Cleaning out my SD Card, any suggestions? - Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hey all,
So over the years, I've copied all of my data from phone to phone to my SD Card, mostly to save pictures and videos, but sometimes to also save phone backups and stuff. At this point, I have Gigs of stuff I can get rid of, but I don't want to frak anythign up. Anyone got any suggestions, or is my proposed try the best one?
Here's what I plan to do:
1. Do a backup of my apps and settings like I would do in Titanum Backup.
2. Copy the app backups and any pics/videos I want to a safe place.
3. Reformat SDCard
4. Restore pics and app backup.
Is there something better for this, or something that runs inside of the OS, like an app from the Market, or is this probably the best solution? I obviously don't want to hose any of my apps, but I need to clean up this card.
THanks,
Mike

this is good. everything will work fine.
some applications have their data in sd card. don't know whether TB will backup them or not.

RavinduSha said:
this is good. everything will work fine.
some applications have their data in sd card. don't know whether TB will backup them or not.
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Cool, thanks for the tip, just didn't want someone to point out something that I would have missed that would end up hosing my phone.

Related

[Q] Sd Card Almost Maxed Out

So, I was looking at my SD Card info through settings and I only have 2.43gb free. I only have 7 songs, not many photos, videos or anything else. I went through my SD and cleaned it up, but nothing changed.
I am running SC 2.5v no theme, and nothing really on my SD card for roms, themes or anything like that. I know this is a stretch, but what could be taking so much memory on the SD. I don't have titanium, i have cleaned my back ups and don't back up my apps... I know. Crazy. Anyone have any ideas. I know you don't know what is on my SD but, anyone have this issue as well?
gotsflat4love said:
So, I was looking at my SD Card info through settings and I only have 2.43gb free. I only have 7 songs, not many photos, videos or anything else. I went through my SD and cleaned it up, but nothing changed.
I am running SC 2.5v no theme, and nothing really on my SD card for roms, themes or anything like that. I know this is a stretch, but what could be taking so much memory on the SD. I don't have titanium, i have cleaned my back ups and don't back up my apps... I know. Crazy. Anyone have any ideas. I know you don't know what is on my SD but, anyone have this issue as well?
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Did you partition your sd card?
Sent From My CM 7 Nightly #7 (Mixer theme) Monster Evo.
No. Should I? I have never ran across anyone doing that on a Fascinate...
gotsflat4love said:
No. Should I? I have never ran across anyone doing that on a Fascinate...
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Click to collapse
That could probably explain why.
Sent From My CM 7 Nightly #7 (Mixer theme) Monster Evo.
Mount the SD card on your computer and then select all the files in explorer (turn on show system files and hidden files first!), and check their total size (size and size on disk). If the size on disk for all the files is far lower than the amount reported as being used for the volume, something odd is probably up.
If the 'size on disk' is actually about the same as the amount of used space on the volume, you can then start checking the folders/files to see what's taking up the space.
@Jason Black: Why'd you want to repartition it? Or did you mean reformat it?
Another thing you could do is look for hidden files on windows when u open up removable drive then on the upper the upper left hand side hit tools then view then scroll down and hit the bubble that says show hidden files and see if thats what's taking up space
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA App
KitsuneKnight said:
Mount the SD card on your computer and then select all the files in explorer (turn on show system files and hidden files first!), and check their total size (size and size on disk). If the size on disk for all the files is far lower than the amount reported as being used for the volume, something odd is probably up.
If the 'size on disk' is actually about the same as the amount of used space on the volume, you can then start checking the folders/files to see what's taking up the space.
@Jason Black: Why'd you want to repartition it? Or did you mean reformat it?
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Non of that. I was simply asking of the sd card was partitioned.
Sent From My CM 7 Nightly #7 (Mixer theme) Monster Evo.
Do you use ROM Manager, or have you used it? Also, do you have/use Titanium backup to create backups or have you done any nandroid backups in CWM? Also, if you download things on your phone, that would be another thing to check and clear out.
imnuts said:
Do you use ROM Manager, or have you used it? Also, do you have/use Titanium backup to create backups or have you done any nandroid backups in CWM? Also, if you download things on your phone, that would be another thing to check and clear out.
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This
Sent from my SCH-I500 using Tapatalk
imnuts said:
Do you use ROM Manager, or have you used it? Also, do you have/use Titanium backup to create backups or have you done any nandroid backups in CWM? Also, if you download things on your phone, that would be another thing to check and clear out.
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Click to collapse
Yeah you can try clearing download cache in rom manager and also, those nanbackups take up a good amount of space if you have a lot of apps and data. I also have 2.40g left. Thats a lot of space unless you are downloading movies lol.
Sent From My CM 7 Nightly #7 (Mixer theme) Monster Evo.
I recently had that issue and went through my sd card and deleted unnecessary files. Old Roms such as superclean 2.1-2.3 I found in multiple places each taking up about 150MB. The main culprit was the nandroid backups. I had 4 backups each took up about a gig. They were in the clockwork mod folder. Im now limiting myself to 1 backup at a time.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA App
I had a lot of lost space on my card a while back. I suspect from removing the card/inserting the card while still mounted and losing clusters.
I simply put the card in my PC. Backed it up to my hard disk (hidden files and all). Formatted the card. Copied the files back. This restored the lost space. (and gave me a backup too which is handy)
Thanks everyone for the replies. I only have 3 nandroid back ups so far. I have rom manager, but the one adrynalyne posted with fix permissions. I have titanium, but dont use it.
I will mount my SD card to my comp and take a look at it. See if I can find hidden files.
Ok. I figures it out. I use a PC for rooting purpose stuff, but put a bunch of files on my SD card from a mac. Well I found out that when you delete files on your sd card from a mac.
It creats a hidden folder call .trash where it stores everything you delete. I used stock "My Files" hit menu when open, click more, setting then select show hidden files. You can delete all .trash or whatever .(folder) there. That is the hidden files mac create.
I hope this can help someone. Once i deleted those folders, I wernt from 1.8gb to 12.58 gb.
gotsflat4love said:
Ok. I figures it out. I use a PC for rooting purpose stuff, but put a bunch of files on my SD card from a mac. Well I found out that when you delete files on your sd card from a mac.
It creats a hidden folder call .trash where it stores everything you delete. I used stock "My Files" hit menu when open, click more, setting then select show hidden files. You can delete all .trash or whatever .(folder) there. That is the hidden files mac create.
I hope this can help someone. Once i deleted those folders, I wernt from 1.8gb to 12.58 gb.
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Click to collapse
Macs also create other dot files when coping data, including a dot file for every file you copy over (it's to store the file's metadata... that's really not useful), as well as some others. Some poster around here has a link in his sig with a 'guide' on disabling those things...
In my /sdcard/clockworkmod/backup folder i have 9 backups. I'm guessing I might want to keep the oldest one in case it has a backup of my stock phone (I'm rooted now) and the latest one. The rest can be deleted, right?
Zacisblack said:
I recently had that issue and went through my sd card and deleted unnecessary files. Old Roms such as superclean 2.1-2.3 I found in multiple places each taking up about 150MB. The main culprit was the nandroid backups. I had 4 backups each took up about a gig. They were in the clockwork mod folder. Im now limiting myself to 1 backup at a time.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA App
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eibbed0001 said:
In my /sdcard/clockworkmod/backup folder i have 9 backups. I'm guessing I might want to keep the oldest one in case it has a backup of my stock phone (I'm rooted now) and the latest one. The rest can be deleted, right?
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TBH I haven't made a back-up since december 2010 and have deleted all mine long ago. With odin/TiBkup I find it to be an error free process. Restores always seem to have their own issues so I just gave up on them. But yes you can delete all older ones and keep the most current.
good day.
^^ same here. Haven't done a nandroid since November. Nandroid backups are a pain. It only takes like 10 minutes to get all your settings back the way you want them after a good ol' clean odin. Plus titanium backup, of course
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA Premium App
Agreed. Delete all your old backups. I had about 10 on mine at one pint. They eat about 1gb each
I've been KANGBANGED!!!!!
I've done a Nandroid restore a couple of times now and it went smoothly. A couple of cache and Dcache clears before, wipe data, clear caches again, install ROM, clear caches a couple of times, boot to make sure the ROM functions, then recovery, cache clearing, then advanced restore and restoring just data works for me. I used to use TiBu to restore everything but this has been working out fine, although I'd heard some people had problems with it. Although now that I think about it, I've only done this when re-flashing the same ROM as before. Maybe with different ROMS some things don't play nicely.
Still, I don't need 9 backups just sitting there taking up space, so thanks for the go ahead on deleting them. And I still do TiBu and MyBu backups because I've found you can never have too many resources when things go bad!

Best way to update custom ROM to later/different version without losing apps?

I installed TNT on my tablet with no problem. How do I update the ROM in the future without losing my data files/apps? I believe Titanium will backup the apps but what about data?
I assume any data on the SD card would be fine or does the SD need to be wiped before a new ROM install?
Thank you!
Titanium backs up Apps and data. I highly recommend it. Anything on a removable SD card (SDCARD2) would be fine. The internal storage (SDCARD) should be backed up in case you have trouble and need to repartition.
Do NOT restore system data however. It leads to bad things
thebadfrog said:
Do NOT restore system data however. It leads to bad things
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Yeah... what he said! Thanks, BadFrog. I always forget that part...

Cleaning up microSD card after restoring apps from TitaniumBackup

Hi guys,
I'd like to restore my apps and data from my current EVO using Titanium Backup (and probably MyBackup for text messages).
I'd like to clean up the card after I have restored what I want. The card has accumulated so much junk that I want to start fresh.
Do you guys have a best practice for doing this? I haven't seen a question/answer that specifically addresses this.
Thanks!
(I promise to make funnies in the future. )
Do you mean you want to get rid of all the backups that you have made with TB? If so just delete the TitaniumBackup folder on your sdcard.
maxdamage2122 said:
Do you mean you want to get rid of all the backups that you have made with TB? If so just delete the TitaniumBackup folder on your sdcard.
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I want to clean the card completely after I backup all the obvious things like pictures and videos. I want to wipe the entire card clean or remove everything that is just garbage. I'm not sure where TB stores the app data.
I can't help you and I expect you to get a satisfactory answer.
once you remove your card from your old evo. delete everything that you dont want. might want to keep Music and DCIM and the TitaniumBackup folder. everything else should be deleted. then restore.
the only excepting that is keeping any external downloads like Gameloft. besides the Evo LTE uses its own internal SD card first before ours, so most of the folders you have will not be used
after you back up your data from the card. Put it in your Evo 4g lte, settings, Storage..unmount the card..then the earse card will be highlighted..select..done

Apps in Titanium have disappeared

Installed Titanium and Pro version yesterday morning and had no issues. Froze a few apps that I didn't use, nothing out of the norm. Installed an SD card, 16gb, it was blank and recently formatted. Last night, I noticed that when I open Titanium and press Batch or Backup/Restore, everything is blank, there are no apps there. If I go into menu and refresh apps, it says there are 233 apps loaded, but I can't see them. If I uninstall Titanium and reinstall it, I can see the apps for about 15 minutes, then they disappear again. Any ideas?
dspcap said:
Installed Titanium and Pro version yesterday morning and had no issues. Froze a few apps that I didn't use, nothing out of the norm. Installed an SD card, 16gb, it was blank and recently formatted. Last night, I noticed that when I open Titanium and press Batch or Backup/Restore, everything is blank, there are no apps there. If I go into menu and refresh apps, it says there are 233 apps loaded, but I can't see them. If I uninstall Titanium and reinstall it, I can see the apps for about 15 minutes, then they disappear again. Any ideas?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't have anything specific, but:
1. Did you reset your backup directory when you put the new SD card in?
2. Is your SD Card still write enabled. TiBu gave me some problems before I enable apps to write to the SD card. TiBU has been solid for me.
When I first set up my LG G3 I tried copying over the Titanium Backup data from my previous phone and restore some programs and program data that way but I also ran into problems with not all of the programs and data showing up. I don't know if it could be fixed. After it didn't work I purchased Helium Backup and it has worked very well to transfer apps and/or app data from my previous phone via Dropbox to the new phone.
s.whiplash said:
I don't have anything specific, but:
1. Did you reset your backup directory when you put the new SD card in?
2. Is your SD Card still write enabled. TiBu gave me some problems before I enable apps to write to the SD card. TiBU has been solid for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am not sure how to reset my backup directory, can you please explain that? My SD card is still write enabled, I took a picture and it did write it to the SD card.
Thank you for responding.
rcchusid said:
When I first set up my LG G3 I tried copying over the Titanium Backup data from my previous phone and restore some programs and program data that way but I also ran into problems with not all of the programs and data showing up. I don't know if it could be fixed. After it didn't work I purchased Helium Backup and it has worked very well to transfer apps and/or app data from my previous phone via Dropbox to the new phone.
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Thanks for responding. I actually have not even tried restoring my apps yet, I am just getting root setup and noticed this problem.
dspcap said:
I am not sure how to reset my backup directory, can you please explain that? My SD card is still write enabled, I took a picture and it did write it to the SD card.
Thank you for responding.
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Click to collapse
I was referring to the backup folder location. It sounded like you may have swapped the SD card and was thinking that it may be pointing to a location on the old card that isn't on the new card.
dspcap said:
I am not sure how to reset my backup directory, can you please explain that? My SD card is still write enabled, I took a picture and it did write it to the SD card.
Thank you for responding.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
in TIBU settings, preferences,backup folder location detect, whole device and it should find everything
Set the back up directory to where ever you copied your data by:
Menu-Preferences-Backup Folder Location
I did that when setting up mine and did have problems. Some apps worked fine and others didn't. I wonder if it has anything to do with apps which installed from the play store before I tried a restore with Titanium Backup. I tried a couple of times to recopy the data to the LG G3 and set the backup directory and when I still had problems went to Helium. Maybe I could have gotten to work if I hadn't given up relatively quickly.
Titanium Backup has been working well for backing up programs after setting up the LG G3. The only problem I'm having is that there is a program which I prefer an older version of to the current version. I keep detaching the program from the market with Titanium Backup but every couple of days the link gets reestablished and I'm prompted to update the program.
neckbonest said:
in TIBU settings, preferences,backup folder location detect, whole device and it should find everything
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It's saying nothing is detected, but now everything is showing up again. It's very odd. Thanks, hopefully that fixed it.

Will repartitioning SD mess up files?

I partitioned my SD card a while back, so that I could use Link2SDcard and as t turns out, I did not allocate enough space for app data. I'm wondering if I copy all my files to my PC, and restore them after partitioning again, will all the files link back up with Link2SDcard alright, or will the app not be able to find them anymore/ files not work anymore? Also, do I have to make sure I rename my partions the same as they were before?
I'm a bit nervous about this since I got a lot of app data I would rather not lose
flamingsword1 said:
I partitioned my SD card a while back, so that I could use Link2SDcard and as t turns out, I did not allocate enough space. I'm wondering if I copy all my files to my PC, and restore them after partitioning again, will all the files link back up with Link2SDcard alright, or will the app not be able to find them anymore/ files not work anymore? Also, do I have to make sure I rename my partions the same as they were before?
I'm a bit nervous about this since I got a lot of app data I would rather not lose
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Click to collapse
When in doubt, take no chances. Since it's app data we're talking about, if the app data is protected, and if you have enough space on your computer, carefully use a tool to "make an image" of the SDcard, since it'll copy the entire card, including files that are not registered under normal circumstances. On linux, something like dd or even ddrescue will work for this purpose. I'm not 100% sure that'd work in all cases, but it's certainly a safe option if you have a pesky app. I would recommend this for more than just your phone/tablet, too, whenever sensitive data is involved.
Disclaimer: I'd love to get to the point you're at. I have yet to root my device.

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