Where is my free space disappearing to?

[dohraymee99]

I have an unrooted S4 on stock android 5.01. I am almost out of free space -- AGAIN. A month ago, I ran out of free space for my apps and the only way I could fix that was to reload the operating system and reinstall the apps. I went from no space to 4gb available space. Now, just a month later, the space is getting gobbled up again. Why? I added a few apps (and deleted most of them after trying them). Aside from that I just do updates as pushed by the play store. I tried reclaiming space by clearing the apps caches, wiping the cache partition, moving apps or parts of them to the SD card, deleting junk, etc. Still it seems like after every batch of updates, I lose hundreds of megabytes of free space. I suspect somehow back up must be happening in the system area that I cannot access. But that's just a guess. So, how can I reclaim my lost free space. I really don't want to reload the phone again, especially since that's seems to be a temporary fix.

 

[svim]

You're mixing up different storage space aspects so there's some confusion added in. Note that anything directly relative to the operating system is stored in separate, dedicated, and restricted partitions. Re-flashing the stock ROM will not increase your storage space in any way, The operating system resides in partitions that are separate from your data partition so it makes no difference whether the ROM takes up 10MB or 5GB of space, those system partitions just do not relate to your general storage space. Wiping the system cache partition also does not have anything to do with your general storage space, it has its own dedicated, system-related partition.
The one thing you didn't refer to doing was a Factory Reset. A Factory Reset doesn't affect the operating system in any way, all it does is wipe the user data partition, the one place that does have a factor in your storage free space amount.

 

[dohraymee99]

I get your points. The last time I did a factory reset (last month) and it cleared the apps, of course, and when I reloaded them I had 4gb of free space. Since then, each time I do an update from the playstore, free space decreases radically. It is as if when an app is updated the space needed increases rather than being written over. So a 20mb app eventually becomes a 150mb app. How to fix this? I can't do a factory reset every month.

 

[Jhayzone]

I think thats just how apps works when getting an update. One of my favorite game that only started at 80mb but since we get two updates every month the game is now around 200mb. I haven't really investigated this issue a lot since I was never been concerned about storage so I can't give a better insight.

If you don't want to factory reset then maybe try uninstalling your biggest apps that you know that isn't that big before then install it again then check if you're getting some free space. Facebook and messenger is usually the culprit of this so start with those if you have them.

 

[dohraymee99]

I just updated 7 apps and went from .99gb to .90gb. Yeah, uninstalling, reinstalling is what I am doing. But so many of my apps are used enough, that it isn't much different than reinstalling all of them (the problem is the settings in them). There has to be a better way in Android to manage this. Does this happen on versions of Android after 5.01?

 

[nu2andy]

https://www.howtogeek.com/112356/5-ways-to-free-up-space-on-android/
This may help you free up space.

 

[dohraymee99]

Thanks for that article. I have tried those things. I am coming to the conclusion that maybe the system is mis-reporting the available space. Here's why. It said I had like 150mb left, so I deleted close to 200mb of apps and then it said I had 130mb left. Weird, right? So many I have install a fresh copy of the OS (5.0.1 Official).

 

[Deleted User]

I have about 8 to 9GB using a custom rom mayne you shouldnt ket play store update apps just disable apps you dont use

 

[nu2andy]

Your choices would also be to use BK Package Disabler or AppMgr 111 (App to SD, Hide and Freeze Apps). Download from Playstore and see if moving Apps to your SD storage helps.

 

[dohraymee99]

Will these apps work on non-rooted? Will appmgr111 move complete apps to the SD card, or just parts of them?

 

[nu2andy]

Yes. I use Appmgr and it will show what you can move to the SD card. It moves ALL of the App to the card but you could run Clear Cache after to make sure nothing is left behind.