Internal storage amount not adding up with what's available

[benjamin222]

I have a Samsung Replenish (low end phone) on Sprint, running standard non-rooted 2.3.6

Plain and simply, I added up all the internal storage space that my programs use, and it comes out to 95.56 megabytes

Snapshot_20120729_4 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

As you can see on my flickr though, my phone cleary comes up with "142mb used, 19mb free". That leaves about 47 mb's unaccounted for.

After some googling around, I read that sometimes install files can get left on the systems internal storage, and without a rooted phone the only way to truly delete them would be to perform a factory reset.

I've already done some of the traditional space-saving measures. I've deleted all my unwanted apps, cleared cache, and have everything possible moved to the SD card.
I don't want to root my phone, and I don't want to perform another factory reset. Are there any other options here?

 

[Rxpert83]

A portion of the memory is reserved for the CPU and other required things.

What you are seeing is completely normal

 

[benjamin222]

A portion of the memory is reserved for the CPU and other required things.

What you are seeing is completely normal

About 2 months ago I was having the same problem, and after performing a factory reset the numbers matched up perfectly. The amount of storage space exactly added up with the total amount of space that the apps were using. This continued for a while until a couple of weeks ago, where overnight it seemed that 47 megabytes just kind of disappeared. I could be wrong but really don't think this has anything to do with the CPU or some "other required things"

 

[chanchan05]

The OS writes several things that it requires over time. For example, when factory reset, there is no setup on the phone whatsoever. If you for example add widgets, , put some apps on the homescreen etc, the phone will create files which will tell the OS what your setup was, so that when it reboots, it will read those files and restore the setup to how you made it. Otherwise everytime the phone will reboot you will have to setup the homescreens again.

Now that is just one example of the OS writing new required files for operation. There are several other stuff. Thats normal for ALL operatings systems, whether Android, iOS, Windows, MacOS, etc.