Database Users

All Cache to SD

i was wondering is there a way to put all the apps cache in the sd because for my search it seems like you can only do it for some. Im also running the Cyanogen rom 3.6

I know there is an app in the market named ClearMe (or there was) that will allow this if you are looking for a less manual method
Edit: you said all apps. I'm not sure of a method.... yet..

not just cache to sd, storage to sd
ruffrider5956 said:
i was wondering is there a way to put all the apps cache in the sd because for my search it seems like you can only do it for some. Im also running the Cyanogen rom 3.6
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have been wondering about a couple of things since I flashed Cyanogen's ROM. 1) Calendar storage is on internal storage. I have 5MB there so that sucks. Is there any way to change that? 2) Various programs, while the app itself is installed on SD, some data, but not all, goes to the phone's internal storage. This seems random. Is there any way to move ALL storage and ALL cache to the SD? When I was on JF v1.51, all data and cache was on SD. I have 63mb free internal but on JF I had 73mb free at all times. Now I fluctuate. Any thoughts?

aaronratner said:
I have been wondering about a few things since I flashed cyanogen's rom. 1) calendar storage is on internal. I have 5mb there so that sucks. Any way to change that? 2) various programs, while the app itself is installed on as, some data, but not all, goes to the phone. This seems random. Anyway to move ALL storage and ALL cache to the as? When I was on JF v1.51, all data and cache were on sd. I have 63mb free internal but on JF I had 73mb free at all times. Now I fluctuate. Any thoughts?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why do you need 73mb free? Is 63mb not enough? I'm not trying to be a jerk, I just think you might be worrying about something that is not an issue. The phone works ok with 20+ MB free and works great with 30+ MB. If you have too much free memory, it is just sitting there doing nothing. You want to use the phone's resources the best way you can, not just have them sit there being unused.
I really don't see the point in moving ALL cache to SD. I've found that the phone boots up much faster if your Dalvik-Cache is using internal memory. It is about 30MB on my phone. I did move my app, app-private, media, and data to my SD card. I've heard arguments that it is not a good idea to move the data over but I have over 100 apps and my data folder is about 6 MB. So a Class 6 card could move that entire folder in about 1 second.

Nice first post, but...
Just for reference, I don't really care if I have 10MB free. My phone is running very smoothly. Most of the questions that I ask are purely for educational purposes. I was wondering what the difference was between the apps to sd I did on JF1.51 (I did it manually and I'll show it at the end of this post for reference) and the built in method in cyanogen's ROM. I was curious about why the free memory fluctuated on cyanogen's and not JF's.
I think that some apps are using the phone's internal memory and some are using the ext2 partition. One example: I use NewsRob (an RSS reader). It asks me where I want to store the downloaded RSS feeds and I said my SD card. It created a folder and stored the file on my SD card (not the ext2 partition but the fat32). However, the internal memory was also affected even though the app itself is on SD (on ext2). Another example is my calendar app. The storage, of which I have 5MB, is stored on internal memory. On JF's it was not. Why? What is done differently?
If I enter the following commands in terminal emulator...
Code:
su
df system/sd
...I get 553920K total, 106180K used, 447740K available (block size 4096).
However, when I go to Settings > SD card & phone storage I get 540MB under total space and 409MB available.
That doesn't seem to jive or am I missing something? Hey, everything seems to be working well so I don't really care on that end. However I do care that I don't understand why this is the way it is.
Reference: My apps to sd method on JF.
In terminal emulator
Code:
busybox cp -a /data/app /system/sd/
busybox cp -a /data/dalvik-cache /system/sd/
busybox cp -a /data/data /system/sd/
Then in Recovery Terminal (Alt+X on JF menu in Recovery Mode)
Code:
mount data
rm -rf /data/app
ln -s /system/sd/app /data/app
rm -rf /data/data (optional)
ln -s /system/sd/data /data/data
rm -rf /data/dalvik-cache
ln -s /system/sd/dalvik-cache /data/dalvik-cache
reboot

I'm using "move cache for root users" - first result after searching for "cache."
It moves Browser, Market, GMaps, Street View, Gmail, and Steel caches to SD.
If you have apps2sd I would assume all caches would be on the SD card, not positive tho.

juphro said:
I'm using "move cache for root users" - first result after searching for "cache."
It moves Browser, Market, GMaps, Street View, Gmail, and Steel caches to SD.
If you have apps2sd I would assume all caches would be on the SD card, not positive tho.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
using that program as well and yes it does put all the cache on your sd card.

imbonez9 said:
using that program as well and yes it does put all the cache on your sd card.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I too use that program. It's called TA Utility. It works well but I'd like more than that. For example, as stated in my original description of the "problem" is that there are other apps that don't get included in this. For one thing, calendar. That's 5MB right there. There are also various program that use some internal storage even if they cache the bulk of the files on the SD (fat32 partition). I don't actually think that this is a problem. I am just very interested in understanding the inner workings of the a2sd that I had done on JF and the a2sd that is done automatically on Cyanogen's ROM.
Another program that is a "problem" is the Work Email that was ported over by Cyanogen from myTouch. Even if you don't use it, opening it once adds more than a MB of data to the internal storage. While I removed the storage, if I wanted to use the Work Email app for some reason it would "cost" me a meg. Again, this is not a real issue as I have nearly 200 apps installed and still have 64MB of internal storage left. I just want the "why" behind all this.
My question, then, is why do certain apps "cost" me internal storage while others do not? It cannot be random. There needs to be a reason and there also needs to be a way to change that. I just don't know why and how.

aaronratner said:
I too use that program. It's called TA Utility. It works well but I'd like more than that. For example, as stated in my original description of the "problem" is that there are other apps that don't get included in this. For one thing, calendar. That's 5MB right there. There are also various program that use some internal storage even if they cache the bulk of the files on the SD (fat32 partition). I don't actually think that this is a problem. I am just very interested in understanding the inner workings of the a2sd that I had done on JF and the a2sd that is done automatically on Cyanogen's ROM.
Another program that is a "problem" is the Work Email that was ported over by Cyanogen from myTouch. Even if you don't use it, opening it once adds more than a MB of data to the internal storage. While I removed the storage, if I wanted to use the Work Email app for some reason it would "cost" me a meg. Again, this is not a real issue as I have nearly 200 apps installed and still have 64MB of internal storage left. I just want the "why" behind all this.
My question, then, is why do certain apps "cost" me internal storage while others do not? It cannot be random. There needs to be a reason and there also needs to be a way to change that. I just don't know why and how.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I''m not sure its the app that is taking up the room but the space it needs to park it on the phone. Like i installed docs2go. It adds to my internal but not as much as the whole program is.

[SOLVED] - Solution
I have figured out the answer to my original question for all those who are interested. I wanted to know the difference between the A2SD that I used on JF (I did it myself) and the auto-A2SD in Cyanogen's ROM. It's very simple. The /data/data/ folder on Cyanogen is not moved to SD whereas I has it sysmlinked on JF.
If you are running Cyanogen, run the following in TE...
Code:
su
du -h /data/data/
to see what you have stored. I am going to spend some time on the forum looking to see what, if anything, can be safely moved (in a stable way) to /system/sd/ on Cyanogen. I will either report back here or start a new thread if I think my findings are worth sharing (meaning, if I come up with anything more than what everyone else but me already knows, LOL). I suspect it might be a bit of an issue since Cyanogen warns against using any other A2SD methods while using his ROM. Time will tell.

I believe that the reason /data/data is not moved to sd anymore is because it proved to be unstable for most (not all) people here. Also, if you manualy move /data/data to sd at some point on Cyan's rom it will be moved back to internal memory automaticaly next time you reboot. This is just the way Cyan has it set up due to the problems people had when the whole data folder was moved.

Agreed
borodin1 said:
I believe that the reason /data/data is not moved to sd anymore is because it proved to be unstable for most (not all) people here. Also, if you manualy move /data/data to sd at some point on Cyan's rom it will be moved back to internal memory automaticaly next time you reboot. This is just the way Cyan has it set up due to the problems people had when the whole data folder was moved.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I fully agree with that. /data/data on SD was NEVER stable for me. I don't think my phone lasted more than three days after moving it. My main reason for posting was to understand what was different between what I did on JF and what Cyanogen did by default. I now fully understand the difference and, most importantly, the reasons behind it. I just have to keep and eye on which programs write data and how much data they write and what, if any, should/could be deleted. The calendar storage, for example, cannot be deleted or calendar entries disappear. For me, it's 5.5MB.
Perhaps, if I am really bored, I (or someone else) will write and app or script that can remove data/cache for ANY app added to a list. For now, I have the obvious caches moved over and a cache cleaning app for those caches moved to SD. A more efficient and more customizable method for this process is definitely needed but I have learned that these "problems" seemed to get "solved" as Android grows up. For now, manual methods will have to do.

APPS2SD Confusion.

From the recovery image to get APPS2SD by simply running the format the SD using Ext2+Swap+fat32 right?
I have a class 6 card. How do I know if this actually works? I formatted and my internals space did not change?
Are there major benefits of doing APPS2SD?

Yes, first format the SD card.
To see if its working,
Check your Settings -> SD card & phone storage -> Internal phone storage. Make note of what it is at. Install some apps, maybe even try reinstalling some of the apps on your phone. Then, check the internal storage again and see if you have some more space.
As for the benefits, it just frees up your internal memory on your phone. I don't think it makes your phone faster or anything.

The question I have about APPS2SD is this. How come when I use it my internal memory drops after I install apps. I have not used it since I had to go back to the original Sprint ROM to do the update and installing the same apps I had before, my internal memory was about the same as it was when I used APPS2SD. I used the recovery screen to format to Fat32-Ext2-Swap and files were on the sd card when I checked, but my internal memory still drops everytime I install something. What is the real benifit of this if the internal memory drops anyway. I am real confused about this and have not decided if it is worth using since I have read it can damage your memory card. Can someone with knowledge of how this works please explain it.
Thx for all the great Info found here.

AppsToSD only puts the apps themselves on the SD. The internal memory is still used by the boot-cache, dalvik-cache, and actual app data like settings, saved games, cache, etc.

Must it be ext3?
What if i have ext2?

rvenes said:
Must it be ext3?
What if i have ext2?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If youre using one of the newer recovery images there should be an option to upgrade ext2 to ext3
as for the difference...im not to sure exactly

Tipharet said:
How do I know if this actually works? I formatted and my internals space did not change
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Answer: . . . . .
nelson8403 said:
Just because the apps are installed to the SD card doesn't mean they don't store things on the phone.. cache is stored on the phones, theres a /data/data folder on the phone that the apps populate as well, it just doesn't take AS MUCH space on your phone as a non appstosd
also to make sure your apps are working go into your adb shell, type in
Code:
cd /data/app
pwd
cd /data/app-private
pwd
What this will do is go to your /data/app folder and because with appstosd that is a symbolic link to /system/sd/app the PWD (present working directory) will display /system/sd/app, if PWD shows /data/app you are not running appstosd
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

rvenes said:
Must it be ext3?
What if i have ext2?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As far as I know it works just fine on ext2.
As far as the difference, the nutshell version is that ext3 is pretty much just ext2 with journaling hacked in. If you don't know that that means, do a google search on "journaling file system".
There should be no downside whatsoever to switching to ext3. It can still be read from and written to by anything that can use ext2, and it adds more robust error recovery.
Caveats: I'm not sure how well, or if, that error recovery works on flash memory devices. My expertise is working with large servers that use hard disks. I also don't know if there are tools in our android builds that take advantage of the benefits that ext3 provides.
Having said that, I'm still confident that choosing to upgrade to ext3 offers NO downside, and while there might also be no upside, there is also the potential for a huge upside.
My advice: Do it.

Apps2SD works but I'm losing Internal Memory too?

Hello,
I thought that Apps2SD wasn't working on my Modaco 2.9 ROM. I was fairly certain that this could be down to a formatting error on my SD. I formatted the SD card again on my computer and the apps still remained in the phone's memory. Or at least the internal memory displayed a reduced figure each time I installed an app.
So what I did next was to install Amon Ra's recovery (version 1.3.2).
Once I'd done that I wiped my Dalvic Cache and rebooted.
Once I'd done that I repaired my EXT Cache and upgraged it to EXT4.
Once I'd done that (and with still no memory change)
I backed up my SD Card and then partitioned it again using the option in the Recovery menu.
I boot the phone and all my apps and shortcuts are gone, as if they were installed on the SD card (which had just been partioned). When I checked the phone's memory it was STILL saying I had 73mb internal memory.
I don't get it! What's happened?!
(also posted at Modaco)

Well the thing that I found out about internal memory after numerous formatting and whatnot...is that Gmail storage takes up space using your INTERNAL memory. Meaning, whenever your Gmail is synced, it'll save those emails on your internal memory. Don't trust me? Take a look at your internal memory, then go to applications > gmail storage > clear data and you'll see that your internal memory has gone up.
To confirm that A2SD is working, open a terminal (such as Better Terminal Emulator):
To confirm whether A2SD is working properly from a terminal / ADB Shell type:
busybox df -h
You should see something along these lines below:
/dev/block/mccblk0p2 532.9M 67.1M 438.7M 13% /system/sd
The key is that you see one of the entries as /system/sd
This means that the phone is picked up your Ext2 partition.
Next if you see the above you can check that you setup the symlinks properly.
To do this type these cmds:
cd /data/app
pwd
The terminal returns /system/sd/app which means that the apps are now being saved onto the Ext2 Partition since the /system/sd = your Ext2 partition.
If it returns /data/app then the apps are still being installed onto the phone's internal rom.
Hope this helps, let me know if not.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Taken from somewhere, I forgot. All credit goes to that poster. Oh and Ext2 can also be 3 or 4 depending on what you have.

Intuitive guide to Apps2SD?

I knew this time would come....
I've got too many apps on my phone and Im running low on space, and I've noticed my phone has been dragging lately.
I have an 8GB class 6 SD card, so hopefully speed shouldnt be an issue.
I have yet to use A2SD...
If I partition my drive, do I lose everything that's on there? Obviously that's not a problem as I can just move everything over to my computer then copy it back, but if I can leave the data on there and partition that'd be great.
Im having a hard time finding a step by step "from day one" guide.
Mind pointing me in the right direction? The only thing Ive found in the wiki is moving to a new SD card with A2SD.
Im currently running DC 2.07.2

BACK UP SDCARD
Boot into recovery. Partition SD card (default values)
Download http://www.darktremor.com/files/misc/a2sd-2.5-signed.zip
Flash above .zip as any normal ROM
Boot phone
Open command prompt and type:
adb shell
a2sd install
Tada.

Ok great, got that part down.
Now moving the already installed apps over to the SD card? What else do I do from here?
Thank you for the help!

Actually, looks like everything went ok...
ls -l /data reveals all the locations as /system/sd/app
I didn't bother to look at free internal space before installing, but my interanal free storage is now at 130MB. Sound right?
Last question i have for now....
Now that all my apps are on the SD card, if I were to flash a new ROM (say a new ROM Flipz comes out with) that has A2SD support... I dont' have to re-install them as both the apks, odex, and dalvik are all stored on the SD card right?

poor_red_neck said:
Actually, looks like everything went ok...
ls -l /data reveals all the locations as /system/sd/app
I didn't bother to look at free internal space before installing, but my interanal free storage is now at 130MB. Sound right?
Last question i have for now....
Now that all my apps are on the SD card, if I were to flash a new ROM (say a new ROM Flipz comes out with) that has A2SD support... I dont' have to re-install them as both the apks, odex, and dalvik are all stored on the SD card right?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The only version that I'm aware of that moves Dalvik-cache to the sd card is Apps2SD version 2.5. I don't know if anyone has that in the ROMs yet. Many of them are either using an Apps2SD that was built for Fresh 2.0d, Apps2SD version 2.0, or the Apps2SD which is common in the 1.5 builds.
Your apps in /data/app and /data/app-private are on the sd card. You can flash Apps2SD version 2.5 (A2SD) from http://www.darktremor.com/files/misc/a2sd-2.5-signed.zip if you want to move the dalvik-cache.
EDIT: I really should read the instructions that was posted before I stick my foot in my mouth. The file is the one located at Darktremor, which is the version 2.5...so, yes...your dalvik-cache is on the sd card.

So I tried the above method, but all my apps stopped working and when I go to reinstall them, it says "Insufficient Space for App"...
What did I do wrong?
EDIT: Okay, nevermind, it seems to be working now. I tried installing the app again and it installed fine the second time. Trying another one now.

I did this recently and just found out that I cannot install/download apps from the market, it just gets stuck there. Does it know where its downloading too after a2sd is installed?

APPS2SD and LINK2SD question.

Hello again, I need clarification with this subject...
I had a difficult time in rooting my android, thinking I failed. so for many times I rooted, installed xrecovery, then most importantly apps2sd. but I don't think it works, then I found all about Links2sd. I installed it, and each time after installing I always select the "link2sd" option, and I check the include davlik cache, but my phone memory is continually decreasing... is this normal or not? could there be a conflict with apps2sd and link2sd since I don't know if I have deleted apps2sd. sorry I'm an android newbie. Thanks..

Well... if you had app2sd link2sd would monit about it and asked you to uninstall it first.
If you don't know if your phone is rooted, look through apps - if you have a superuser app - you're rooted
As for link2sd working or not: connect your phone to the computer and open minitool partition wizard home. It will see your ext2 partition along with free and occupied space. If there are any apps on ext2 partition of your SD card - apps are installing there and the slight decrease of space is due to the existing shortcut files. Because you have created ext2 partition, haven't you?...

I did what you said and yes I found files on the other partition I created. but problem is, some files still go to the phone memory, for example the game app "ninjump" has 15mb installed on the phone memory while on links2sd it shows that it is linked to the sd card.
also, I tried removing the memory card, and when I turned on my x8 the programs were missing, so I suppose links2sd is working.
only problem is now is that some chunks are still installed to the phone memory. is there a way of totally redirecting everything to the sd card?

link2sd: Leave data files in Internal Memory, and you can choose the apps to SD
app2sd: Copy all data from the application to the SD, It's all automatic

nowonanx8 said:
I did what you said and yes I found files on the other partition I created. but problem is, some files still go to the phone memory, for example the game app "ninjump" has 15mb installed on the phone memory while on links2sd it shows that it is linked to the sd card.
also, I tried removing the memory card, and when I turned on my x8 the programs were missing, so I suppose links2sd is working.
only problem is now is that some chunks are still installed to the phone memory. is there a way of totally redirecting everything to the sd card?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, here's the deal - how many times did you install ninjump in the past? If more then once, and meanwhile you moved it to or from ext2 it might have (though the probability is very slight) that you have two apps - one in internal storage and one in ext2 storage.
So, navigate into ext2 partition (it's a folder in root directory - sdext or so) and look for this app. It might be hard, as names of linked apps are somewhat messed up, but there should be icons If there is no app on ext2, try switching it back to internal mode and then onto ext2 again - perhaps without linking dalvik cache.
chequebo1 said:
link2sd: Leave data files in Internal Memory, and you can choose the apps to SD
app2sd: Copy all data from the application to the SD, It's all automatic
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you, that was sooooo relevant!

APP2SD
I having problem with the app2sd too..i dunno whether it works...This is what i had done..I had busybox, superuser, and xrecovery installed and rooted. But when come to partitioning the sd card, i partitioned it into 3 parts : FAt, ext2 and ext3...after that i installed the update.zip and custom zip of app2sd...the phone starts not recognizing the sd partition...anyone can help here??

I use titanium backup to see app2sd works or not. if a2sd decrease, so it work.
if internal still decrease, I guess some file or even some app just can't work with app2sd.
one question too, how or can I move games data from fat sdcard to ext2 partition? like gameloft data. I need my fat space for other file

Graveir said:
Ok, here's the deal - how many times did you install ninjump in the past? If more then once, and meanwhile you moved it to or from ext2 it might have (though the probability is very slight) that you have two apps - one in internal storage and one in ext2 storage.
So, navigate into ext2 partition (it's a folder in root directory - sdext or so) and look for this app. It might be hard, as names of linked apps are somewhat messed up, but there should be icons If there is no app on ext2, try switching it back to internal mode and then onto ext2 again - perhaps without linking dalvik cache.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried navigating to the ext2 partition using minitool partition wizard, and I indeed saw files that I have installed there. so do you mean that apps2sd is better than links2sd? thanks..

Well... I'm not saying anything is better, though I used both solutions in three different ways.
For stock SE ROM link2sd is better, since you only need to partition SD card into primary fat32 and primary ext2 - nothing more. Then you install an app and all works fine.
With custom ROM you cannot use link2sd, since they all have app2sd hack preinstalled (well, you can always modify files, but what for?). Problem occurs when you have this hack AND ext2 partition. The hack then moves automatically all your apps to ext2 memory along with dalvik cache if you install them in internal storage. If you install in external storage, the app goes to fat32 secure folder and dalvik cache remains in ext2. If you don't have any ext on custom ROM, dalvik cache is always in internal storage, while you can move any non-system app onto fat32 sd card.
The ext2 solution in custom ROMs may seem convinient, but for me it was not. When you use apps like phone locator, they should always dwell in internal memory, since SD card can be easily taken out, while deleting such an app from a remotely locked down phone would require flashing, otherwise the device is useless for the thief

Well actually both app2sd and link2sd are typically similliar. I've tried app2sd before and it still leave some files in internal memory. So will link2sd. But link2sd is much more easier to use because once your phone is rooted you just need to install it on your phone without going through the adb shell thing. Easy for newbie for sure. But you just have to manually link new installed applications and games. That's what differ link2sd with app2sd. Now I'm using link2sd. If you want to make sure, why don't you try those froyo phone. Try to use the app2sd stuff on those phone. They still install some applications on their internal as well although they have built in app2sd.
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