where are all the files

[bbxrider]

one file manager has my phone using 29.5 of 32gb, which is the same as the android storage total

got about 40 apps installed they range from a few mb to maybe biggest 100mb, one file manager app has the apps using 1.8gb, so thats not a lot

no data is kept on main storage to speak of, its all on the sd card, so where are all these files that take up >29gb?? they don't show up in the file manager I'm using

on previous android phones there was a lot space taken up by used app update files, which could be deleted to free up space but don't see where that is on this android, 8.1.0

any good file manager apps to recommend?, I am not looking for something to idiot manage my music and pics I tried a couple but they don't seem accurate, like using 22 of 25gb, would love to get one that would have a category of unused apk files so can be easily deleted
when I go to access files in android settings/storage it just spins away loading but never returns a file listing

thanks

 

[svim]

Since you have a Moto phone, have you tried using the Moto File Manager app?
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lenovo.FileBrowser2&hl=en_US
It's a got a nice UI with tabbed windows for different viewing things, free, and no ads.
My primary file manager is Ghost Commander though:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ghostsq.commander
It's very customizable, also free with no ads, and it's an Open Source project so no direct ties to any corporate influences.

But it would be helpful if you listed the file manager apps you did try just to avoid needless repetitive suggestions.

I think it's unlikely whichever file manage apps you did try are actually presenting you with wrong info though. File managers aren't showing you guesstimated numbers from things that are variables, everything they're detecting are fixed sizes with hard numbers. Those discrepancies you referred to are probably more a matter of interpretation.
Keep in mind there are a lot of system-level only files (i.e. the Android operating system itself) that are restricted and protected in your phone's internal storage. You, the user, have only user-level permissions so anything system-related is essentially off-limits to you. Some file managers show everything as is, so their storage media sizes might be larger, while some file managers show you only what you actually have access to, so their storage media sizes might be smaller. So there's the interpretation part, do you prefer to see everything overall, or just what you actually can work with?

 

[puppykickr]

If none of the above mentioned apps are right for you, try Simple File Manager, from Simple Mobile Tools.

It is very easy to use and is open source.

Simple File Manager (A simple file manager for browsing and editing files and directories.) - https://f-droid.org/app/com.simplemobiletools.filemanager.pro

 

[bbxrider]

thanks for the replies.
one app is called "file manager" and there's no more detail id on it, at least in the app info listings, very frustrating its icon is a folder with a gear. the other app is "file manager +", same thing no real id info, its icon is a folder with an "F" overlaid on the icon.
I have five apps that start with "moto" but don't see any file manager, there is an app called "Files" again no id info that I can find, this one is a blue circle with a white folder, it seems to list the same files as the other 2
will try ghost and the moto file manager.
too bad I can't remember how much available space was there when the phone was new but am pretty sure it was a good chunk of the total 32. if the "file manager +" is right, used 27.7 of 32gb, and 2gb for apps, that would make some sense that moto and android basic install are using 3.5ish gb.
it also reports, images 1.1, audio 3.6, and videos 6.7 but all those are on the sd card, it has apps at 2gb.
so out of 32, lets say 4 for system files, 2 for apps, thats 6 total, out of 27.7 used, leaves 25gb pretty much un accounted for, if my math and thinking are correct
is this phone and os safely rootable? I know this always described as too dangerous, but think I know enough to not issue delete *.* while at /

 

[Hadron]

too bad I can't remember how much available space was there when the phone was new but am pretty sure it was a good chunk of the total 32. if the "file manager +" is right, used 27.7 of 32gb, and 2gb for apps, that would make some sense that moto and android basic install are using 3.5ish gb.

3.5GB would actually be quite small for the system partitions, though not impossible. But one thing that makes me suspicious here is that 29.7GB is the actual capacity of a "32GB" storage device (because "G" has different meanings in decimal units, where 1 G = 10^9, and binary units, where 1 G = 2^30. The binary G is 7% larger, so 32 GB decimal = 29.7 GB binary). The "32GB" will definitely be decimal, but if your file manager or system menu is using binary units that would appear as 29.7GB, so it's possible that this does refer to the total capacity of the device rather than the user-accessible part.

You could try installing an app called DiskUsage. That gives a graphical overview of what is using your user-accessible storage, and if generally better than system menus for working these things out.

it also reports, images 1.1, audio 3.6, and videos 6.7 but all those are on the sd card, it has apps at 2gb.
so out of 32, lets say 4 for system files, 2 for apps, thats 6 total, out of 27.7 used, leaves 25gb pretty much un accounted for, if my math and thinking are correct
is this phone and os safely rootable? I know this always described as too dangerous, but think I know enough to not issue delete *.* while at /

25GB is a lot to have unaccounted for however you look at it. So even if my suspicions about binary vs decimal are correct and there is an additional chunk for system partitions that's not going to come close to accounting for the difference.

I don't know about rooting this device, but on most phones unlocking the bootloader will factory reset the device in the process.

 

[bbxrider]

thanks again for the help,
I've tried ghost commander and the native moto file manager and a number of other file managers and a lot of
posts about finding hidden files, all the file managers are all the same, 26+gb used, but really nowhere to be found,

there's about 2gb of apps and their cache, now I'm starting to think bug or corrupted memory, I did find old .apks and finally was able
to delete them I'll try a few more posts researching
just where all these files are and other file managers but think I'm heading to a factory reset, and hope to restore everything from super backup which
has worked great for me in the past when provisioning new phones
and btw the ghost commander I got is only showing the sd card, not the onboard phone emulated
storage

and btw also this moto g5+, 12/2017, is really junky, its way too sensitive to just starting apps or going places with the slightest bump,
like when resting on the passenger seat and city driving city bumpy roads, but I have to pound apps icons and buttons to get things working.
the head phone jack wore out after probably 500 hundred-ish uses, it is unusable, been using an old asus phone to store and play my audio books via
phone jack in the car where there's no blue tooth to the car speakers and have to use the headphone jack, I had 3 different phones before
the moto that had many 000's of phone jack uses and they all continued to work fine, this is a basic mechanical connection

 

[puppykickr]

You say that your data is saved on the SD card.
But, unless you are running your SD card as internal memory then that is exceptionally unlikely.

Android 'misnames' its internal memory as SD card.
This is not the same as the external SD card that you purchase separately and insert yourself.

This causes confusion all the time, and is an annoying holdover from Android's early days.

Even if you were to somehow install your apps on the external SD card (not often done since Android 5.1), the data for those apps would be stored onto the internal memory (unless you formatted your external SD card as internal memory, which is ill-advised).

Try this app...

CPU Info (Information about device hardware and software) - https://f-droid.org/app/com.kgurgul.cpuinfo

Under the Storage selection, you should see something like this:

Notice that there are two 'external' memory items?

Well, the 'internal' and the 'external' that show the same figures are the same memory.

That is the internal memory of this device.

The third one, the 'external' memory of 29.71GB, is my 32GB external SD card.

The second one, that says 'external' but has the same numbers as the first ('internal') is what is referred to as the 'SD card' in this confusion.

 

[bbxrider]

thanks for the reply puppyk, the cpu info app is interesting but has the same results as the other 10-15
file manager apps I have tried to find the mystery data usage on my phone, see pic of typical apps
I have tried

these file managers are clear what is the internal phone eg device, and sd card, this seems pretty basic,
I always try to put any data that I can on the sd card to save room on the phone chip for apps, ie, pics,
vids, backups, apps if I can, etc.

too bad, for all the tech savvy info that cpu info provides, listing the phone memory 2x is lame, IMHO, its definitely
confusing if you don't know what your dealing with.
but I don't care about that, just going crazy trying find where the mystery 20ish gb of data usage is, so hopefully
I can clean it up, etc to make more space available for phone apps

the sd card I have is 32, so with 29 available that means roughly 3gb is needed for disk management, system files
etc, which seems kinda spendy but if thats what it needs...
so with the phone chip having 24.5 available and assuming it needs the same overhead as the sd card, that would
indicate that the android o/s is using 4.5gb leaving the 24.5 for apps, and data, I have checked most of my apps
and their total usage is nowhere close to 20gb, maybe 2ish gb

pretty much reaching the frustration point of no answer to this dilema and will probably bite the bullet and do a factory
reset. and of course check usage immediately after the reset and again after restoring all my apps and if there is any
data on the phone chip that I still want there. I have seen other posts that talk about doing resets anyway, kinda like windows
after a while it gets so bloated and bitched up affecting overall performance, etc that the only way to fix it, clean it, etc
is to start over, reinstall

I'll post back after that to share my results and findings,

 

[Hadron]

the sd card I have is 32, so with 29 available that means roughly 3gb is needed for disk management, system files etc, which seems kinda spendy but if thats what it needs...

Or possibly this utility is reporting capacities in binary units (which is what computers use) rather than decimal (which is what storage device manufacturers use). As I've said previously, the real capacity of a "32 GB" card is 29.7 GB. This is nothing to do with formatting, disk management or system files, just the different meanings of the prefix "G" in different number bases. In which case you only have a few hundred MB to account for there.

so with the phone chip having 24.5 available and assuming it needs the same overhead as the sd card, that would
indicate that the android o/s is using 4.5gb leaving the 24.5 for apps, and data, I have checked most of my apps
and their total usage is nowhere close to 20gb, maybe 2ish gb

4ish GB for the system partitions sounds plausible (about half of what Samsung would allocate).

Have you tried DiskUsage? That will give a graphical overview of what is using your internal storage, which can drill down into very fine detail but also see the big picture on.

 

[bbxrider]

thanks for the continuing reply Hadron, I got diskUsage, its interesting and shows a shocking 16.4gb of "system data" which would seem to be my mystery space usage, and not quite sure if I'm seeing the actual files in there on the right side brown colored lists of files.

its a bit confusing how to use this and haven't found any tutorials or how to use posts that explain much of anything

it seems once you select a category like "system data" it shows that it is selected by a white outline around the box but I'm not sure at this point if after selecting it, all the files that are in "system data" show up in the tan color section on the right, that is how it seems to work for other categories.

once I select "system data" there are 2 brown colored lists, top and bottom. there's a bunch of .apks and lots of files with no extension and no recognizable name but seem to be time stamps down to a millisecond like 2019_11_20_14_20_20_065 (yy-mm-dd,hh,mm.ss,ms) there are easily 000's of these

this lists are sorted (don't see any place to change the sort order) by file size, they range in size from about 100mb down to about 1mb, I'd say the majority range in size from 10mb to 1mb, some what hard to tell but maybe they could all add up to 14gb

I know I can delete the .apk files, but not sure about the files that have the time stamp for a file name.

don't see any way to do multiple deletes if those time stamp name files can in fact be deleted, it would be not be practical to delete them one by one