Database Users

Hiding folders created by apps?

Hi guys,
I know this is an issue for many alike myself, I HATE how some android apps and the system automatically create folder on the SDcard (tmp, LOST.DIR, albumthumbs, adobe etc) and even worse have stupid names for some of them. Im quite the perfectionist so i really would like to have them gone (hidden) or at least renamed. As hiding them is the easier option I want to know if this is even possible?
I've tried mounting my SDcard and changing those files to hidden, but in Android they still display. I've tried the '.' method of hiding but this causes errors for some apps as the folders aren't being located correctly.
I've searched around with no solution as of yet so if anybody has a way please let us know.
no stupid comments about hiding your porn and **** please.

I hate to not be any help, but I would also like a way to do this.
I hate looking into my SD card and seeing a bunch of random sh!t.
so bump i guess

Even though it don't bother me i don't understand why developers don't do like linux apps and use /sdcard/.twidroid type of folder?

This drives me insane as well. Unfortunately there isn't much you can do about it. This is on the developers of the apps to fix.

Does Google actually recommend a specific folder to put these files, something like .config or .cache like in Linux?

It would have been so easier if all these folder went inside a single folder like program files .. I m too frustated bocs these app folders

They recommend /Android/data/<package_name>/files/
see: http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/data/data-storage.html#filesExternal
One option is to override what the below two routines return. (AOSP code)
getExternalStorageDirectory() and
getExternalFilesDir()
i.e. set it to /sdcard/data/
ps: I remember asking this a year ago, still bugs me that nobody has done it yet.

suhas_sm said:
It would have been so easier if all these folder went inside a single folder like program files .. I m too frustated bocs these app folders
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1 This would be a good idea.

Volatile Directory - 80MB

Hello Guys,
Today I installed a cab to my phone. Usally I have around 100MB free on my device. But today there where only around 10MB?
I searched around and found a mysterious directory in the Application Data directory called "Volatile" which exactly eats up the missing space...
I said to myself, mhh are you trying to move that directory to storage card and risk a hard-reset? I did it and my device still works.
But I want to know from where this directory "Volatile" came?!
Scilor

the app data\volatile folder is a system temp folder. clearing shouldn't be a problem (unless maybe you clear it before restarting after installing something, perhaps).
You can also reg edit the location to move it to your storage card, at
hklm\system\filesys and change the path.

Thank you, so what exctly it is for?

scilor said:
Thank you, so what exctly it is for?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
its the wm5 and above equivalent of \temp in wm2003. just somewhere the system dumps files, especially when installing and such like. so long as nothing is running when you do, just empty it now and again.

Keep it off!
As for the HD2 - you may NOT delete this folder!
Reason for my frequent hardresetting in the past was deleting this folder - directly or by third party apps to gain storage space.
If you did so - your phone won't be able to recognize soundformats - it won't ring or play anything after deleting this folder!
Cover arts will be skipped very fast, because sense thinks that tracks are played in no time. Very frustrating bug.
Discovered it this morning ... and wanted to share it with the community as none knows about that.

I never had a problem with this, I only deleted the content. But thank you for that info.
So I will now just move the files to my SD card

I emptied it regularly when I was on winmo, never had a problem.

Deleting Android off HD2.

Is everything related to the Android OS stored in the Android folder we put in the root of our SD card? Does the system create files elsewhere?
Basically I want to know if I wanted to get rid of all traces of Android off my phone, would it be as simple as deleting the "Android" folder? (using Froyostone)
Thanks.

Gigamaster89 said:
Is everything related to the Android OS stored in the Android folder we put in the root of our SD card? Does the system create files elsewhere?
Basically I want to know if I wanted to get rid of all traces of Android off my phone, would it be as simple as deleting the "Android" folder? (using Froyostone)
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Pretty much

Android makes some other folders outside the "android" folder itself. If you want to get rid of all traces of it, I would recommend you back up whatever you need off the sd card and format it through WM.

bates_1974 said:
Pretty much
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wrong. Don't give out wrong information

to put it basically some android builds stay mostly in their own directory
and some are installed to the root of the sd card.
but other system files end up on your sd card too. also any apps you may have installed may save their own data to your sd card.
you could delete android and put a new build on and reinstall an app and it could read its old settings from a folder it made on your sd.
if you totally want to start from scratch you really wanna format the sd card.
my lazy way of doing it is to delete all the files and folders i see named in the new build im installing, and then seeing what files and folders seem androidy and deleting them too lol.
i guess im gonna get round to formatting sooner or later

Conflikt Icey said:
Wrong. Don't give out wrong information
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wrong information?
you dumb ****, I said pretty much
If you delete your android folder common sense should prevail in which other folders it can create to delete typically ones in lower case or starting with .
He should know what folders he had, depending how much you've used android would determine what other folders are created, so like I said
PRETTY MUCH

bates_1974 said:
Wrong information?
you dumb ****, I said pretty much
If you delete your android folder common sense should prevail in which other folders it can create to delete typically ones in lower case or starting with .
He should know what folders he had, depending how much you've used android would determine what other folders are created, so like I said
PRETTY MUCH
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Evidently he doesn't know which other folders were created by running android. If he did, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have asked

Conflikt Icey said:
Evidently he doesn't know which other folders were created by running android. If he did, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have asked
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's why we have a SEARCH button, it's there for a reason

bates_1974 said:
That's why we have a SEARCH button, it's there for a reason
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
well obviously. My point is if you are going to attempt to answer a question, you might as well give an accurate answer as oppose to giving vague/wrong answers that don't help anyone. Or just don't comment

ummm hate to interrupt but at least agree / disagree with my post??? lol

Conflikt Icey said:
well obviously. My point is if you are going to attempt to answer a question, you might as well give an accurate answer as oppose to giving vague/wrong answers that don't help anyone. Or just don't comment
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Vague maybe, wrong not at all, all that's needed is a bit of common sense, if you and the OP can't figure that out I suggest you roll out that 3310 of yours.

DontHate said:
ummm hate to interrupt but at least agree / disagree with my post??? lol
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you read my post after yours you'd see I outline the same route as you stated, agree.

Conflikt Icey said:
well obviously. My point is if you are going to attempt to answer a question, you might as well give an accurate answer as oppose to giving vague/wrong answers that don't help anyone. Or just don't comment
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You were about as useful the OP's question as he was..
As already mentioned, best thing to do is backup what you know you want and format it.

I think DontHate's nickname sums it pretty much all up... . Relax.
To go back to the initial question, you said "get rid of all traces" and to me it sounds like you want to take it to service or something like that, and don't want to show that you were messing about with it .
If that is the case, I don't think it will really matter what's on the card, more like you should revert back to your stock radio and stock WinMo rom.

remove thefollowing :
android folder
.android_secure
.bookmark_thumb1
.footprints
com.google.android.apps.maps - if you use it
tunnybrowser - dolphin hd browser
you might have some others dependant on what you have installed

Take it as a memory game.
Before placing any android files on the microSD card, take a mental snapshot of everything in the root directory of the card.
After usage, testing, the consequent removal of Android files need only be the files that weren't in the earlier mental snapshot.
That way, you get to improve your memory AND still use Android on your HD2 at the same time!?!?!??!?!
P.S. Do not forget the thumbnails folder in the DCIM folder.

I always simply delete the "Android" folder and haven't had any problems doing so.

Files Unmovable

So I was trying to move some files around on my a500 today, backing up stuff, getting things organized, when I came across a pretty frustrating problem.
My Iconia will stop responding when trying to copy / backup / move certain files. Sometimes it does it with a book, sometimes with a picture, either way, once it decides it cannot move that file, the file is stuck. It's been doing this since I got it and it kinda feels like an issue one would have if they had a bad memory card. This is definitely the internal Acer memory though.
My question is this, is this a known issue, do I need to send my tablet back to Acer, or is there a fix for it somewhere?

I think it's a limitation of how the transfer protocol works. Some large files won't copy too/from the device properly. I really can't find a real pattern to give a definitive answer.

Hmm... Well, the file that I'm trying to move right now, is 1.4mb. Not very big at all, and it stops responding.

Well, it maay have just been my laptop, its old and picky and a complete piece of junk. Using a file manager my tablet has 0 problems moving things around on its own.
Sent from my A500 using xda premium

This is a known problem. I haven't yet come across it in the ICS leak, so maybe it's fixed there... otherwise just 'cp src dest' in the shell (needs busybox), which works reliably.

I run into this problem occasionally when trying to move a file. My solution is to copy and paste it and then delete the original. For some reason it copies just fine but when I try to move it, it fails.

Space Management "as time goes by"..

I have a question that has been bugging me for a while.
I like keeping track of things.. do it in Windows, do it (less successfully) in OSX and try to do the same with Android. I track what I install, change, add, uninstall and try to keep a very clear log of changes to my system , available space, etc.
Currently Im running my Tab with Overcome 4.x Gingerbread custom ROM that from all I every tried works best for me from many months now. With it I have the ability to do CWM nandroid backups which I do regularly and that have saved my life already in multiple occasions.
Well, it happens that almost daily, my Android build seems to get bigger. It doesn't matter the cleaning I do or even the fact I go weeks without installing or adding anything to my Tab.. all logs are clean, all SMS deleted, emails and all attachments deleted, no pictures, media or downloaded files added, lazylist folder, no other caches (I clean everything with cache cleaners, SD Maid and even regularly flush my dalvik cache & cache partition).. basically nothing getting-in that I dont think I know. Also, I have no apps with Airpush, no apps that display ads I cant block via ad blockers and do all I can to make sure my system doesn't get bulge and garbage.
BUT I'M UNSUCCESSFUL! My regular CWM backups get bigger and bigger in size since the first day. Each one is bigger than the previous.. it doesn't matter what I do. From the past 3 months alone over 300 Mb have been added to the size of my backed-up images while I hardly changed or added anything to the Tab.
So my question is, why? Where is this space being filled from? Logs? Repositories of some sort? Does Android make automatic backups of "stuff" that keeps forever that can be manually deleted? How can I stop this from happening?? I feel like a have a tumor inside my Tab as my ROM grows uncontrollably in size each day. It was about 600Mb 3 months ago, now is almost 1Gg while I hardly added NOTHING to the Tab. What is it being filled with and where?
I would L*O*V*E to find a way to do some house cleaning and understanding where all this "stuff" is coming from and going where!!
Thanks in advance for your insight and advice!!

OK so after scanning my system I realize most of my used space is in the SYSTEM XBIN folder.. from the near 1Gb of total used space, over 700Mb is inside the XBIN! What is this anyway? Can this folder be deleted? What is it used for? Most of the endless files inside are all 1.9Mb and I can only recognize a few like busybox, though, its also duplicated on the BIN folder. So, can the XBIN be deleted or how can it be selectively cleaned-up?