[Q] Where'd all my space go, again? - Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Greetings.
I've had the pleasure to deal with many android devices, ranging from the very first EVO 4G to a rooted nook and KFire, galaxy tab, and my current GAlaxy S4. Nonetheless I've noted a pattern that hopefully one or several of you can help with...
I usually have SD cards that are larger than the native storage of most of my devices however.... I always run out of room for apps. I wouldn't say I install everything I See but I do install apps I need for work (medical apps) which for the most part don't exactly take much space but some are known to take 300-1Gb at most. Anyway, my devices always seem to fill the native storage while the SD Card remains fairly unused. Here is an example of my phone.
So my main gripe/issue is: My SD cards are always fairly empty and only have contents I've actively copied over to them from my desktop or notebook. I am under the impression that most programs do not install the data to SD Card and use the native storage instead. Is there anyway this can change? Any tips to get more space (besides backing up pictures and deleting those, 700+ mb!).
Thank you in advance!

good question.
theartofbone said:
Greetings.
I've had the pleasure to deal with many android devices, ranging from the very first EVO 4G to a rooted nook and KFire, galaxy tab, and my current GAlaxy S4. Nonetheless I've noted a pattern that hopefully one or several of you can help with...
I usually have SD cards that are larger than the native storage of most of my devices however.... I always run out of room for apps. I wouldn't say I install everything I See but I do install apps I need for work (medical apps) which for the most part don't exactly take much space but some are known to take 300-1Gb at most. Anyway, my devices always seem to fill the native storage while the SD Card remains fairly unused. Here is an example of my phone.
So my main gripe/issue is: My SD cards are always fairly empty and only have contents I've actively copied over to them from my desktop or notebook. I am under the impression that most programs do not install the data to SD Card and use the native storage instead. Is there anyway this can change? Any tips to get more space (besides backing up pictures and deleting those, 700+ mb!).
Thank you in advance!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am in agreement with you, as I have progressed thru numerous phones too. After going the route of the first moto linux phone and then jumping aboard the Android system when the first G1 came out from HTC and have always had similiar problems.
There original solution was special purpose apps that would allow you to backup your apps to SD card, then other apps came along to allow you to actually run apps from SD Card but seems that not all apps can actually be accessed from SD card. I havent kept up with it all like I first did and have become rather lazy and carefree or even sloppy with how I maintain my devices files and apps organized. Much now to an overwhelming large mess of old devices and storage media not to mention profiles tied to email google accounts. Its difficult to even start over as every device wants to have a profile to sync to. It could entirely be possible to top out the memory on a brand new device after snyc to one or two profiles.
Also it seems for the average consumer that has a unrooted device it is impossible to thoroughly clean or interrogate the internal device memory . seems like the revisions of the android operating system makes file management of internal memory even more difficult to manage.
I didnt want to get too carried away but I totally feel frustrated as you do, sorry I dont have a solid technical answer to resolve your problem. I am asked all the time to fix my girlfriends tablet and I cant explain it to her where all her memory has disapeared to after a few factory resets. Doesnt seem to matter, if you load alot of apps to just give them a spin for a test ride. Even if you delete or move them to store on sd card . It seems alot of junk files still seem to reside in the internal storage and eventually will eat away at the memory until it gets to the point of inoperability. App managers can make the situatin worse by creating even more orphaned files and junk too. All this stuff is not accessible to view and review and manage.
The only answer is to have a rooted device and the expertise to properly manage this inaccessible memory?
Is there a decent file management that a nonpower consumer can rely upon?

Related

using the external microSD card

This is my first tablet and I'm new to Android (always had Windows Mobile phones) so maybe this is common knowledge to Android users but I sure as hell can't find the answer via searching.
I finally bought a microSD card for my Prime but can't figure out how to use it efficiently. I can access it an copy files and folders to it via the File Manager so I know it works. However, I can't figure out how to make the camera save pictures and videos to it by default. After looking at that for a while I looked at my other apps and none of my programs seem to have an option to make use of the microSD card. Took me a while to figure out I can't even install programs to the SD card like I can with my Windows Mobile phone. I can deal with that last part though with 32 gigs on the internal card but if the only way to use the microSD card is to manually copy files over to it where those files are then inaccessible for all the apps so I have to manually copy them back over every time I need to use them, that's not acceptable.
What am I missing here? I can't believe this was intentionally designed this way. Is there some global setting that I'm missing to open things up?
I think most use the external card for music & vids and such that they carry over TO the tablet. I also noticed you cannot set apps to save there and I have an app that monitors apps when they install. & if they are SD compatible it alerts you.... it never works in this setup. No doubt you could - if rooted - move apps to SD card as I do this on my Droid all the time.
As for camera & vids no way to set SD as default.
Unless there been a change since honeycomb saving and running apps to sd is not native. Most people state that due to all the space the device comes with you don't need it since apk are so small. But I had 4 games take up 4.5 gb of space on my device so that rational does not float.
If you ever root your device there is app called gl to sd
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1328053
worked great on honycomb (waiting till i get home to use new root so have not tried on ICS yet) I moved all my games to SD and they ran fine .. games like shadow Gun GTA III DeadSpace Backstab 9mm.
Just my two cents if there is way for using the sd card natively in ICS I also wold love to know.
On my measly 512mb OG Droid I have 110 apps on the SD card. Ahhhh thank God root.
For this 32gb beast I decided to forgo SD card apps as it does slow the app down (has to r/w from slower card) and Widgets can bust.
It is lame though that we cannot set cameras & vids to auto save but again you'd get a performance hit to a small degree.
The situation was worse before Honeycomb, in Gingerbread you could have a 16GB phone but the way it was partitioned only 1GB to 2GB was considered "internal memory" for app installation space/data while the rest was partitioned into a virtual "sdcard" folder that you needed things like App2SD to move over to that parition space (and not even fully, portions of app/data/cache would stay in the internal memory space). With HoneyComb/ICS the full 32GB or 64GB storage space is visible and useable between the internal/sdcard mounts. I got the 64GB Prime so I wouldn't have to worry about app install space any more since I like to load hundreds of apps/games. I also have a 64GB microSDHC card which I use to store a bunch of videos/music.
Thanks for the reply guys. Surprised that Android is built to limit itself like that. Really though, 32 gigs is a lot of space for the apps themselves. If it was just a matter of having to install the apps on the internal card, I wouldn't even bother cause I know with my use I'd never approach the limit if that was the only limitation.
However, not being able to save data used by the apps to external SD card is an issue as I see it. Will probably get around to rooting my Prime just so I can move some of the apps to the external SD card so they'll, hopefully, save and use the data there to keep my internal card free. I have a few aviation chart based apps that will be taking up quite a bit of space. I don't think it will max it out on their own but I like having plenty of extra space.
Not being able to save the video and pics from the camera directly to the external card is a bit ridiculous though. Perhaps a developer can fix that? In the mean time, I've thought of a work around that, while not perfect, will work for me I think in regards to keeping the camera videos and pics from clogging up my internal drive. I've installed an app called SyncMe that syncs via wifi network to my computer. I'll set it automatically to move all the camera data from my internal card to my computer and then I'll have another event that syncs the files on my computer to my tablet external SD card. The effect will be a daily transfer of all my camera activity to my external SD card while also making them available on my computer until I have time to sort through them.
Yea, once you play around with it a bit you'll find what works best for you. Some apps wont install on the external sd card and a lot of apps behave better when install on internal memory. Apps to SD is great for some but not all apps. Now separating the data from the apps that are internal to the external ? I'm not sure how well that will work.
Oh wait. I just re-read what you wrote. Yes - you can save the data to the external sd card and you will want to. There are lots of apps that do that, our Primes came with a backup app that will allow you to select apps to backup and/or apps with data. Sometimes you only want to restore apps and not data.
Your work around for storing pictures and video to external sd sounds like it will work well. 32gb is a lot of space. It's also really easy to use the File Manager to copy them over. I can't speak for everyone, but I'm guessing a lot of us here, especially if we rooted our phones, have grown accustom to setting schedules for apps to backup or data and for me - that includes things like pictures. Some of these backups will sync to a cloud so the data/pictures are safe and wont get lost. With 32gb I'm not concerned about space.
I wasn't really concerned about space that much until I recorded some video of my son's basketball game. Just over 6 min and the video was well over 800mb.
I could see that adding up real quick if I didn't stay on top of it and I know I won't without some 'auto' help. Got concerned that I might clog up my internal card with personal stuff that would inhibit my work stuff, which is what this is was for in the first place.
Haven't looked at the backup utility yet but every other app I've tried, I can't see a selectable option for getting choosing where to save and access data. Well, except for the SyncMe and File Manager I already mentioned. Oh, and I noticed that the gallery can see the photos and videos I moved to the external card so that's good.
Well, I found another reason to not like the microSD card option but this time, it's directly related to the Prime rather than a generic Android problem.
Took my prime out for work. First full day with hotel stay since buying the microSD card. By the time I get back to the hotel to settle in for the night, I notice the microSD card is missing. WTH!!!
Now, there wasn't anything on it that I don't have on the computer at home BUT, that card wasn't cheap. If it comes out of that slot so easy as to be gone after my first full day away from home with the Prime, I can't trust it at all.
First question, is there an easily accecible log file that would show when the card was unmounted? If so, that might narrow down where to look for it. Might actually be able to find it if I know when it came out.
Second question, does anyone know if the SD card slot on the dock is more secure? I would really like more space but I'm not paying for another microSD card.
To answer one of your questions, the dock SD card is much more secure, it does not stick out of the dock at all unlike the Micro SD in the tablet
Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using Tapatalk
I would definitely recommend you have at least a sleeve for your Prime. That will help with the microSD not popping out, too. I have been carrying mine with me for weeks and haven't had mine pop out at all. No, I'm not aware of a way to find out when it was unmounted.
And yes - the dock has a SD card reader, so it's bigger and it will insert flush as opposed to sticking out a little due to the beveled design of the sides of the Prime. And with the usb port......well it's limitless really - maybe not to carry for every outing, but at home it's so easy to contect to the external hard drive and transfer movies and pictures that way. I really like the dock. Also, the prices of microSD cards have come waaaaay down. Sandisk, class 6, 16gb, $20.
"Haven't looked at the backup utility yet but every other app I've tried, I can't see a selectable option for getting choosing where to save and access data. Well, except for the SyncMe and File Manager I already mentioned. Oh, and I noticed that the gallery can see the photos and videos I moved to the external card so that's good."
The built in app backup does save your data to either or both places. This is data from your apps. Not things like downloads or pictures. It saves your apps too but you don't really have to do that since as soon as you sign into the market your apps are there. I have 2 other 3rd party apps that do the same thing with more features (schedules, bookmarks, etc)
Yep - the gallery and video player are going to find the pictures and videos/movies that you put on the removable sd card. The built in media player lets you tell it where to look for movies/videos. There really is plenty of room in the 32gb for most of your needs. Unless you root and start storing multiple weekly nandroid backups, you'll likely only need to manage your files when you "want to" - i.e. when you want to transfer pictures and videos on and off the Prime and/or when you back the Prime up. I have a 16gb $20 sandisk class 6 microsd that I've loaded up with 10 movies, but now I only have 4 gb left. I have over 80 3rd party apps installed to internal, that combined with the apps that came with it amount to only about 5gb, (plus misc pictures, videos, several hundred books, etc) and I still have 22 gb left. So I'm moving more movies to internal. I didn't get a 32gb tablet to leave a bunch of dead air
I have a TON of pictures and videos in my gallery. TONS. Thousands. But I've been using an android phone for several years so I'm synced with Google and the Cloud. Every picture I take with my phone or tablet is stored in the Cloud, private, available only to me unless I choose to make it public. I can access them anywhere from any computer within seconds of taking them. So they don't take up any space at all on any of my devices. Neither does my music anymore
Yeah, the 32 gigs is good for my needs. Not for my wants. I justified buying this thing to carry aeronautical chart which takes up several gigabits of space. Quite a bit of space but not so much that it overwhelms the internal card. However, when using it for secondary tasks like an HD video recorder, that space get chewed up fast. MicroSD was my plan for stuff like that. Will have to rethink that now.
Was planning on getting a sleeve or a case once I had the tab and keyboard and could figure out exaclty what I wanted for it (just got the keyboard) but that card got lost way too easy. Not buying another one even with the sleeve/case.
Well, the card showed up. Well, more accurately, it was sitting in a convenient place for me to stumble across it this morning.
Lucky for me for now.

[Q] How do you handle your Atrix' storage?

Hey guys,
i think compared to my previous mobilephones the storage management of the atrix 4g is pretty confusing or i just didnt understand its behaviour.
how are you managing your files? i tried to safe all my music to my 16gb sd card, so i have had the internal storage left for all my apps and everything i needed additionally. but since some of those hd games (or other apps, camera apps for example) wont let you choose wether you want to safe those bytes to your internal storage or to the external one, this wont do anymore. well, i dont know, maybe im just stupid, but ive got the feeling im doing something wrong because i never really know where the files im looking for are. :silly:
im on epinters cm10 with the oc1300 kernel. btw, is there anybody playing nfs most wanted smoothly without hwa?
thanks for paying me attention
I was keeping the same layout. All the music on the external sdcard and all the other stuff on the internal. I moved all my music to Google Music now so now I only use the insternal sdcard.
ALl the apps should point to the internal sdcard/emmc as it is the default for our phone. Although this can be switches based on each rom.There are some hacks that you can do to have more usage in your external sdcard. Like App2sd.
Ever since first phones with huge internal storage ( >= 8 GB) came out, things with managing user storage started being complicated. Originally, Android phones had DATA storage (for apps) and USER storage (for pics, videos, music, documents, whatever). Phones with large storage brough in another user storage, so now we have DATA, PRIMARY and SECONDARY. The reason the two user storages are not treated equally is exactly because of the first phones - many apps were (and still are) made with the assumption there is only ONE storage. For those apps, the storage you select as PRIMARY will be their only storage. Other apps might be able to make use of both storages, but those are normally quite rare. Bottom line is, the way things are at the moment, it is ultimately up to you to manage your user storage(s), any way you prefer.
Another note: using your external storage as primary so as to leave the internal one for apps makes less sense than you'd think - unless we're talking about games and navigation apps and such, apps already have their dedicated storage (DATA).
ravilov said:
Ever since first phones with huge internal storage ( >= 8 GB) came out, things with managing user storage started being complicated. Originally, Android phones had DATA storage (for apps) and USER storage (for pics, videos, music, documents, whatever). Phones with large storage brough in another user storage, so now we have DATA, PRIMARY and SECONDARY. The reason the two user storages are not treated equally is exactly because of the first phones - many apps were (and still are) made with the assumption there is only ONE storage. For those apps, the storage you select as PRIMARY will be their only storage. Other apps might be able to make use of both storages, but those are normally quite rare. Bottom line is, the way things are at the moment, it is ultimately up to you to manage your user storage(s), any way you prefer.
Another note: using your external storage as primary so as to leave the internal one for apps makes less sense than you'd think - unless we're talking about games and navigation apps and such, apps already have their dedicated storage (DATA).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So the only way to solve my problem, to keep 16gb music at just one storage instead of having to split them into two folders+playing some fancy hd games, to buy another 32gb sd card? too bad
anyway, thanks for your requests, maybe this thread can help other confused people too :good:

[Q] Master "What can I delete" list?

Hey everyone. I have searched around and can't find an answer to this, so here goes;
I have a Verizon Galaxy S4 and while I love the phone and all the ROM's out for it, I HATE that due to it's limited 16GB internal memory, I am CONSTANTLY running out of space on the phone. I have moved everything I can to my SD card but still can't get it down. When I open my phone on my PC and look at the internal memory, I see a ton of folders that I don't know what the hell they are. I would love to just go through arbitrarily and delete them all but obviously that's not a great idea. Can anyone tell me and/or compile a list of files and folders that commonly end up on our phones from bloat and whatnot?
Here's a screenshot of what I see in mine, just as a for instance...
Do you have a lot of photos?
They would be in the DCIM folder
joshuabg said:
Do you have a lot of photos?
They would be in the DCIM folder
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the reply. There are a lot in there. Can I not move that folder to the SD card?
I only got the S4 last Saturday, and today UPS brought my 32G SD card. When I went to the camera app to see if there were any way to change the target location, a popup said (about), "You now have an SD card, so all single shots will now go there. Multi-shots will still go to the internal storage." There is indeed a setting for that though, Internal or SD. I plan to leave the DCIM folder on the Internal, but let it be empty
I Hate Import Cars said:
Hey everyone. I have searched around and can't find an answer to this, so here goes;
I have a Verizon Galaxy S4 and while I love the phone and all the ROM's out for it, I HATE that due to it's limited 16GB internal memory, I am CONSTANTLY running out of space on the phone. I have moved everything I can to my SD card but still can't get it down. When I open my phone on my PC and look at the internal memory, I see a ton of folders that I don't know what the hell they are. I would love to just go through arbitrarily and delete them all but obviously that's not a great idea. Can anyone tell me and/or compile a list of files and folders that commonly end up on our phones from bloat and whatnot?
Here's a screenshot of what I see in mine, just as a for instance...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You probably already know this...but here goes:
-By all means invest in an external sdcard. Use the sdcard to store all your pictures, video, music and any other documents you may be storing on your phone.
-There are two apps in the Play Store that enable you to "sort of" move apps to sdcard. Aparted will allow you to partition your sdcard. You create a partition that will be reserved for app data, cache and other "stuff". Link2SD is the app that will use that partition to "link" your apps to the data etc being stored on the sdcard partition. I saved about 1gb by using these two apps. This only works on your downloaded apps, not on system apps. Your apps will update and run as normal, but their associated data etc will be stored on the sdcard partition you create.
-Consider the type ROM you're running, if you have an option. Generally speaking, TW ROMs are more "heavy" than AOSP ROMS. You have to pick your poison. If you like and use all the unique features Samsung has put on the S4 (hand gestures, smart screen etc) then a AOSP ROM may not be what you want as your daily driver. Yes, it will use less resources in terms of RAM and internal storage, but some of those unique features that you like will not be available because most of the supporting firmware has been removed in an AOSP ROM. If you're forced to use SafeStrap to flash ROMs then your options are even fewer.
-There are a number of "safe to remove or freeze" list floating around on the web or in this forum. Like most things, one man's passion is another man's poison. Just because some guy says "xxxx.apk" is safe to remove or freeze doesn't mean it won't have an undesirable effect for you. Besides, you really don't save a lot of storage space by deleting most of those things. Unless it is truely "bloat" like NFL Football or Blockbuster I just freeze those things associated with functions or apps that I know I will never use. On a TW ROM that usually means most of the Samsung "stuff".
Hope this helps.
Remove Stuff
Removing all of the Samsung stuff that you dont use dose free up some space. Even with that I have found on the TW roms I can only hold 2 of them on my internal storage. Usually I have my Daily driver rom on there and any new roms that I want to try I just have to keep deleing those when I want to put a new one on.

How do you get around low memory?

I love the SGP611, except it's low memory. I was anxiously awaiting MM and then so disappointed when they didn't allow you to utilize SD card more. My daughters tablet is used for apps and its stores such a sorry amount of apps. Is there any way I can change the memory to SD card without rooting it? I don't want to brick my daughters tablet and I'm not sure I'm confident enough to root it, plus we couldn't afford a new tablet if something went wrong. Any advice would be appreciated.
dude just revent to KITKAT via FLASHTOOL.it still is the best OS in every single category included battery life..
kos25k said:
dude just revent to KITKAT via FLASHTOOL.it still is the best OS in every single category included battery life..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How does that help give it more memory/space?
SamraLee said:
How does that help give it more memory/space?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think you mean storage, not memory (two different things altogether)...that's why the other person recommended going back to 4.4. Pretty sure he was referring to better RAM management than 6.0.
Really, your best bet is to have her be mindful of what apps she actually uses. Most times there are games rarely ever opened hogging up storage.
Bandage said:
I think you mean storage, not memory (two different things altogether)...that's why the other person recommended going back to 4.4. Pretty sure he was referring to better RAM management than 6.0.
Really, your best bet is to have her be mindful of what apps she actually uses. Most times there are games rarely ever opened hogging up storage.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you, you are right I do mean storage. I wasn't aware of the different wording. All I really want is for my memory card to be able to have more on it. I wonder why Sony chose not to go with making external storage your main storage. Is there a way to force it to go to SD card without rooting?
oh sorry I had in nind that on kitkat you can transfer apps on sd.I saw it now and I can't.beside this,if you plan to root it,it worths cause in MM there is very high risk if you transfer apps to sd..
SamraLee said:
Thank you, you are right I do mean storage. I wasn't aware of the different wording. All I really want is for my memory card to be able to have more on it. I wonder why Sony chose not to go with making external storage your main storage. Is there a way to force it to go to SD card without rooting?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What you can do SAFELY, is go into your App settings and change what storage they use. Not every App has the ability to do this. Some games have this option, Pokemon Go being one of them. You can move the data stored on device internally to instead be stored on SD card. This can add up if several apps can do this.
Anyways, it's a thought.
Bandage said:
What you can do SAFELY, is go into your App settings and change what storage they use. Not every App has the ability to do this. Some games have this option, Pokemon Go being one of them. You can move the data stored on device internally to instead be stored on SD card. This can add up if several apps can do this.
Anyways, it's a thought.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, thank you. I have done this already. I appreciate your advice. Is there anything I can do that is less risky than rooting, and perhaps a little more novice friendly, but isn't 100% risk free? My daughter is only 4, but she loves having loads of different apps and rememebers ones I've deleted.
Here's a post I found that digs into the issue more. With some solves laid out in a tutorial. Sony seems to have disabled the feature in MM...this will enable it.
Adaptable Storage
You can also give the Sony suggested walk-through below a try...let us know if it helps.
You might also try using a lower capacity SD card...sometimes certain devices can be finicky with anything 32GB or over.
It looks like Sony devices have been mentioned in that regard.
Here's some tips for managing your available memory. Try these methods one after the other.
Open the notification by dragging the status bar downwards, then tap the notification. The storage menu opens.
Move files or apps to the memory card (SD card), if you have one inserted.
Move files to a computer (if you no longer need them on your device).
Delete files from the internal memory.
To move files from the device memory to the microSD card (if inserted):
Open Settings > Storage
Scroll down to the end of the menu and select Transfer data to SD card.
Select the items (photos, videos and music) you wish to move to the SD card.
Un-select a category if you see the information, that there is not enough memory on the SD card to transfer all files.
Select Transfer to start the transfer to the SD card.
To delete files from the device memory:
Open Settings > Storage > Internal Storage.
Tap a category to select what you want to delete from the device memory.
Depending on the category selected you have different options on how to proceed:
Apps: Selecting Apps will open the Apps menu. Here you can uninstall downloaded applications, if you do not need them anymore.
Pictures, videos: Selecting this option will open the Album application or Google Photos. In these applications you can delete pictures or videos to free device memory.
Audio: If you tap Audio you can see the audio tracks currently stored on your device memory. You can delete tracks using the File Commander or the Music / Walkman application.
Downloads: In this category you can see a list of all files you have downloaded to your Xperia™ phone or tablet. To delete a file just touch and hold it and then tap the trash bin icon in the top right corner.
Cached Data: Applications can aggregate quite huge amounts of cached data while working. If you select this category you can delete all cached data at once. This will not delete any personal data. Deleting the application cache from time to time is highly recommended to free device memory.
Misc.: In this category you can see files and folders which have been created manually on the device memory. To delete a file or folder just tick the checkbox in front of the file or folder name and tap the trash bin icon in the top row. Please be careful while deleting files and folders, as a deleted item cannot be recovered.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Bandage said:
Here's a post I found that digs into the issue more. With some solves laid out in a tutorial. Sony seems to have disabled the feature in MM...this will enable it.
Adaptable Storage
You can also give the Sony suggested walk-through below a try...let us know if it helps.
You might also try using a lower capacity SD card...sometimes certain devices can be finicky with anything 32GB or over.
It looks like Sony devices have been mentioned in that regard.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just bought a Z3c tablet and a 64GB SANDISK U3
90MB/S micro sd card, do you think I'll have issues?
Bandage said:
Here's a post I found that digs into the issue more. With some solves laid out in a tutorial. Sony seems to have disabled the feature in MM...this will enable it.
Adaptable Storage
You can also give the Sony suggested walk-through below a try...let us know if it helps.
You might also try using a lower capacity SD card...sometimes certain devices can be finicky with anything 32GB or over.
It looks like Sony devices have been mentioned in that regard.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Note that as of Marshmallow you can definitely move apps to the SD card, but only the ones that Sony hasn't bundled as part of the ROM. However, even doing so doesn't change the cached files that those apps use... For example, I had Hearthstone installed, and while I can "move" the app to the SD card, it still unpacks over 1GB of files to the internal storage, which sort of defeats the purpose. I have a 64 GB card, and as long as its Class 10 or above you shouldn't have any issues with not being able to write or use it for media files, etc
I ended up removing the game all together, and I can't remove enough of the bloatware to free up space.
When you're in the Storage screen as listed in the above guide, you also can't set the SD card as default.. the option to do so doesn't appear within Sony's ROM.
I would suggest that OP looks at the games she has, and removes the larger ones, keeping more of the smaller ones installed. Otherwise, unlocking the bootloader and flashing a custom ROM is the only other choice if you want to stick with that hardware and want to free up more room

Help accessing external storage

Hello all i have the tab s6 that i got primarily for photo editing using lightroom. Unfortunately it seems i cant access any form of external storage through lightroom in order to view pictures and then import them into lightroom to edit them. It seems that I first have to transfer the pictures into the internal storage of the tab, in my case 256gb, and only then i can see the pictures in lightroom prior to importing them. By doing this i would essentially end up with duplicate photos and then reducing the storage even further.
The only way i can access the external storage is via the files manager app installed. Is there any work around this? In ios i can see the pictures from the external storage through lightroom prior to import.
What Android version? Scoped storage is fully active in Android 11/12 and it's a mess.
Unless the app has special permissions like that file app, scoped storage will puke on them and limit their access. You may be able to do a adb edit work around, not sure as I refuse to deal with these OS versions.
Maybe try using a OTG flashstick as a work around.
Running Android 11 and no new update available. And lightroom app permission under files and media it says “allow access to media only” dont see other options
Any app that allows full access to external drives where i can see the full size picture thats stored?
adinis78 said:
Any app that allows full access to external drives where i can see the full size picture thats stored?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Lightroom developers need to modify it for it to work most likely. Not a trivial task.
Do some searches to see if you can modify this behavior with adb edits. Yeah, now even bloody iPhones are easier to use than Androids, thanks for nothing Gookill...
I would just download the whole file copy onto the PC. You need to back it up anyway...
Last thing i want is too root the tab and gave things go wrong. Havent rooted an Android device in years and always more of a hassle than what improvements where promised
adinis78 said:
Last thing i want is too root the tab and gave things go wrong. Havent rooted an Android device in years and always more of a hassle than what improvements where promised
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I prefer using stock. Adb editing is just modifying the user partition, a factory reset will undo the changes if you goof up.
If it came loaded with 11 you can't flash it back to 10 because of the boot loader version.
Try some Google searches ie something like "scoped storage workaround adb". Add xda to it to find threads about it here. Maybe Package Disabler could help but I doubt it as scoped store is a core feature.
There's a lot of pissed off Android users right about now... you're not alone.
Share your wuv and give Google some feedback.
I have to N10+'s, one is running on Pie, the newest on Q. Both behave almost identically, however Samsung added dozens of small system apks to do that... Samsung went to a lot of trouble to do that.
You confirmed my fear Samsung couldn't or wouldn't be able to do the same with the models running on R and above.
The culprit is Google not Samsung.
It's the game that moves as you play it.
Something so simple that they are alienating photographers and are forcing them into ios, maybe I should have gotten an ipad pro
adinis78 said:
Something so simple that they are alienating photographers and are forcing them into ios, maybe I should have gotten an ipad pro
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Click to collapse
There are work arounds but you shouldn't need to do this. At this point Android is more iPhone than Android... a tard wannabe iPhone that is.
Return if you still can.
If you get a Samsung running on P or Q it will function normally and still have sufficient security.
Be wary of buying devices as they may list P or Q as the loaded OS when in fact they've been updated or factory loaded (depending on manufacturered date) with R.
Tried to look into the scoped storage but seems to be too much of a hassle and not really working possibly depending on what you need. There doesnt seem to be a definitive answer to my particular issue in regards to having lightroom (adobe) have access to external storage. I might just have to bite the bullet and get a 1tb microsd card although thats a huge expense.
On another note, Adobe should make it a requirement to have access to external storage, its possible in IOS and windows and tell google to allow it.
Test a small sd card first to make sure it works as you want with scoped storage.
Get a V30 rated card, Sandisk Extreme works well.
Take a look at this thread.
blackhawk said:
Take a look at this thread.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks but not really what i am looking for. Will test out and old microsd card i have from an old android phone and see how that goes
So some positive news to report. Tried an old microsd card. As expected it automatically displays the photos in the photo app just like the built in storage. So tried to copy a picture that i had backed up in the external ssd, did this via the file manager app. Then the moment of truth, opened up Lightroom and i have access to the additional microsd card, the picture that i copied from the ssd along with all the other old photos showed up in lightroom. So, as much of an inconvenience this is, it seems that for my needs and workflow, i would need the extra microsd card.
So here would be my work flow after taking pictures
1-Backup all the pictures taken on a certain date into the Samsung T5 SSD.
2-Also copy all of the pictures into the extra microsd card (1tb)
3-Go through all the pictures on the microsd card using lightroom to decide which ones to edit and then import them into lightroom.
4-Do all my edits then save those edits into the built in storage, upload to Facebook, instagram, etc. then save those final edits into the Samsung T5 SSD.
5-Format the 1tb microsd and repeat the whole process when needed.
Extra steps but it seems this is the only way. Thanks Google
EDIT: after thinking about it I think a 512gb would be more than enough for my expected workdlow and would be a significant savings vs the 1tb
Yay This will be a better setup than you had.
I always build dual drive PCs; the OS, apps, DCIM folder and the temporary download folder go on internal memory.
All critical data goes on the data drive. This is then backed up redundantly to at least 2 hdds that are physically and electronically isolated from each other and the PC.
Do Not use DCIM in the name of photo folder on the SD card; there can only be one folder with that name.
I'm having the same problem with this scoop storage issue that Google has handed us My 1tb card is full of music that I can't access it worked fine on my Note 8 but it doesn't work hardly at all on my new Note 10 I can't even get a playlist to function right people have talked about editing Android manifest in Android studio Man that's so far above my ability but I wouldn't just format my card I know I bought the best one I could buy and I still have the problem and I've had my card for some time I hope someone comes up with a solution
alpastor said:
I'm having the same problem with this scoop storage issue that Google has handed us My 1tb card is full of music that I can't access it worked fine on my Note 8 but it doesn't work hardly at all on my new Note 10 I can't even get a playlist to function right people have talked about editing Android manifest in Android studio Man that's so far above my ability but I wouldn't just format my card I know I bought the best one I could buy and I still have the problem and I've had my card for some time I hope someone comes up with a solution
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Scoped storage is a mess. Back up the 1tb card's data at least twice on 2 different hdds, more backup is always better.
Or use a different SD card in the device.
With the test SD card format the card with the device (all data will be lost, etc, etc), then doing the data transfer through the phone load the data. See if that works.
Regardless it's best practice to leave the SD card in one device and not "share" it with other devices. Having other devices write to it can lead to card corruption.
Don't know if this will help or not. I'm still running on Android 9 and 10. Gookill sucks elephant balls bad now... no way I'll upgrade my N10+'s to 11 or 12, they're running too good as is.
Thank you for getting back with me I have a real hard time keep you track of stuff nowadays but I don't need the aggravation of this scoop storage stuff as it is I have to pay someone to root my phones anymore because I just can't do it.
I used to be fairly good at it but not anymore so dr.ketan is promising updates in April and unless the issue is addressed by him I'm going to go ahead and downgrade my Note 10 Plus to Android 9 or 10 wherever that point is I can avoid all this crap
I think I read on one of the posts that they didn't really see any speed difference between 9 and 12
I think 9 was what was on my phone when I bought it in December.
And it was my phone guy that brought it up to 12 and put on dr.ketan's ROM. But I am so used to backing up stuff to SD card that it's driving me nuts. And isn't that the idea of TWRP anyway to be able to back up to your SD card and restore if you screw things up? Anyway thank you again for getting back with me and if you hear of any news about a fix or patch that someone like me could put on to fix it other than having to have the skills of a developer let me know I appreciate it I'd even be willing to be a beta tester.
Take care Rick

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