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Help Losing my memory

M

motog

Well-Known Member
I need some help!
Moto g third gen running ver 6. 16 gb of internal memory and 64 gb of Microsd card
ES file explorer is telling me internal memory is now up to 85% used! Gradually been creeping up over past few weeks.
All my photos and music is stored on the 64gb, I religiously move anything I download to my external card but internal memory still keeps disappearing!
Using file explorer I can see there are only 16 folders and I have been through each and found nothing of any great size (talking a few mb in some)
It would seem not all files/folders are being shown but I would like to get to the bottom of the problem before internal memory gets to zero!

Alan
 
Thanks, had a look and found:-

9.99gb used of 11.92gb
Apps. 4.14gb
Video. 0
Audio. 0
Other. 29.43mb
Cached Data. 1.33gb

Somewhere along the line there is a lot of something!
Not sure why there is only (12gb) available anyway? Is that the operating system?

Alan
 
Yes, the other 4GB will be separate partitions for the system software (ROM, kernel, lower-level firmware) and system cache. You are lucky that there is as much as 12GB left, since many manufacturers allocate rather more space than that for the system.

It's surprising that you have a mismatch like that - usually they dump everything else into "other" (also known as "misc", depending on the device). Many manufacturers also include the system partitions under "misc" as well, avoiding your last confusion but causing a greater one amongst many users! My own phone does this but at least labels it "system and other".

But the important question is "what is the rest?", and that I don't know. "Other" being so small is very surprising though, so I think it is overlooking something really obvious. Do you know how much space is being used in the folders on your /sdcard (not the actual sd card, but the emulated one that is really part of the internal storage)? Have you told your file explorer to show hidden files/folders as well? You could try installing a little app called DiskUsage to get a second opinion (though if you are not rooted it will only be able to show you the /sdcard and not the rest of the /data partition, but that might reveal something still).
 
Thanks Hadron, I have ES set to show hidden files and it will only show 16 folders and looking at the properties of each there is nothing of any great consequence.
I installed Disk usage which shows 6gb as system?
All getting a bit confusing!

Alan Screenshot_20161231-172611.png Screenshot_20161231-173504.png
 
It's showing 6GB as "System ...something". Can you zoom it (pinch gestures work) to see what the second word is?

Though looking at my own, the second word is probably "data". That's actually rather a lot for system data (my phone only has 773MB in that box). The trouble is that without root you won't be able to see what that is. My guess is app data (internal) or updates to system apps, but it's only a guess.
 
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Sorry about that! Yes, system data. Why not show up in ES? Is there a better file manager?
Am I heading for a reset?! Rather not.

AlanScreenshot_20161231-175057.png
 
It won't show up because you'd need root to see it. Even then I'm not 100% sure what to look for - the label isn't exactly transparent, and if I look at mine with root DiskUsage labels things differently in different views of the same space. It may not even appear in /sdcard through any file viewer (I've had a look through mine with a different root-capable browser and can't see the things I'd think it might be under the /sdcard area, so it could just be a quirk that DiskUsage shows it there).

A full reset, probably not. It just means that there's going to be some guesswork involved in working out what is in there and what you can do about it. Got to go now, so will have to ponder it further.
 
Do any of the app cache cleaners help recover your device local storage? Do you take a lot of pictures or video and if you do are you sure video is saving to the sd card? I've noticed google+ uses a ton of data instead of cache. I don't even use google+. Maybe try deleting google+ data. If none of that helps, maybe back up your contacts, delete your contacts data and re-import your contacts.
 
Call log and SMS/MMS take up a lot of that memory, too. Try Solid File Explorer... I switched when ES started throwing a bunch of garbage into the app that I didn't like. I love Solid!
 
I have been through all apps and cleared cache & data (wasn't much there) and used some cache cleaners but nothing dramatic has happened!
I do use G+ and download various pics but I will always move them to the memory card.
Haven't plucked up the courage to delete all my contacts yet, but am I expecting 6gb in contacts!? Sounds an awful lot.
Installed Solid which didn't find anything that ES didnt, meanwhile it has ticked up to 86% used!
Aaaargh

Alan
 
6GB of contacts is way too large, unless you have high res contact photos stored for many hundreds of people (like 10MB photos for 600 people - the actual contact information is very small). But what exactly is showing as being 6GB in size? "Contacts Storage" is the name of the app that owns the contacts database.

A few years ago there were a lot of cases where people ended up with many duplicate contacts, making contact storage much larger than needed. It was hard to spot unless you edited a contact, at which point you saw that the contact's details were repeated several times. If that has happened then editing to remove duplicate information could save space.
 
I can remember seeing multiple entries for a lot of contacts and went through a never ending deleting session, I think some are back, but 6gb's worth?!
I have looked for 'contacts storage' but can't find it (or know where to look!)
I am using the app that came with my Motorola, nothing fancy.
As you can see 6gb has grown, groan!

AlanScreenshot_20170108-141806.png
 
Ah, so that's 6GB of "system data", not 6GB of contacts.

You can see the size of contacts storage by going to Settings, Apps, All and selecting the Contacts Storage app. Then see how much data it is using. But I doubt it will be the main cause
 
Using ES, under local, Android, Data do you notice any directories with recent file dates and lots of files in them? Such as podcast, torrent... when you are using your phone on wifi, what are you primarily doing - whatever that app is, look for it in local Android/Data and see if it is causing bloat of local storage. Some app by default may be set to keep files you don't want locally and if there's no setting, maybe use a competing app instead.
 
Thanks for your thoughts however, I started to get 'Android isn't responding ' messages so I backed up what I wanted from internal memory (not much) and did a factory reset.
Just finished and my screenshot shows that there is now over 7.5gb free although there is still 2.5gb of system data.
Thanks for all your help guys, I shall keep an eye on things and see where it might be going wrong (hope it don't!)

AlanScreenshot_20170108-215514.png
 
Frustrating. Hopefully you won't run into the same thing again. As a preventive measure, try providing credentials to just a few apps at a time like facebook. Try installing only a few apps per day. Write down the performance and the system space used before and after the app install or credentials provided. That way, when you notice a dramatic change of local storage you know what app to blame from your notes.
 
I hear what your saying and it sounds a good idea but the reset involved installing the apps that were already there!
I did minimise the number by in installing before the reset but there are only 23 apps gone back in (no idea if that's a lot or not)?
Don't do Facebook, Twitter or any other social media apps.
I'll see how it goes.

Alan
 
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