Help Moto G - Problem with storage

[MotoG2172]

Hi I have a stock Moto G running Android 4.4.2 Kit kat, So when I woke up this morning my phone was telling me storage space was running out and apps would stop working properly even tho I should of had 2.5 gb free, regardless I uninstalled some big apps which should of freed up 1 gb of space and also cleared the phones cache through recovery mode but for some reason the phone says it only has 500mb free and will not allow me too free up any more space than that, in the storage menu it adds up too about 3gb being used on the phone but still says i have only 500mb free when i should have about 2.5 gb free. I have not tried factory reseting my phone yet because that is a last resort for me and I want too know if I can solve the problem without doing this, I have 4 images of the storage problems but I cannot post it here yet because I am a new user

 

[sbdc003]

Could be system data or data/aacdump. It's hard to tell unless you are rooted.

Can you install DiskUsage? The size is only 420KB. It will tell you what files are taking up the space. Sometimes just running this app wakes up your phone. It has worked for some members here.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.diskusage&hl=en

 

[MotoG2172]

Ok I ran the diskUsage and it says the media takes up 1655 mb and apps take up 1594mb but I seemed too have found the problem, system data is suddenly taking up 2gb of space for some reason when it should only be about 500 mb worth of space taken up, this is very strange

Edit: should also note my phone is running developer mode

 

[sbdc003]

You can only guess what's really going on in System Data without rooting, but there are a few things which take that space.

1). Backups

2). Game data

3). data/aacdump

4). data/media

Also, according to Ivan Volosyuk (the developer of DiskUsage),

1. Unpacked dalvik bytecodes corresponding to your installed apks. If you install app on external storage, it still consumes space on your data partition.
2. Crash dumps stored in tombstones directory.
3. Any other data or settings android store on your device.

This data is hidden and DiskUsage can't easily identify how much space each of this consume. Usually (1) consumes most, so if you want to cleanup some space you may want to delete apps on external storage.


I suppose you have to find out what apps are taking that space by deleting apps one by one.

I had a similar issue with my old Samsung Galaxy Reverb. To find that out, I decided to root my phone. In my case, it was data/aacdump. I use Netflix and YouTube a lot and one TV episode (Netflix) usually leaves 600MB in System Data for example.

It will eventually disappear at some point, but temporarily you lose your internal space.

 

[MotoG2172]

Well I guess ill go about rooting the phone then, didnt want too because its still fairly new but I would of eventually anyway, Thanks for the Help!

 

[sbdc003]

Good call. You'll find out what's going on in System Data in no time!

 

[PoiSpin]

No way to root yet

 

[sbdc003]

Right unless it's the Boost Mobile variant.

Sounds like the "middleman" can unlock the bootloader of the Verizon variant though.

 

[PoiSpin]

I'll need to look into that

 

[sbdc003]

Looks like he can only work on the 2014 models so far.