Database Users

[TUT] Free Up Memory [Up To 4gb+]

Hey guys, I just thought I'd share this tip with you (as I just saved about 4gb of memory without removing any mp3's/apps )
If you're low on memory, go into "My Files" and delete the folder called "LOST.DIR" it's just like a bin that gets filled with files if something goes wrong (removing the usb without 'safely ejecting' it, etc.) Enjoy!
EDIT: Also, be sure to check the "Android" folder for any unwanted files, I just found a Gameloft file that was 1.4gb, yet I don't have any Gameloft games.

Lost only 10mb.. But hey, every mb counts.. hehe.. thanks
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium

Lost 800MB deleting this "LOST.DIR". Thanks for the heads up, mate!

i removed almost 1gb of space, thanks for the tip. well use in future reference

Ever since my S1 and now S2 I delete it weekly off both the internal and external cards. Left unckecked for a while it can really fill up.
Sent from my GT-I9100

My LOST.DIR is empty.
Maybe because I always properly disconnect or shutdown?
Thing is, everything ending up there is actually LOST, and I don't like loosing any of my data stored on the phone.

I saved 275 MB

okmijnlp said:
EDIT: Also, be sure to check the "Android" folder for any unwanted files, I just found a Gameloft file that was 1.4gb, yet I don't have any Gameloft games.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This ofcourse is utter nonsense. Obviously you had installed something from Gameloft before.
And if your Lost.Dir directory is filled with stuff you're doing some things very wrong. Which doesn't surprise me a lot, judging by this thread.

My Lost.Dir folder was also empty ... don't know whehter I should be happy that I'm using my phone correctly or sad that I'm not gaining any extra free space.

zee54 said:
My Lost.Dir folder was also empty ... don't know whehter I should be happy that I'm using my phone correctly or sad that I'm not gaining any extra free space.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can download a navigation app with lots of maps and delete them afterwards and post the results and your happiness here?

I've never found anything in the lost.dir EXCEPT after prematurely disconnecting the phone without unmounting from the pc end. If you are finding stuff in there, then either there is something wrong with the phone, or the way it is being used.

My lost.dir is always empty but android folder had 2.1gigs
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium

mariosraptor said:
My lost.dir is always empty but android folder had 2.1gigs
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mine is ~500MB - hehee, I don't really wanna delete those as it's the 500MB GTA3 needs to download before you can play.

HellcatDroid said:
My LOST.DIR is empty.
Maybe because I always properly disconnect or shutdown?
Thing is, everything ending up there is actually LOST, and I don't like loosing any of my data stored on the phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Exactly. Always unmount the device properly. Mine is 0.0 bytes

I lost 1mb )
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium

Lost my LOST DIR. how's that for saving space.
Could loose the ANDROID aswell but then again,
what's an android phone without android?

Not really a [TUT] to freeing up memory like... lol
6 files, 6mb.... actually from 6 photos i didn't delete properly ...
lost.dir is the lost+found directory basically. For sd memory, this will be where files, or copies, may end up when the memory is not, or does not, properly unmount or mount.
So no one should have huge amounts of data in there really...

I thought I'd take the opportunity to look through my folders on the phone, and to my surprise there was a couple of folders containing game information from games that I uninstalled ages ago one from EA and one from Glu . . . saved about 400Mb . . .
Why doesn't the uninstall 'really' uninstall . . . almost as bad as microsoft
Android needs some sort of disk clean up utility which could get rid of left over rubbish . . I don't mean cache files, but some utility that cross references installed apps with files that are no longer needed on your card

morg01 said:
I thought I'd take the opportunity to look through my folders on the phone, and to my surprise there was a couple of folders containing game information from games that I uninstalled ages ago one from EA and one from Glu . . . saved about 400Mb . . .
Why doesn't the uninstall 'really' uninstall . . . almost as bad as microsoft
Android needs some sort of disk clean up utility which could get rid of left over rubbish . . I don't mean cache files, but some utility that cross references installed apps with files that are no longer needed on your card
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try Junk Cleaner:https://market.android.com/details?...wsMSwxLDEsImNvbS5yZXRpbmF4LmRpc2tjbGVhbmVyIl0.

If you really want to see what is taking up a lot of space on your internal/external USB storage, download GridSize from the Market.

[HOWTO]Make Spotify cache offline playlists to SD card

As of the newest Spotify version (0.5.12.52) the app has a built-in (yet hidden) feature of saving playlists to SD card:
Go to Settings and in the bottom select to "Delete cache and saved data". You will be logged out.
Log in again and go to Settings and set Download/Stream Quality to "Extreme Quality"
Download your playlists and they will be saved to SD card.
Thanks to user nomadjr for the info
Source: http://community.spotify.com/t5/Hel...w-save-to-external-SD-card/td-p/46803/page/60
The old version of the "hack" which is no longer needed:
Code:
[COLOR="Red"]The old version of the "hack" which is no longer needed:[/COLOR] Found this info on the Spotify forums and thought I'd share it with you guys. It enables Spotify to save your downloaded/offline playlists to your external SD card without using any other apps such as DirectoryBind and Apps2SD and whatever.
Basically you install a previous version of Spotify which supported selecting SD storage (no idea why this feature was removed!) and then upgrading to the latest version while keeping that feature intact.
[LIST]
[*]1. Uninstall Spotify and check that the Spotify folder in sdcard/Android/data has been removed.
[*]2. Install the old version of Spotify from [URL="http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?64njb8peymtkawn"]here[/URL]
[*]3. Start the app and don't log in (if you are logged in auto, log out) and press the menu button and select the SD storage option.
[*]4. Change the standard location to /mnt/extSdCard or /storage/extSdCard and then log in (if it bugs when you log in, just exit the app and try again)
[*]5. Select a single playlist to download/offline play and let it finish downloading before you go to the next step. Don't download all your music here, just a little playlist with a few songs is enough.
[*]6. Go to the Play Store and update the Spotify app to the newest version.
[*]7. Now enable Extreme Quality in the new Spotify app and begin downloading all your play lists :) Provided you did everything correctly, Spotify will now save all offline/downloaded music to the external SD card now until you uninstall the app (unknown if future updates will break this feature)
[/LIST]
Check via your file browser that Spotify is indeed saving to the external SD before downloading your entire collection :p If it's not saving to the SD card, the path to the SD card you typed is probably wrong..check it again.
All credits go to:
Chr1212 @ [url]http://community.spotify.com/t5/Mobile-Android/Samsung-Galaxy-S3/td-p/82955[/url]
neo-x @ [url]http://community.spotify.com/t5/Mobile-Android/REQUEST-Previous-version-of-the-client-APK/m-p/79997#M4161[/url]

Thats a nice catch dude, nice one
I assume its working perfect as no-one has commented yet...lovely!

Darkside Agent said:
Thats a nice catch dude, nice one
I assume its working perfect as no-one has commented yet...lovely!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thx. Hehe probably or they're using one of the mods for having all apps on the ext SD
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda premium

This worked for me too! Thanks for info.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda app-developers app

This appears to still work! Thank you sooo much!!!

Perfect. Many thanks!!

Thanks! Works great on Razr M running Jelly Bean.
One added note:
I used /storage/sdcard1 as the location.
I found this by going to Files > selecting a file on the SD card, viewing details, and finding the path there.

y3sh said:
Thanks! Works great on Razr M running Jelly Bean.
One added note:
I used /storage/sdcard1 as the location.
I found this by going to Files > selecting a file on the SD card, viewing details, and finding the path there.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cool..glad you found it useful
Yeah, the actual path to the SD card probably varies on different devices.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda premium

I get a loop
Hi, it doesn't work for me! After I have set the location for the offlinefiles i choose login and get a warning message about data transfer, that keeps coming back all over again like a loop! Any suggestions?

Cygnusa said:
Hi, it doesn't work for me! After I have set the location for the offlinefiles i choose login and get a warning message about data transfer, that keeps coming back all over again like a loop! Any suggestions?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Works great for me!
Loop issue when trying to log in eith the old version but at least able to set correct location!
Force close the app, update at Google Play and there you go!

Thanks everything worked great!

Worked for my on my S3 with 4.1. Thanks so much for posting this thread; it just opened up 4gb of storage on my phone. The only issue I had was that the app would crash as soon as I opened it, but as long as you set the storage path before it still works.

Cygnusa said:
Hi, it doesn't work for me! After I have set the location for the offlinefiles i choose login and get a warning message about data transfer, that keeps coming back all over again like a loop! Any suggestions?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try force closing it and try again. Or just reboot and try again. Might take a few tries since the old Spotify probably isn't so compatible with Android 4.1.2
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda premium

Ok thanks. How ever when I look in the app menu it says the llarge amount of data for the app is stored in the cache... So I guess it didn't work for me...

Cygnusa said:
Ok thanks. How ever when I look in the app menu it says the llarge amount of data for the app is stored in the cache... So I guess it didn't work for me...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay, that's strange. Also double check that you are using the correct path to the SD card with a file manager app like Root Explorer or something. The standard one i wrote in the post may not work for everyone
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda premium

Is this still working?
Can't believe that Spotify haven't officially fixed this issue yet! Going to try this tonight once @ home on my Wifi connection.
---------- Post added at 09:01 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:35 AM ----------
Just tried this by creating a playlist with a couple of songs in it to save on data and I think it has worked lol?
Which folder would the music now be stored in on the ext SD card? Checked in the Internal storage>Android>Data folder and the Spotify folder isn't in there as expected if being stored on extSD, but I can't find it's location on the extSD either

Can confirm this works fine. Had the old apk crash a few times, just kept restarting it and used the force stop in app settings. Now have a lovely 29GB to fill up with some awesome tuneage!
Thanks OP :good:

This is great and all.. BUT
Yes, there is a but ..
I want extreme quality when I sync.
This is not possible on the old spotify-app.
Is this even doable?
Can you update to the newest spotify-app after syncing,
then turn on extreme quality on the newest and get extreme quality on the SD-Card ?

dmbardal said:
This is great and all.. BUT
Yes, there is a but ..
I want extreme quality when I sync.
This is not possible on the old spotify-app.
Is this even doable?
Can you update to the newest spotify-app after syncing,
then turn on extreme quality on the newest and get extreme quality on the SD-Card ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll take a look at the file size if possible.
As soon as I updated back to the 'new' version of Spotify, I set the download to 'Extreme Quality' and then downloaded another couple of songs.
Anyone know the average size of Extreme Quality file as compared to a normal or high file?

Not sure how large the "normal" files are, but I think extreme are roughly 10mb's...

[Q] Removing bloatware

Using stock rooted ROM I wanted to remove some of the apps (most Google apps) that come with the ROM. For this purpose I use the Rom Toolbox lite app. I was able to remove the apps but everytime I go into the play store they show up as an update available.
Can anyone recommend a permanent solution to get rid of these apps that come pre-packed with the stock ROM ?

mjehan said:
Using stock rooted ROM I wanted to remove some of the apps (most Google apps) that come with the ROM. For this purpose I use the Rom Toolbox lite app. I was able to remove the apps but everytime I go into the play store they show up as an update available.
Can anyone recommend a permanent solution to get rid of these apps that come pre-packed with the stock ROM ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Use Titanium Backup to uninstall them, go to the system/apps folder and delete the APK, or you can just disable them in the Settings->Apps screen. Take your pick.

dont login to play store

kgeissler said:
Use Titanium Backup to uninstall them, go to the system/apps folder and delete the APK, or you can just disable them in the Settings->Apps screen. Take your pick.[/QUOTE
If your going to disable them in settings>app you have to uninstall any updates first then you can disable them. This feature was introduced in ICS.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

munchy_cool said:
dont login to play store
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
why?
What Google apps are safe to remove without screwing up the phone (Google play music, magazine, one time init, partner setup, search, currents)

Don't delete Google apps because you won't be able to get ota updates
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda app-developers app

BigDig said:
Don't delete Google apps because you won't be able to get ota updates
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Seriously? So we're stuck with the books, magazine and current crap?

texaslittleangel said:
Seriously? So we're stuck with the books, magazine and current crap?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep! I deleted the bloatware as soon as got my N4 back in November, it was running 4.2 , when Google pushed 4.2.1 it wouldn't install so I had to flash back to stock 4.2 and lost all data and settings...
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda app-developers app

If you disable them you're fine. If you remove them and they are updated within the ota, it will fail.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda premium

All you gotta do is either push them back or copy them back with root explorer.. That's what I had to do for the update..
Sent from my Nexus 4

I know I deleted books on Monday when I got my phone but I can't remember if the ota came in before or after the deletion. I froze them with TBP for the time being but they occupy precious memory space.

No they don't. Those apps are located in /system on a different partition.
It has no effect on the space available to the user under normal circumstances. Not normal would be a root user moving files into that partition instead of their normal location.
Example would be converting a app into a system app.

albundy2010 said:
No they don't. Those apps are located in /system on a different partition.
It has no effect on the space available to the user under normal circumstances. Not normal would be a root user moving files into that partition instead of their normal location.
Example would be converting a app into a system app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Please help me understand how this phone works in terms of space then. It is supposed to be 16GB right? We get the phone and it has 12GB only (I am assuming it is because 4GB is being occupied by the system/stock rom). I installed a few apps and I now only have about 7GB left. I downloaded the system analyzer app and it tells me that TB is occupying a hell of a lot more space (due to an initial back-up I performed of apps and data) than what it was occupying on my previous phone. How do I go about loosing between 5 -6 GB of space?!?
Before removing the update of the Googlea apps and disabling them, current was up to 50MB, magazine was higher, etc...
I really do want to learn more about my phone, how best use my storage, save battery etc.
TIA guys

The phones have 16gb of nand in them.
Many things eat away at the so called 16gb. From the mb to bytes way of counting storage ( like any other drive) to the things you mentioned
The phone has a bit under 900 mb set aside for the ROM. Then there is the other stuff like radio / recovery bootloader etc that take up space / have a partition
The extra space you see being used by the apps you mentioned is just data. Currents for example downloads the stuff that you sync so it can be read offline. Its stored locally and takes up space. Same basic idea for the other apps you mentioned.
Once you update a system app also have two of the apks on the phone. One in /system/app and the other in /data/app. So the updated apk itself takes up a bit of space.
Think of it in simple computer terms. You have one 100gb hard drive that is spilt up into two partitions that you cant change ( got to pretend you can't change them for this). 20gb c partition for windows and 80gb left over for whatever. No matter how much stuff you delete off the 20gb you're not going to gain space on the 80.
In our phones all the pre installed apps would be on the 20gb. Anything that gets downloaded/cached etc would go into the 80gb.
If you need space you can free up space by clearing the caches of apps. Getting the titanium backups off the phone and onto a computer or the cloud. Converting some apps to system apps can gain you a couple hundred mb since they wouldn't be on our make believe 80gb partition anymore. Their data and cache will still end up on your regular storage but the apks won't be there...

It's all a translational from marketing to what a computer sees.
In marketing, (and everywhere else I guess based on the mathematical prefixes) they assume:
1Kb = thousand bytes
1Mb = million bytes
1Gb = billion bytes
(kilo- = 10 to the 3rd power, mega- = 10^6, giga- = 10^9)
Whereas a computer sees:
1Kb = 1024 bytes
1Mb = 1048576 bytes
1Gb = 1073741824 bytes
Now the Nexus 4 is 16 Gb = 16 billion bytes.
16 billion divided by 1073741824 = 14.901 Gb
You say before you used TB you had 12 Gigs. With 14.9 of play space, assume your rom/etc is 2.9 Gigs. After backing that up in TB, assuming there is compression, let's say 9.3 Gigs are left.
idk what apps you installed but 2 gigs is easy to kill with games, apps, music, syncing contact photos, etc. (Not to mention caches)
Heck, I install 1 game it takes up 3 gigs.

Albundy, THNAKS a million for explaining this to me. GREAT info!!!
PcFish thank you for the breakdown. No games. I've got the Advanced Task Killer app that helps clean up the cache

Internal Memory Issue

Hi,
Not a biggie, more a frustration that I don't understand.
Is this correct with regard Internal Memory.
Am I missing something
I can't see how I am using over 12gb of memory, I don't have video, music etc on the phone that I know of, Titanium is around 1 Gb which seems normal. CWM backup is around 500MB.
1. Is there a way to see what is using my memory?
2. What can I safely delete to free up memory if needed?
Many thanks as always.

oo03sjw said:
Hi,
Not a biggie, more a frustration that I don't understand.
Is this correct with regard Internal Memory.
Am I missing something
I can't see how I am using over 12gb of memory, I don't have video, music etc on the phone that I know of, Titanium is around 1 Gb which seems normal. CWM backup is around 500MB.
1. Is there a way to see what is using my memory?
2. What can I safely delete to free up memory if needed?
Many thanks as always.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you checked the partitioning? I don't know how or why it would be altered, but there seems to be a discrepancy between the visual bar graph (which shows mostly gray = free space) and the actual space it reports to be available.

Try these:
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

scream4cheese said:
Try these:
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the quick replies,
My second picture was taken when I run Clean Master and shows that I only have 6% free.
I have run and posted the SD Maid, which shows I have only 700MB left.
The graph on my first pic 'the grey bit' shows loads of space. And adding up segments it totals about 4GB .so in theory I should have loads left.
The only issue is that I get low memory warnings when I creeps over 95% and I can't see what is using up the memory to clean/clear it.
Stumped

oo03sjw said:
Thanks for the quick replies,
My second picture was taken when I run Clean Master and shows that I only have 6% free.
I have run and posted the SD Maid, which shows I have only 700MB left.
The graph on my first pic 'the grey bit' shows loads of space. And adding up segments it totals about 4GB .so in theory I should have loads left.
The only issue is that I get low memory warnings when I creeps over 95% and I can't see what is using up the memory to clean/clear it.
Stumped
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Perhaps you can do a factory reset and see if the problem persists. Backup your important data first.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

scream4cheese said:
Perhaps you can do a factory reset and see if the problem persists. Backup your important data first.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As much as I have been avoiding this I have wiped and factory reset and I am back to 10GB in use and 2ish available.
Still not convinced and still confused as to what is causing it.

Factory reset only deleted internal data. Try also wiping data from recovery. Backup your stuff first.

abaaaabbbb63 said:
Factory reset only deleted internal data. Try also wiping data from recovery. Backup your stuff first.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did wipe all and dalvic and that is what went down to 10GB.

[Q] Insufficent Storage on small apps with 422 Mb avalible

My nexus 4 started giving me insufficient storage complaints today as a tried to load an app that I'm writing onto it from Android Studio. It reads as having 422 Mb available, but I can't even load DiskUsage (155 Kb) onto it to see if the data page in settings is wrong. Is it possible that when Android Studio loads a new debug instance of an app onto my phone it doesn't delete the old one? Or is it a glitch with 4.3 on my N4? Help!

the system needs there to be 500mb or so free at all times. this space is reserved for caches and such, so your device can function properly. at your point, i bet you arent even connecting to googles servers(gray bars instead of blue). uninstall some apps or clear some storage space, your choice.

simms22 said:
the system needs there to be 500mb or so free at all times. this space is reservered for caches and such, so your device can function properly. at your point, i bet you arent even connecting to googles servers(gray bars instead of blue). uninstall some apps or clear some storage space, your choice.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nope, everything is fine, and it has operated on less before.

Aidoboy said:
Nope, everything is fine, and it has operated on less before.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
cool if you believe so, enjoy your insufficient storage space then.

simms22 said:
cool if you believe so, enjoy your insufficient storage space then.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It wroks now, do you have any idea what the directory media/Android/obb is? It has really big files, labeled as apps I don't have.

Aidoboy said:
Nope, everything is fine, and it has operated on less before.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your manners are terrible. Look at the number of "Thanks" Simms has. He isn't making stuff up.

Aidoboy said:
It wroks now, do you have any idea what the directory media/Android/obb is? It has really big files, labeled as apps I don't have.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i believe that it holds some paid apps, or apps with a certain security(i could be wrong here. it used to hold apps that were installed in the sd instead of system, but we dont have to worry about that now).