System Memory @ 5 gigs. Need to clear it out

[JCUMV]

Hi guys,
My wife has the S5 and is no longer able to receive email due to storage issues. I went into the Settings > Storage and the Miscellaneous Files is is sitting at 5.62gb. Of that, 5.46gb is showing as System Memory.

I'm wondering what exactly this means? Is this memory that is 'available'? If it is, then why am I showing as full? BTW, Application makes up about 6gb and the rest of 16gb is odds and ends. Pics are going to the SD card.

Thanks for the help.

 

[JCUMV]

Come on guys, a little help here please? Am I in the wrong sub forum?

 

[Fox Mulder]

That doesn't sound right. System memory should be listed separately from Miscellaneous files, and there should also be an Available Space category that shows you how much user-accessible internal memory is available.

 

[PitCarver]

My system memory is also at 5.46gb, with misc sitting at 5.7 gb.
Might try clearing out the cache to see if that helps.

 

[JCUMV]

@PitCarver - Thanks for sharing that. Now I know it's not just her phone that's doing that. I did clear the cache and it open up about 500mb, which was enough to get her email going again. She shows ~ 5 gb on the Applications side. Looks like I need to offload all those to the SD Card. Currently I'm only saving pics over there. Is there an easy way to move all Apps to the SD card, or do I need to do it one by one?

Thanks all!

 

[PitCarver]

There are apps that will let you move apps to your SD card, but with the s5, I just moved the ones I wanted with the application manager. Just swipe to the left, from downloaded apps, to find the SD card screen. You can then decide which apps to move.

A note about mine; if I had moved an app, that had an associated widget on my home screen, the widget became inoperable. Could be my launcher, IDK, so I moved them back.

 

[AZgl1500]

I thought I had uploaded this pix a couple days ago, but I don't see the post.....
My ADSL has been off more than it has been 'ON' lately, so I will try again.

I have not had any real issues ever with storage, or an error saying that the phone has a storage problem. It has a 64 gB extSDcard and all media/pictures are defaulted to save to the SDcard.

this is a Verizon Galaxy S5

....

 

[philayl]

Hi, there is an app called Move App To SD Card, available from the Play Store, I think this will do what you want. Phil

 

[JCUMV]

@AZgl - thanks for the screenshots. That's pretty much what I'm seeing too. Thanks for posting that.
@philayl - I moved them all manually last night. Took about 1/2 an hour, but it freed up enough space on her phone.

So I think I'm all good at this point. Thanks a lot for your help guys!

 

[PitCarver]

Just curious here, but is your wife using the stock email app?
I abandoned mine, a while back, and connect with my browser, these days.

 

[JCUMV]

Yes she does. We have a 15 year old Cox email address that she uses with the stock mail app. Not sure if that's the problem. What do you think? The cox browser sucks and we don't use it unless we absolutely have to.

She does have a gmail account, but doesn't use it. She set it up when she got her S5 because it asked her too. I've been trying to get her to transition to it, but she's afraid half the people she knows won't get her new email address updated correctly, and then she'd have to be managing two. I guess I can't blame her for worrying about that cause it's probably true. I know you can forward email accounts, but it all sounds like a PITA.

 

[AZgl1500]

Well, new info, here are two more suggestions:

* Aqua Mail - email app - Android Apps on Google Play
this has helped me greatly, it actually replaced an old favorite of mine, Blue Mail... ( now called Type )

have her try this browser:
* Adblock Plus - Surf the web without annoying ads!

 

[JCUMV]

So I have to ask... why install this new email app? Functionally, the stock app works fine for her and she's happy with it. Cox is a pop3 email system, not browser like Google or Yahoo. Not sure if that means anything though.

 

[PitCarver]

If you can access the account, via browser, you can save additional memory. Any email app will add memory, especially if you save emails.

Just an example, my gmail app. Notice the extra memory, over and above the size of the app.

 

[PitCarver]

It's always a good idea to periodically go through apps like email and text and delete the old stuff, that's not needed.
My wife had problems with her texting app. Her problem was that she didn't delete anything.
The data on my texting app data is almost the size of the app itself and I have minimal messages, that I haven't deleted.
Every little bit helps...

 

[JCUMV]

So are we saying that if I use that app that @AZgl1500 showed above, that is the UI for accessing my wife's email via the Cox browser app, rather than access thru the stock email app and thus taking up hard drive space on the phone?

 

[JCUMV]

I've always wondered what the difference is between "clearing data" and "clearing cache"? Do I do both?

 

[PitCarver]

You can clear the cache, with no problem. If you clear the data, you'll loose all of the information within the app. It'll be like a feshly installed app that you'll have to reconfigure. Once it's reconfigured, and the account synched, the data will return.

The only time I clear the data is when I want to disable the app, or when it acts up in some way.

 

[AZgl1500]

I did a Clear Cache Partition a couple of weeks ago. It did not effect my SMS or Email apps.
It did get rid of a lot of junk though.

what it did do was to remove some "stutter" that the phone seemed to have been developing over the past year.... I think it had been that long since I last performed a Clear Cache Partition on it.

 

[PitCarver]

Try app cache cleaner...
I use...
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=mobi.infolife.cache

One touch widget cleans out app cache. I just cleared out 700 mb.

 

[JCUMV]

Thanks Pit! One last thing about the above email app: So are we saying that if I use that app that @AZgl1500 showed above, that is the UI for accessing my wife's email via the Cox browser app, rather than access thru the stock email app and thus taking up hard drive space on the phone?

 

[PitCarver]

Any app will add data. I access my RoadRunner email with the Chrome browser. Once logged in, bookmark the page and then add a shortcut to the home screen. You can do the same with Facebook and save a bunch of space.

 

[AZgl1500]

Thanks Pit! One last thing about the above email app: So are we saying that if I use that app that @AZgl1500 showed above, that is the UI for accessing my wife's email via the Cox browser app, rather than access thru the stock email app and thus taking up hard drive space on the phone?

AquaMail will directly access the Cox account, it does not need a browser.

 

[PitCarver]

Not putting down AquaMail, or ANY other email app. Just pointing out that there's another way to access your email without downloading another app.

The reason why I've got 71MB of data, on my gmail app, is that I've got 3 different emails synched to the app.

Just saying that if space gets tight there are alternatives.