Help system app to user app

[Geo97]

recently i discovered that my internal storage is being taken by the data of the system applications (Chrome, Facebook and YouTube) so i wanted to change the system apps to user apps so i could move it to my SD card?

Alcatel OneTouch Pop C9 ROOTED

 

[funkylogik]

It wouldn't make any difference to your user storage. System apps are in their own "partition" which you can't use and will stay the same size even if you deleted these apps (or moved them to sd)

 

[Geo97]

i dont understand but i once removed the stock android keyboard and changed it with google keyboard but copying the apk to the i think it was cutspack/app/unremovable/withlibs and it worked and right now my stock keyboard is google keyboard

 

[Hadron]

There are 2 points here:

1) The system app itself does not use the same space as user apps and data. However, any updates to that app do.

2) The system app's data do use the same space as all other app data. However, moving an app to sd does not move the data anyway.

There are tools to move data to sd (I dislike that approach myself - put frequently accessed data on the slower and less reliable device), but if that's what you want to do you don't have to make it a user app to do so.

 

[Geo97]

i tried something right now what i did is i look at my free internal storage space and it was about 200 Mb then i looked at the Facebook data it was also about 200 Mb so cleared its data then i went back to the internal storage and it was about 400 Mb so can someone explain what i'm missing

 

[Hadron]

You cleared data for the Facebook app and that freed 200MB. What's the difficulty?

As I said, all app data, whether system or user, live in the same partition (the same one user apps live in). So clearing the app's data frees space. However, if you use FB it will quickly fill it again, because that's what that app does.

 

[Geo97]

i know that but i want to move it to my SD card so it dosnt take my internal storage or at least move its data....is that possible ?

 

[Hadron]

We've already answered that: System apps themselves don't take up your internal storage because they are in a different partition. Moving app data to sd is possible, though I don't personally recommend it, but doesn't require making the app a user app first. Moving a user app does not move app data.

If you want to move data you'll need to root th device and partition the sd card (ext3 or ext4 format for the new partition if you want to move app data. Don't use Minitool, it's not good with ext partitions). You will need init.d support in your ROM and a script or the Link2SD app.


(Oh good grief, I just looked up your phone's specs! Alcatel should be shot for releasing a phone with that little storage any later than 2011! With anything later that Gingerbread that is criminally stupid.)

 

[Geo97]

LOL that why i have this issue ita internal storage is only 2Gb BTW do you have a tutorial for what ur talking about?

 

[funkylogik]

Sorry I missed the part where you said system app DATA

 

[Hadron]

Well, you are already rooted. I've never met a custom ROM that didn't have init.d support - if you don't have it, then this XDA thread may provide some pointers, but note that it doesn't work on the most recent android versions so it is pointers rather than a solution. There was a time when custom recoveries could partition cards, but there's not much need for that now. I personally recommend GParted for this, but you need either Linux or a Virtual Machine for that. Remember that partitioning a card is destructive, so back up any important data first. Link2SD is a simple way of doing the data moving, but you may need a paid version for that (it's a feature which never interested me, so I didn't look into it, just have a suspicion). Do take a nandroid backup before messing with any init.d or Link2SD (I'm assuming you do have a custom recovery?).