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.
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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.
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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
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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.

Something's not right here... what's using up all this space?

I deleted all my music, ISOs, and movies, because I was running out of space. After I deleted it all it showed:
​
Saying 6.48GB (13.2GB-6.72GB) is being used.
There's no way I have 6.5GB worth of stuff on my tablet... so I Ctrl+A, Right Click, Properties:
​
That shows 471MB... so um... what's going on with the rest of ~6GB?
*EDIT*
Went through settings and checked out the internal storage:
​
What?
That doesn't match my PC readings at all. And in fact, the math doesn't work either:
1.13 + 1.75 + 6.29 = 9.17GB
13.24GB - 9.17GB = 4.07GB.
Where's that 4.07GB, according to the tablet?
(click the images for a bigger version)

did you download the transformers movie? that uses up about 2gb... to delete i had to go into play movies app, manage space and delete from there
Printerscape said:
I deleted all my music, ISOs, and movies, because I was running out of space. After I deleted it all it showed:
​
Saying 6.48GB (13.2GB-6.72GB) is being used.
There's no way I have 6.5GB worth of stuff on my tablet... so I Ctrl+A, Right Click, Properties:
​
That shows 471MB... so um... what's going on with the rest of ~6GB?
(click the images for a bigger version)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

micks_address said:
did you download the transformers movie? that uses up about 2gb... to delete i had to go into play movies app, manage space and delete from there
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Click to collapse
I checked just now, and nope.
I'm aware that the Nexus 7 uses the internal memory for apps as well, but there's no way I have ~6GB worth of apps installed... that must be several thousands of apps (note that app data are installed on the 'SD Card', so it shows up in the /data).

After your, 'CTRL+A' and right click properties how long did you wait to get your value?
Go away for 5mins leaving it running and you will probably find it has changed sum what, you find it does stick for 30secs or so at times.

I had to switch my Nexus off then back on before the storage space updated when id deleted a few things.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk 2

I don;t supposed you know what the free space was reported as when you first got your nexus 7 ? If there is something hinky, then it may have been misreporting fr omthe get go.
All I suggest is backup everything you want to keep and then factory reset your Android. Run through config and see what it reports used and free as. If it's still wrong, then return your tablet.
Oh - are you using a custom rom? If so, that could be the cause.
---------- Post added at 10:43 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:41 AM ----------
Dazzh82 said:
I had to switch my Nexus off then back on before the storage space updated when id deleted a few things.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk 2
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Click to collapse
Yeah thats because the MediaStorage (or MediaStore or something like that) service / task takes a while to update sometimes. Waiting normally results in an update, but a reboot will always do the trick.

MTP is pretty buggy. It doesn't show every file or folder that's currently on the device through Windows Explorer. Hoping Google will acknowledge and fix it soon, or even better - bring back USB Mass Storage.

you will also find that windows does not indicate the free space on a drive gained by deleting files until the recycle bin has been emptied, this is because the files arent cleared from the drive until you do this. did you empty the bin before checking the free space?

MTP is buggy.
I recommend downloading ES File Explorer and add ur desktop to local server, and send the files through the network.
also, ESFE has an SD card analyst that can check what's using up ur space.

If you are rooted and have made any Clockworkmod backups, they take up a healthy amount of storage

Dazzh82 said:
I had to switch my Nexus off then back on before the storage space updated when id deleted a few things.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk 2
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uberNoobZA said:
Yeah thats because the MediaStorage (or MediaStore or something like that) service / task takes a while to update sometimes. Waiting normally results in an update, but a reboot will always do the trick.
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Click to collapse
Rebooted my tablet and it now says about 9GB of free space.
Thanks

micks_address said:
did you download the transformers movie? that uses up about 2gb... to delete i had to go into play movies app, manage space and delete from there
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Click to collapse
are you sure the movie is downloaded to the tablet or streaming off gplay?

I have similar problem
Printerscape said:
Rebooted my tablet and it now says about 9GB of free space.
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Deleted movies do not release space, until a reboot. Is there any method to make it release space without a reboot? Now it makes the use very inconvenient. Thanks.

Can I delete SDCARD(0)?

In the SDcard folder, there's another that says sdcard(0). It seems to have duplicate files of what's in the other. I found this when my space was real low but I don't even have much and its a 16gb. I am the only user on this as well.

Sorry, the folder is just named 0 inside of sdcard.

The short answer is no..you must be on 4.2...
This is the new folder system for the multi-user functionality in JellyBean.
If i understand it correctly, it is an emulated location, not a physical copy...not actually a duplicate. If i were to use Windows terminology, I would call them shortcuts...but that is an oversimplification.
You can search and read up further if you like. Don't delete, and you don't have duplicate files taking up space (storage)
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app

tbonezx11 said:
The short answer is no..you must be on 4.2...
This is the new folder system for the multi-user functionality in JellyBean.
If i understand it correctly, it is an emulated location, not a physical copy...not actually a duplicate. If i were to use Windows terminology, I would call them shortcuts...but that is an oversimplification.
You can search and read up further if you like. Don't delete, and you don't have duplicate files taking up space (storage)
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Last night I deleted it and turns out, it was fine. Every app works fine and now I have like 9gb free. I wouldn't recommend this to anybody to do, but I think I chose the wrong option when switching roms and it kept all of my old files. Like I said, they were the same files that I had at the root of the sdcard. They were all duplicates so I had two sets of my picassa photo albums. Two sets of backups of my apps etc... So while it worked for me, if anybody reads this in the future, it probably doesn't apply to you.

Reboot your N7 and see of the sdcard0 comes back again
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda premium

Can someone explain

Downloaded a couple of large size games to my s4 batman modern combat etc I have moved them all to my SD card when clicking on move to SD card in application manager. However the storage in file manager still shows that the bulk of the games are stored on the devices memory
The android folder in file manager shows where all my space is being used is there no way around this as the play store won't let me download any more games
Thanks in advance for your replies
Sent from my GT-I9505 using xda app-developers app

bash156 said:
Downloaded a couple of large size games to my s4 batman modern combat etc I have moved them all to my SD card when clicking on move to SD card in application manager. However the storage in file manager still shows that the bulk of the games are stored on the devices memory
The android folder in file manager shows where all my space is being used is there no way around this as the play store won't let me download any more games
Thanks in advance for your replies
Sent from my GT-I9505 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
App to sd card features moves only app not the app data
And incase u wanna increase intertal phone space u can root and use app folder mount that will do the thing
Hope this helps
Sent from my HTC One using xda premium

[Q] If i have apps on SD card, can I switch to a new SD by just copying and pasting?

If i have apps on SD card by apps2SD on the SGS4, can I switch to a new SD by just copying and pasting them over, or do I have to move it all back to the "device storage"?
Thanks

Drag and drop, copy paste, cut an paste... You know... The normal ways of getting things from one storage medium to another.
Yes you can. Transfer all your stuff right over.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

graydiggy said:
Drag and drop, copy paste, cut an paste... You know... The normal ways of getting things from one storage medium to another.
Yes you can. Transfer all your stuff right over.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
im using the built in function on my phone to do it via applications manager.
Doesn't that put it in an .android_secure folder that can't be seen when plugging in via USB to computer to copy and paste from?