Help Misc Files

[Hannahsmusic]

Hello! I've been having endless trouble with the 'miscellaneous files' on my Samsung phone. I'm supposed to have 8GB of space, but the 'misc files' currently takes up 4.54 GB. I have cleared all the cached data I can find, and even downloaded a program just to find cached data and clear it. Other than that app I've not downloaded anything because there isn't room! I have hardly any pictures, no games or books or songs, and I still get messages saying there's not enough room to update the apps I do have, and I have no idea what to do.
Thanks!

 

[Phoenix777]

Hello! I've been having endless trouble with the 'miscellaneous files' on my Samsung phone. I'm supposed to have 8GB of space, but the 'misc files' currently takes up 4.54 GB. I have cleared all the cached data I can find, and even downloaded a program just to find cached data and clear it. Other than that app I've not downloaded anything because there isn't room! I have hardly any pictures, no games or books or songs, and I still get messages saying there's not enough room to update the apps I do have, and I have no idea what to do.
Thanks!

Two questions:
1. Do you have an SD card?
2. Is the message you're getting from Google Play Store by any chance "Error 18"?

 

[Hadron]

Sadly you have misunderstood how much storage you have. The _device_ has 8GB, but that includes the space used by the operating system, baseband firmware, system cache partition, etc. You yourself probably have no more than half of that available for your own apps and data.

"misc" just means "anything that isn't a photo, video, music or user-installed app", and will include not just the system files but the entire system partitions. So some of the "misc" stuff will be user files, which may or may not be important, but most of it will be the system and there is nothing at all you can do about that.

If you want to check the real situation, install a tiny app called "Storage Truth" from the Play Store and run it. The size of the data partition tells you how much space is available to you (if you did a complete factory reset and before you set anything up again).

Sadly the truth is that 8GB is very limited storage these days.

 

[Phoenix777]

In addition to my post above, I shall add...
If the answer is yes to both, remove your SD card first before trying to update the apps. After the apps are updated, you can re-insert your SD card.
Also, don't go by the numbers so much. As Hadron stated above, it's sometimes misleading. Go more by the color graph chart that shows you how much space you are using and how much space you have available.