Help Low on Space - but 17.76MB Avail

[boardtc]

I keep getting the Low on space notification on my HTC legend (2.2).

I use APP2SD and have 28 apps on the SD card (6.7GB of 7.6GB avail). No other apps are moveable to the SD card. The Phone had 185.12MB with 17.69MB available.

Why does this notification keep showing?

 

[Frisco]

Why does this notification keep showing?

Because you're low on space.

If the numbers you're posting are accurate, then as a percentage of the total available space, you've used up enough to barely allow for access to the apps, etc by the system as it seeks to function.

I'd go ahead and invest in a larger capacity SD card, to start off with, and I'd install to the card only.

 

[lunatic59]

I keep getting the Low on space notification on my HTC legend (2.2).

I use APP2SD and have 28 apps on the SD card (6.7GB of 7.6GB avail). No other apps are moveable to the SD card. The Phone had 185.12MB with 17.69MB available.

Why does this notification keep showing?

Because 18MB is relatively low memory. Some apps will cache a lot of data, so the first thing I'd do is go to settings>applications>manage applications and click on the ALL tab. Then press the menu key and sort by size. You can clear the cache of some of the apps to free up more memory.

If you want to move more apps to the SD card, you'll need to have the Android SDK installed. How-To Install Android SDK On Windows, Mac and Linux

Then on your phone go to settings>applications>development and enable USB Debugging. Plug your phone into the PC using the USB cable.

open a command prompt on your PC (start>run type "cmd" press ENTER)

Change directory to the android-sdk-windows\tools folder

At the prompt type

adb devices

and you should see your phone listed as a serial number.

type

adb shell pm setInstallLocation 2

Done.

Now the default location to install apps is the SD card. And, some apps that you couldn't move to the SD card will now be able to be moved. Keep in mind Widgets and services should always be installed to the phone and not the SD card, so if you follow the steps above and you install a widget afterwards, you will need to go to settings>applications>manage applications and manually move it to the phone.

 

[lunatic59]

I forgot to mention that if you want to set the default install location back to the phone, you simply repeat the process but use

adb shell setInstallLocation 0

 

[boardtc]

I'd go ahead and invest in a larger capacity SD card, to start off with, and I'd install to the card only.

I don't understand this advice, as mentioned I have 6.7GB of 7.6GB avail on the SD card and no others apps can be moved to the SD card (according to APP2SD)...

Because 18MB is relatively low memory. Some apps will cache a lot of data, so the first thing I'd do is go to settings>applications>manage applications and click on the ALL tab. Then press the menu key and sort by size. You can clear the cache of some of the apps to free up more memory.

I had already checked that _all_ cache was cleared. I doubled checked via above to confirm.

If you want to move more apps to the SD card, you'll need to have the Android SDK installed. How-To Install Android SDK On Windows, Mac and Linux

Thanks a lot for this tip! It sounds like it's the way to go for sure. I'll look into it.

 

[boardtc]

Now the default location to install apps is the SD card. And, some apps that you couldn't move to the SD card will now be able to be moved.

That's awesome. I did this tonight. I installed PdaNet which looked after installing the usb driver for adb for my legend. After that it was staright forward and now when I open App2SD I can move all the apps.

Thanks so much for taking the time to help.

 

[Deleted User]

Because 18MB is relatively low memory. Some apps will cache a lot of data, so the first thing I'd do is go to settings>applications>manage applications and click on the ALL tab. Then press the menu key and sort by size. You can clear the cache of some of the apps to free up more memory.

If you want to move more apps to the SD card, you'll need to have the Android SDK installed. How-To Install Android SDK On Windows, Mac and Linux

Then on your phone go to settings>applications>development and enable USB Debugging. Plug your phone into the PC using the USB cable.

open a command prompt on your PC (start>run type "cmd" press ENTER)

Change directory to the android-sdk-windows\tools folder

At the prompt type

adb devices

and you should see your phone listed as a serial number.

type

adb shell pm setInstallLocation 2

Done.

Now the default location to install apps is the SD card. And, some apps that you couldn't move to the SD card will now be able to be moved. Keep in mind Widgets and services should always be installed to the phone and not the SD card, so if you follow the steps above and you install a widget afterwards, you will need to go to settings>applications>manage applications and manually move it to the phone.

Hi Lunatic,

I just wanted to say thanks for the guide you posted. I had only about 17MB left on my phone (HTC Legend). I used your guide and it allowed me to transfer a bunch of apps to the sd card that were previously locked to the phone. This freed up about 13MB of space on the phone memory. However, I uninstalled an old app (imdb) and reinstalled it from the android market to see if it would save directly to the sd. It didn't. I was wondering if there is something else I can do to make the sd the default location for downloading new apps. Partitioning or something? I should also mention I am a noob to this sort of stuff and it took me an age to figure out how to use terminal on my mac.

Cheers.

 

[lunatic59]

Hi Lunatic,

I just wanted to say thanks for the guide you posted. I had only about 17MB left on my phone (HTC Legend). I used your guide and it allowed me to transfer a bunch of apps to the sd card that were previously locked to the phone. This freed up about 13MB of space on the phone memory. However, I uninstalled an old app (imdb) and reinstalled it from the android market to see if it would save directly to the sd. It didn't. I was wondering if there is something else I can do to make the sd the default location for downloading new apps. Partitioning or something? I should also mention I am a noob to this sort of stuff and it took me an age to figure out how to use terminal on my mac.

Cheers.

If you followed the instructions, the the SD card is now your default install location. However, the location of the install is set in the app, too. If the app is set to install to the Phone's internal memory, then that will always take precedence over the phone's default. And, it may make it unmovable. I am not sure imdb is a good test for that since I believe it includes widgets, which should ALWAYS be on the phone's internal memory.

 

[iamhtclegend]

This is glorious! This was really the only thing that seriously bothered me about my Legend. With the puny internal storage, I was constantly getting this message. The notification itself didn't bother me, but when it was displayed, I couldn't get my new email messages, or sign in to Talk. Which is a huge pain as I use this phone for work (gmail) a great deal.

Now I've got space to spare! I can even add some games!

 

[Mayank Kashyap]

thanx a lot sir!! u solved dis prob.... nw i can download many apps in my phone awesome work done by u

 

[Lilkidmom]

Does this procedure require a rooted phone in order to work?