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[Q] storage problem/free space -- what is taking up so much??

So starting off with this phone I know it doesn't have the best internal storage. When apps are moved to the SD some of the app stays behind on the internal storage, I know that. I have had 2 shifts. My first one i dropped, cracked the screen, and the insurance gave me a new one. On my first shift at the time I had about 70mb of free space left when I sent it in. Before sending it I made a titanium backup and restored that on my shift I have today. When I restored it I had about 120mb of free space. (NOT THE PROBLEM READ ON)
So the point is something in the system is causing massive storage to fill up over time, and its not apps. I have force moved apps and that only helps a little. Is it a certin cache that I can clear? please help!
At the moment I have 60mb of free storage, that is with the app cache cleared through App2SD

Right I have the following : System ROM 219MB , Internal 222MB , SD Card 8.32 GB . When you long press on an app in TB it should give you the option to move to SD card. You shouldn't have to force move an app. When you restored all your apps did you restore apps and data? Or just the app? Also after restoring with TB you need to make sure the app was restored to the correct place. There's an option I usually check in the preferances before I restore all my apps. It restores to the previous location you had the app. Hope that helps.

I restored the apps and data... This isn't a problem with tb, its a problem with some storage/cache something building up in the system
No I'm not using Tapatalk... I'm using the XDA Premium app, cause I got balls.

My email took up a lot of storage on my old hero because everytime I deleted something it still stayed on a new folder called imap/trash... it was taking up about 50mb so you might want to look into that
Sent from my PG06100 using XDA Premium App

In your sd card or internal? There was a folder on my sd called .trashes and it had everything I had deleted on my sd. Where exactly is it located? Ill look in root explorer.
No I'm not using Tapatalk... I'm using the XDA Premium app, cause I got balls.

Don't know if your restoring SMS with something. But if your are sometimes that takes up hella space. Did a phone that had over 25MB of SMS messages restore back onto it on internal mem.

i will see, i also use a tool called disk usage. you have probubly heard of it but it maps out everything and the amount of space it takes up. you can narrow the results to a certin cache or whatever. ive seen that apps like pandora are taking up space in the dalvik cache. Its only like a mb or 2 but still. do you know anything about apps storing things in the dalvik?
what is the dalvik even for anyway?

I've been trying to go back to stock today, so I've wiped a few times, but I've got 430MB total space internal, with 366MB free

and.....
i dont understand what this has to do with this thread

im.nick.hello said:
i will see, i also use a tool called disk usage. you have probubly heard of it but it maps out everything and the amount of space it takes up. you can narrow the results to a certin cache or whatever. ive seen that apps like pandora are taking up space in the dalvik cache. Its only like a mb or 2 but still. do you know anything about apps storing things in the dalvik?
what is the dalvik even for anyway?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I beleive dalvik cache gets recreated everytime you reboot. But, about Pandora is it on the SD Card? Or internal mem? I listen to a TON of music. When I had Pandora on internal it was up to 12MB .So I moved it to the SD card, only 536KB on internal now.

My app is on the SD but it is storing over 1mb on internal
If you have DiskUsage go to the [root required] section and press 'App Storage'
if you can find pandora you will see that most of it is stored in the dalvik cache

Sorry I don't use DiskUsage app. Your right about how much is on internal. Mine reads 1.28MB.

any idea what it is storing there?

Drawing a blank on this, I'll keep looking. See if I can come up with something. But I'd probably head on over to theMikMik and see if somebody there can help.

My biggest space hog when I had problems was email... Try clearing data for email or gmail to see what happens (maybe back up first)
Sent from my PG06100 using XDA App

Mail or gmail app..
I have both, a aim on the mail app and my gmail on the gmail app
No I'm not using Tapatalk... I'm using the XDA Premium app, cause I got balls.

i cleared my cache partition, not sure what was stored there but it doesnt matter cleared up 20mb... is there any other ways i can get more space??? why are apps storing data in the dalvik??

Any other suggestions here? My wife's Shift is having this problem. Constant notification about low storage space. Can't even download any new apps. I have not rooted her phone yet, and not sure if I will; I don't want to have her have to go without for any length of time, and I don't think she wants things changed around so much as she just wants the thing to work, not to have to tinker or troubleshoot.

Captain Spectacular said:
Any other suggestions here? My wife's Shift is having this problem. Constant notification about low storage space. Can't even download any new apps. I have not rooted her phone yet, and not sure if I will; I don't want to have her have to go without for any length of time, and I don't think she wants things changed around so much as she just wants the thing to work, not to have to tinker or troubleshoot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you download a lot of apps? Try moving the apps to the SD Card. The path is Menu-Settings-Applications-Manage applications-Downloaded. Then just click on the applications one at a time. If the button says Move to SD card, and isn't greyed out press it. That should free up some space. If that doesn't work since your not rooted, I would just try a factory reset.

clear the folder /data/tombstones. App crashes and such create rather large files that can eat up quite a bit of space. Also check the cache folder at the root, failed market installs will have file fragments in there as well.

[Q] Where Is My Internal Storage?

Hi all,
I am using a stock ROM on my Inspire 4G. For some time now, I have been getting this message: "Low on space: Phone storage space is getting low." I do have a lot of apps installed, but I have moved every movable app larger than 1MB onto my SD card, and I have continued to get the message. Today I reached the point where I cannot even upgrade an app. I am showing 70.34MB of available space.
I have searched Market for something that would tell me what's using all my storage, but everything I found is limited to external/SD card storage. Can anyone tell me what else I can do to most effectively recover some storage? What are the most likely culprits?
Thanks!

search the android market. Diskview.
not much else you can do without root access to that partition

I could be very wrong on this, but from what I understand the internal storage is partitioned in a way that most of it is not usable for general use. I have rooted my phone and switched rooms and I still only have a little over a gig of memory on my phone for apps and such
From the House of the Rising Sun using IceColdSandwich

Barkt said:
I could be very wrong on this, but from what I understand the internal storage is partitioned in a way that most of it is not usable for general use. I have rooted my phone and switched rooms and I still only have a little over a gig of memory on my phone for apps and such
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
4gb internal storage on specs and around 1gb is 'usable'.
However, OP's issue is that he's out of internal storage space. I do know that there have been issues with other devices where moving apps to sdcard still left a copy on the internal storage.
OP: Might consider doing a bit of data cleaning rather than app moving.

Even when you move apps to the SD card, it still leaves a little bit of the app in internal. So if you really have a lot of apps, you're going to have to remove something. Unless there is something else wrong. I have around 150 apps installed, with everything that can be put on SD put there, and I have around 650MB still available.

Thanks, everyone, for your replies. I've been really slow getting back to this because I've had other issues I've had to deal with. I did move absolutely every movable app onto the SD card, but it didn't help.
Wolamok, I had assumed I would have to remove some data, but what? I had about 2300 contacts, many of which were duplicates. While I was cleaning them up in Outlook, I decided to delete them ALL from my phone to see what memory I could free up.. A few contacts were repopulated from social media, but only 60 or 70. However, I 'me still out of of memory and getting notifications, and I still can't so much as upgrade an app.
I feel really stupid, because on my Pocket PCs and Windows Mobile devices, I knew exactly where to look for data and what to remove, but I feel totally lost here.
I don't even know which apps to uninstall, because I don't know which ones have left pieces around in internal memory and how much.
Any more ideas, anyone?
Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using xda premium

I forgot to mention that while I appreciated the Diskview suggestion, I can't get it to run. I don't know if you my memory is too low to even do that, but it says it's analyzing the SD card and never finishes.
Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using xda premium

MagicSpeller said:
I don't even know which apps to uninstall, because I don't know which ones have left pieces around in internal memory and how much.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Whenever you uninstall an app, be sure to clear cache and data for it first. And force stop it if that option isn't grayed out. Then there shouldn't be any remnants of it.
When you go into manage applications, you should be able to get an idea of where the most storage is being used. The amount that is listed for each app is only internal storage if you're on the "downloaded" or "all" tabs. So even if an app is on the SD card, what's listed is how much internal storage it is using.
Bottom line is, if you're hurting for storage, uninstall anything you don't really use. Even all those free Amazon games. You can always reinstall them in the future. Hope that helps to give you an idea of what's hogging storage.

pazzo02 said:
Whenever you uninstall an app, be sure to clear cache and data for it first. And force stop it if that option isn't grayed out. Then there shouldn't be any remnants of it.
When you go into manage applications, you should be able to get an idea of where the most storage is being used. The amount that is listed for each app is only internal storage if you're on the "downloaded" or "all" tabs. So even if an app is on the SD card, what's listed is how much internal storage it is using.
Bottom line is, if you're hurting for storage, uninstall anything you don't really use. Even all those free Amazon games. You can always reinstall them in the future. Hope that helps to give you an idea of what's hogging storage.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks a lot for the reply. By the time I saw it, I had already gotten so frustrated I had followed you advice in advance. I deleted all the apps I'd installed and was going to try out "some day"--and yes, that included all the free Amazon games I'd never played!
I was surprised to see how much space was being used by apps that supposedly were on the SD card.
I hadn't thought of clearing cache and data, and I guess I'm too late for that now, but I'll definitely keep that in mind for the future.
Thanks again!

[Q] Rooting, Custom ROMs and Available Internal Storage

Hi there!
If I root my Nexus S, will it then be possible to see what's going on in the internal storage? My phone is acting rather strangely when it comes to the internal storage. When I delete an app's cache (from Settings/Apps) the indicated space does not get freed up. On the contrary, an equivalent amount of space gets subtracted from the indicated amount of free internal storage! On most occasions when I uninstall an app the space gets freed up. However, recently I had 300 MB available when I installed Chrome browser. That took up about 50 MB, so I had a remaining 250 MB available. I uninstalled it again and now I only have 200 MB free. I often get notifications that there is too little storage space available when updating rather small apps (typically less than 20 MB).
With a rooted phone, will I be able to see what's going on and easily locate and delete redundant files? (Back in the days I felt I had a lot better control and overview over my Pocket PC. With my Android I struggle to make sense of what's going on. Well, not that I´m going back...)
I'm not really asking for a quick solution to the problem because it seems from other discussions that this isn't possible. But I'd like to avoid running into the same problem again after a hard reset, rooting, or ROM change.
Cheers,
Larry
Nexus S I9023 (unrooted)
Jelly Bean 4.1.2

hey Larry,
first of all after you're rooted you can see all of your files and folders from...well..root directory
before doing so i'd try to move apps to SD or from SD depends where the low space is: http://i.stack.imgur.com/Aof9r.png

Hi eytan!
As I said, I'm short of internal storage. I've already moved just about everything possible out of the internal memory. Moving programs out of internal storage does result in more internal storage (as long as there's something left to move). However, this does not explain why my internal memory is disappearing. I ought to have a lot more available internal memory - at least 400 MB.
Yes, that's what rooting does. Maybe I should have elaborated a bit... Will it make sense without extensive knowledge of the Android system. It seems like instead of cache (and certain programs like chrome browser) being deleted they are somehow being copied within the internal storage. I was wondering if I would be able to locate this - find some folder that has grown 50 MB in case of the google chrome uninstallation. Or will all this data be stacked up in some sort of system file that isn't accessible.
- larryvega
Nexus S I9023 (unrooted)
Jelly Bean 4.1.2

well, you can always search your phone by folder size and locate the origin of this.
i guess your best chances are at DATA folder, just be careful and make sure you delete only things your'e sure that are already uninstalled and just have "leftovers"

[Q] internal storage issue - help please!!

Hello,
This is my first ever post here. I stumbled across this website when looking for a solution to the Kitkat 4.4 SD card issue, and it seems like the best place for advice on Hudl2 issues.
I got my Hudl2 for christmas, It had 9GB internal storage, but with a few apps on it that went to 8GB free space.
I have found that watching Programs on 4OD app, streaming them NOT downloading them is taking up space on my internal storage and my Hudl quickly started saying the internal storage was low.
Looking on the Setting-> Storage it showed a total of 1GB of apps installed, but ONLY 500kb free space and doesn't display any large files that could be the cause.
Anyone having similar issues, and know how to fix this problem? - the only fix i have found is a factory reset to free up the space until its full again.
Many thanks

Rainstorm123 said:
I stumbled across this website when looking for a solution to the Kitkat 4.4 SD card issue, and it seems like the best place for advice on Hudl2 issues.
I got my Hudl2 for christmas, It had 9GB internal storage, but with a few apps on it that went to 8GB free space.
I have found that watching Programs on 4OD app, streaming them NOT downloading them is taking up space on my internal storage and my Hudl quickly started saying the internal storage was low.
Looking on the Setting-> Storage it showed a total of 1GB of apps installed, but ONLY 500kb free space and doesn't display any large files that could be the cause.
Anyone having similar issues, and know how to fix this problem? - the only fix i have found is a factory reset to free up the space until its full again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe clearing the cache could help you.
Go to Setting->Apps and click on the apps like the one you stream (4OD) to open App Info.
Clear the cache of the app there.
(You might be able to free up a hell lot of data)

GokulNC said:
Maybe clearing the cache could help you.
Go to Setting->Apps and click on the apps like the one you stream (4OD) to open App Info.
Clear the cache of the app there.
(You might be able to free up a hell lot of data)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When checking the cache it had 2mb there... Cleared that and the app data too. No luck there. It seems like a factory reset is the only option... But not a good one!!

Try CCCleaner or Clean Master! Not sure if you can download/install the APP from Store though!
(Due to not enough space for download/install?)

Shrinking Internal Storage

Ive recently brought a moto g 2015 less than a week ago and have installed some apps, when i originally did this there was over 1.0gb of free internal space left. Over the week the space has shrunk to 500mb and is now notifiitying me that the internal storage is low (i cleared the cache out 3 hours ago and it was 540mb free now its 500mb so that 40mb in a couple of hours?!).
Ive cleared the cache, ive not installed any extra apps and there hasnt been any significant app upgrades that would use this space, also deleted all content from whatsapp etc and looked in the misc part of the storage and theres nothing using the space.
Has anyone else come across this or have any idea whats using the space up?
Cheers

rich0898 said:
Ive recently brought a moto g 2015 less than a week ago and have installed some apps, when i originally did this there was over 1.0gb of free internal space left. Over the week the space has shrunk to 500mb and is now notifiitying me that the internal storage is low (i cleared the cache out 3 hours ago and it was 540mb free now its 500mb so that 40mb in a couple of hours?!).
Ive cleared the cache, ive not installed any extra apps and there hasnt been any significant app upgrades that would use this space, also deleted all content from whatsapp etc and looked in the misc part of the storage and theres nothing using the space.
Has anyone else come across this or have any idea whats using the space up?
Cheers
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Alot of apps/games use alot of data storage so that might be your issue and if your storing stuff from downloading like music and photos etc that will take up space as well

Hi thanks for the reply! I've got all my music and pictures stored on an sdcard and haven't downloaded any on this phone or taken any pictures. I'm just not sure what as suddenly used up all this storage that I can't now use in the space of a couple of hours without me doing anything on the phone or any apps updating

I had that to on a old phone, i think its your google play services.
my tip is to look in your apps and see what apps use to much space, than try to delete it

Probably other apps accumulating stored data, as was mentioned above. Chrome will grow over time, Google drive, Facebook etc.
Sent from my MotoG3 using Tapatalk

You can move apps to the SD also. OP doesn't say they did that, but that can be done. Just go to settings, Apps, and then "ON SD CARD" tab. Any apps that can be moved will show there. Note that not 100% of the apps info can be moved, but most of it can. for example if you have an app that is 100MB, and move it, you will still have about 20MB on internal. Still better than the full 100MB.

Thanks for all the suggestions, ive tried them all and got a lot of free space back. Also found that google drive had 500mb of data which ive deleted!