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.

Deleting system application and recover more space for app installation

Hi,
I go through the forum but unfortunately cannot find anything related to my inquiry. I use a custom ROM and go to /system/app to delete some unnecessary applications (e.g. Mail.apk), however, the saved space cannot be used for my 3rd party app installation. My dream was 9MB free before I remove system apps, it is 9MB again after their removal.
Is it possible to give more space to the 3rd party app application, given the sacrifice of system apps???

Are you sure that you are clearing cache?
Maybe you dont have apps2sd working for you.

Just do either one from terminal..
type:
mount -o rw,remount -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system
Then type:
cd /system/app
then you can type "ls" to list the contents of the directory.
Or
su
cd /system/sd/app
ls
or if you dont have EXT2/3/4
su
cd /system/app
ls

Yes I don't have app2sd enabled.
My dream is always having 9MB left so it is very inconvenient .... But I don't want to run app2sd so that speed could be improved ....
That's why I want to remove some unnecessary apps in the /system/app (e.g. Mail.apk which consumes 2MB!) so that I can have more space for my applications.
cd /system/app
ls
Shows all the pre-installed applications (those coming with the custom ROM)
Thanks for answering!

xdaofficeuser111 said:
Yes I don't have app2sd enabled.
My dream is always having 9MB left so it is very inconvenient .... But I don't want to run app2sd so that speed could be improved ....
That's why I want to remove some unnecessary apps in the /system/app (e.g. Mail.apk which consumes 2MB!) so that I can have more space for my applications.
cd /system/app
ls
Shows all the pre-installed applications (those coming with the custom ROM)
Thanks for answering!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Now do
-rm appname.apk
You have to reboot when your done though.

Theoretically it should work?
Because I removed Mail.apk, and rebooted. The free space left on the phone is still the same ....
Are those applications in different partitions or something wrong with my setup?
I am using AOSP r1.6 .....

xdaofficeuser111 said:
My dream is always having 9MB left so it is very inconvenient ....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Never heard that before.
Try removing applications that have higher file sizes, like the browser. You should see a change then.
And, as mentioned earlier, clear your cache.

akapoor said:
Never heard that before.
Try removing applications that have higher file sizes, like the browser. You should see a change then.
And, as mentioned earlier, clear your cache.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did - I even removed the largest one - Mail.apk. But I found that my space was not released ....
I cleaned my cache nearly every hour ....
I had a horrible experience with App2SD so I would rather keep all the apps on my G1 ram .....

What ROM is this?

akapoor said:
What ROM is this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
AOSP 2.4.2
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=538456
But even when I was using CM and Dwang before the same happen - I deleted apps in system/app, but available space for my app installation hadn't increased .....
When I moved from Dwang to AOSP, I had to remove a lot of my apps as a result because AOSP consumed more space than Dwang .... but when I deleted the system apps in /system/app one by one .... the space wasn't recovered ....
No matter how many times I cleared the cache and reboot ....

That's why I start to think if /system/app and my 3rd party applications are on different partitions??? So that releasing space on one will not benefit the other ......
Does it make sense?

xdaofficeuser111 said:
That's why I start to think if /system/app and my 3rd party applications are on different partitions??? So that releasing space on one will not benefit the other ......
Does it make sense?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes you are right
system apps are on the /system partition
other apps are on the /data partition under /data/app
you need to clean the /data partition to get space back. you can clear the dalvik-cache and maybe get some space. Make sure you clear the browser cache because that takes about 8mb of space on average
Ace42 said:
Are you sure that you are clearing cache?
Maybe you dont have apps2sd working for you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
god youre dumb

B-man007 said:
yes you are right
system apps are on the /system partition
other apps are on the /data partition under /data/app
you need to clean the /data partition to get space back. you can clear the dalvik-cache and maybe get some space. Make sure you clear the browser cache because that takes about 8mb of space on average
Thanks for your help!!!
Is it possible for me to rewrite any scripts/files so that I could transfer the free space from /system partition to /data partition (e.g. unmount, and remount them)?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

xdaofficeuser111 said:
B-man007 said:
yes you are right
system apps are on the /system partition
other apps are on the /data partition under /data/app
you need to clean the /data partition to get space back. you can clear the dalvik-cache and maybe get some space. Make sure you clear the browser cache because that takes about 8mb of space on average
Thanks for your help!!!
Is it possible for me to rewrite any scripts/files so that I could transfer the free space from /system partition to /data partition (e.g. unmount, and remount them)?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, those partitions stay the same size unless you flash an spl that enlarges them (Haykuro spl)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

the only way is by flashing the haykuro spl as if it was possible through scripts then the G1 would have been able to upgrade to better ROM's officially such as 2.0 without having to compress things

B-man007 said:
the only way is by flashing the haykuro spl as if it was possible through scripts then the G1 would have been able to upgrade to better ROM's officially such as 2.0 without having to compress things
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wow, that's what I said only longer. Good job stretching out information

Thanks! I am already on Danger SPL ....
Look like my dream is to the limit .....

xdaofficeuser111 said:
Thanks! I am already on Danger SPL ....
Look like my dream is to the limit .....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep, it is

xdaofficeuser111 said:
Thanks! I am already on Danger SPL ....
Look like my dream is to the limit .....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You might as well use apps2sd again, but make sure you wipe when switching b/t roms.

Everyone here seems pretty certain about this, so please correct me if I am wrong, but we can make the system or data partition via creating symlinks to the cache. The cache is used to download and install OTA updates, and thus is a useless 45MB partition on the dream. The haykuro spl takes this space and adds it to the system, thus allowing users to flash large updates. The same amount of space can be created through proper symlinks (be very careful if you attempt to create any to the system). I have set up symlinks to allocate cache memory to the system in order to flash large metamorph updates. It seems equally likely that one could symlink a folder in /data/ with a folder in the cache. Can anyone prove me wrong?

[Q]A2SD on CM6.1 RC2

may i knoe does it support a2sd on cm6.1 rc 2 ? If Yes, How do i have/install it ? Where can i found the file ? Thx in advance.

Milx said:
may i knoe does it support a2sd on cm6.1 rc 2 ? If Yes, How do i have/install it ? Where can i found the file ? Thx in advance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You don't need it. CM 6.1 supports installing apps to the SD natively. No need to worry about a2sd.

tpbklake said:
You don't need it. CM 6.1 supports installing apps to the SD natively. No need to worry about a2sd.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How do i do that ? after install move the app to sd from the app managment ?

Milx said:
How do i do that ? after install move the app to sd from the app managment ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, that is how I do it. You can also set the default location to SD for new apps that you load.

tpbklake said:
Yes, that is how I do it. You can also set the default location to SD for new apps that you load.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Correct me if im wrong, but isnt the dalvik cache still set to be stored on the internal memory by default, and using a2sd(which is what I do) the only way to move it to the sd card.
After every flash, I reinstall a2sd from clockwork, then load the build of CM6 I just updated, then go to terminal and run:
su -> a2sd cachesd(then phone reboots and the dalvik cache flag is signaled to be stored on sdext instead of internal storage.
and then to be safe I usually run "a2sd repair".
Is there an easier, more reliable, stable, blah blah way of moving dalvik to sd, and ensure all installed apps are stored on sd instead of internally? Right now i have about 70 apps installed, and have 166mb free internal memory left. And everything is very fast and snappy. I have no problems using a2sd. it seems to be working perfectly for me.
So could someone tell me if there is a better way of achieving what I am already achieving, without using a2sd? Thanks

Script said:
Correct me if im wrong, but isnt the dalvik cache still set to be stored on the internal memory by default, and using a2sd(which is what I do) the only way to move it to the sd card.
After every flash, I reinstall a2sd from clockwork, then load the build of CM6 I just updated, then go to terminal and run:
su -> a2sd cachesd(then phone reboots and the dalvik cache flag is signaled to be stored on sdext instead of internal storage.
and then to be safe I usually run "a2sd repair".
Is there an easier, more reliable, stable, blah blah way of moving dalvik to sd, and ensure all installed apps are stored on sd instead of internally? Right now i have about 70 apps installed, and have 166mb free internal memory left. And everything is very fast and snappy. I have no problems using a2sd. it seems to be working perfectly for me.
So could someone tell me if there is a better way of achieving what I am already achieving, without using a2sd? Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried to find the a2sd but could not find it, would u be kind to guide me to it =)

[Q] App2SD in 2.1 questions

Hello All,
First of all I would like to say a big thank you to everyone contributing in this forum as it is very helpful and makes your life with gadgets interesting
I have some questions concerning App2SD
I have rooted my X8 using the modded superoneclick that uses the newer exploit for android 2.1 and after that used the Xrecovery way to install app2sd.
So here come the questions:
After the installation most of the applications needed to be reinstalled, has anyone else experienced the same thing?
I also saw that the phone was working much faster and 90Mbytes of free memory where being shown right after the hack.
Now after installing loads of applications the free memory shown is ~60Mbytes, does that mean that many of the apps dont get installed to the sdcard?
If I rerun the app2sd zip from Xrecovery will that move those apps or it will mess up everything?
Thanks in advance

try install titanium backup.. if there is a2sd, so your app2sd is working.
i never get such problem
i use SOC 1.3.0 and script for app2sd2.1 mod (dalvik-cache to sd)
(not from xrecovery)

well, a2sd exists but the available internal memory keeps going down..

parisstc said:
well, a2sd exists but the available internal memory keeps going down..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
mmm.. lets check again,
try install terminal / shell
than :
$ cd /data/app
$ pwd
if the result is /system/sd/app
than your app2sd.sh script is right,
if still on /data/app ,, you must reistall app2sd, but uninstall it first.

thanks for the reply
The result is /system/sd/app
so I wonder why the available internal memory keeps going down..

when i type
cd/adb
it always show "not regconized internal promp.....bla..bla..."
what wrong???
i already copy all app2sd in memory card, and also make partisions ext3 and fat32

parisstc said:
thanks for the reply
The result is /system/sd/app
so I wonder why the available internal memory keeps going down..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
now I'm wondering too.
what apps did u install btw.
if the a2sd is working, maybe data app is too big, coz app2sd didn't mount that dir into sd.

evilteater said:
when i type
cd/adb
it always show "not regconized internal promp.....bla..bla..."
what wrong???
i already copy all app2sd in memory card, and also make partisions ext3 and fat32
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
did you 'cd' to 'adb tool' folder in your windows? using cmd right?
if you did, type : adb shell
if adb works., continue with your app2sd manual.
there's another tread deep about this btw