internal storage and to back up internal storage to the external SD card.
When there is normal data (besides these backups) on the external SD card, three problems arise:
1) The normal data on the external SD card takes up space. If I can't control which data Android and the apps put there, the remaining space may not be sufficient for the backups one day.
Every portion of normal data which is on the external SD card counts twice in that sense. First, it increases the backup size by its own size; secondly, it reduces the space which remains for the backups by its own size.
2) I know that I wrote that I will transfer the backups to a PC wirelessly. However, I still want the phone to run normally even after I have removed the external SD card. If Android or the apps put normal data on the external SD card, this is not possible any more.
3) Excluding certain data on the external SD card from backup is problematic and would void the main advantage of my backup strategy:
I really don't need to think about what to exclude or include. I just back up all internal partitions, completely and bit by bit, to the external SD card. If I lose the phone, I can buy another one, flash TWRP onto it, restore those backups, and have the original O/S, apps and all data, and even dm-verify will be no issue.
I have no clue about Android and I am not able (or would be too lazy anyway) to decide which data to include or exclude to achieve the same. So I really would like to avoid that triage.
I believe that some time ago I had found an ugly trick to keep Android and the apps from creating and using those folders. I'll have to check whether I have taken notes about it ...
Thank you very much again!
@D9yHyi8Fe3mo1YgM
To clarify things:
You have to distinguish between portable storage and adoptable storage. Adoptable storage really extends device's internal storage, whereas portable storage does not.
If apps are granted WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE / READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission then they can access the external SD-card, too.
jwoegerbauer said:
You have to distinguish between portable storage and adoptable storage. Adoptable storage really extends device's internal storage, whereas portable storage does not.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you very much again! I suspected so, but didn't find the setting in the UI of ArrowOS yet. I am nearly sure that I just missed it, and will research again (just out of curiosity, because extending the internal storage to the external SD card is exactly the opposite of what I want).
jwoegerbauer said:
If apps are granted WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE / READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission then they can access the external SD-card, too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I see. Thank you very much for the explanation. I'll go through the app permissions and check that. Then only the O/S itself could put data there.
[ Side note: In the meanwhile, I have corrected my posts according to your hint regarding the term "SD card". ]
I don't know if this topic has aged or not, have you found any solution?
I don't want Android system to write files like Android-Podcast-Alarms-Music-Notification into my sd card, I want my sd card to be clear and clean
this order system which android uses is very useless and annoying, when will they remove that??!!