[GUIDE] Android Storage Memory and How to Deal with Insufficient Storage Warnings

[Lynda Hager-Breneman]

I've tried all of the above and still nothing will save to my external SD card. What I use my tablet for mostly is, games, shopping apps like Amazon and Facebook. Since I play a lot of games, or would like to on my tablet am I just out of luck as far as being able to download them to my external SD card which is where I have the most storage? Also, if that is the case, what is the external MicroSD card used for? Thank you for your time. My tablet is a SS SC-72JB.
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[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! The external SD card is mostly beneficial for storage of media, like music, photos, and videos. Not all devices allow you to move apps to the SD card, and those that do only let you move a portion of the app, since a substantial part of the app has to remain in Internal Storage.

It is a common misconception that microSD support makes up for low onboard Internal Storage. Sorry!

 

[Etrain75]

I'm very disappointed to find out my Cubot s308 only has 1GB allocated to apps instead of all 16GB because of Android.

 

[B. Diddy]

Yes, that is disappointing. It also highlights the importance of researching a device before making the purchase. Older devices and cheaper off-brand devices will be more likely to use this obsolete partitioning system.

 

[rjean99]

Please describe how to "research". I did not find this forum thread in all my googling about the s308. None of the specs mentioned that 13gb of the advertised 16gb would be completely inaccessible and unusable. I emailed the company and they told me there must be a problem with "my" software. yeah... I am returning phone (fortunately bought through Amazon) and spending a bit more to get a REAL android phone. What a joke. I will be commenting on every positive review I can find telling people to not buy any cheap Chinese phone no matter how good it looks in the specs and reviews.

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! The first part of researching is looking at a guide like this one or my main introductory guide (http://forums.androidcentral.com/general-help-how/399060-guide-getting-started-android-2014-a.html) to understand how memory works. In the main guide, I make sure to bring this issue up very early on, in a basic "What phone is right for me?" section.

The key is to understand two things--(1) the OS takes up at least 2-3 GB of space, and (2) older or cheaper devices tend to use the obsolete partitioning method that really limits app storage.

There are other reasons to avoid those cheap off-brand direct-from-China devices, including poor build, buggy software, and lack of support.

 

[Coding Gents]

Wow, thanks. I often get 'Not enough space' when trying to install something. This will be useful info.

 

[lakhmara]

i have sufficient memory space in internal as well SD card.
but this message is coming while i am trying to download app. Please provide solution

 

[2rogue2b]

Thank you so much! Wanted an answer to what I thought was a simple question: "What should/shouldn't I move to an sd card?" You guys gave me the first good, simple answer after LOTS of looking!

Posted via Android Central App

 

[B. Diddy]

View attachment 150062
i have sufficient memory space in internal as well SD card.
but this message is coming while i am trying to download app. Please provide solution

Welcome to Android Central! What device do you have? Show us a screenshot of your Settings>Storage menu.

 

[Debbiesue49]

Thanks for the suggestion on the text messages. I am going to get rid of my Clean Master apps as suggested on another question I asked. I do have to ask this question though.

My pictures are stored on my external sd card, I can go into file manager and see the folder, open it and see all of the different titled albums etc. If that is the case then why does the gallery or the "pictures" take up almost 300 mb according to Clean Master on my internal storage? I am so confused.

 

[B. Diddy]

why does the gallery or the "pictures" take up almost 300 mb according to Clean Master on my internal storage? I am so confused.

It's probably referring to the thumbnails folder. The system needs to store thumbnails of photos and other images, and if there are enough, they can take up a decent amount of space. My thumbnails folder is about 700-800 MB in size. If you delete the folder, the system will just recreate it, so it's not worth fiddling with. The folder is /storage/sdcard0/DCIM/.thumbnails.

 

[Rajat Goel1]

what to do when ''move to internal sd'' is not shown
plzzzzzz.......... help.
plz....,

 

[bigsupersquid]

...Older Android phones (ones that came with Android versions up to and sometimes including 4.0) typically break up storage memory into 3 main partitions (i.e., areas):

1. Application Storage: Where Android installs apps. This can range from as little as 256 MB to 3 GB, depending on the phone. Lower end phones usually have less storage, and therefore can have fewer apps installed at one time....​

heh. my long-in-the-tooth Optimus V has a whopping 160Mib of 'internal' app storage.
also... Low Memory used to mean running out of RAM (which isn't even quantified here in this list,) but now Android is referring to nonvolatile storage as 'memory.'
I have about 480Mib of usable RAM on that Optimus V, it is a big limiter on how many things can run at once.
Without using a task-killer, Android has a bad habit of overrunning RAM to the point of reboots if you're using a legacy low-memory device with Android versions past Gingebread...

...
Starting with Android 4.0 (actually 3.0, but that was only for tablets), phones started to come with what we might call "unified storage," where there was no division between App Storage and Internal Storage--it became one big partition, which allowed you to utilize the entire available memory for app installation. The main drawback was that you could no longer plug the phone into your computer via USB cable and access it as "USB Mass Storage" (where it essentially acts as another drive). With the old system, even when the Internal Storage and External SD partitions were mounted by your computer as external drives, your phone could still function, because the crucial App Storage partition was not mounted (and therefore still accessible by your phone). However, trying to have the computer mount a unified partition would render the phone inoperable while plugged in via USB, because the whole partition would be unavailable to the phone, including all of its apps.

again, heh.
I learned that if you have partitions 2-4 on SD card formatted as EXT(2,3,4), and you mount USB storage in CyanogenMod7-11, it will mount those partitions as USB mass storage, as well as the 1st standard sdcard partition (FAT32.)
If you're running legacy MultiRom or something else that mounts SD partitions as system and data, you can actually access them under USB mass storage from your PC, while the phone is working just fine. So the phone, and the PC, can both see sdcard partitions at the same time... but for some reason vold (Android's storage service) has a little hissy fit about 'seeing' the first sdcard partition as USB Mass Storage and also reading that partition with phone software at the same time.
I /assume/ it has to do with the possibility of more than one piece of software being able to access files at the same time causing corruption, but you don't have to completely block access to the card to avoid that.

Not to derail or belittle your thread, it's good info.
I just wanted to add my 2 cents ​

 

[B. Diddy]

what to do when ''move to internal sd'' is not shown
plzzzzzz.......... help.
plz....,

Welcome to Android Central! Sorry, but unless you're able to root your phone, you're stuck with keeping that app in the application storage partition. Remember that moving to internal SD will typically just move a portion of the app there, not the whole thing.

 

[B. Diddy]

Low Memory used to mean running out of RAM (which isn't even quantified here in this list,) but now Android is referring to nonvolatile storage as 'memory.'
I have about 480Mib of usable RAM on that Optimus V, it is a big limiter on how many things can run at once.
Without using a task-killer, Android has a bad habit of overrunning RAM to the point of reboots if you're using a legacy low-memory device with Android versions past Gingebread...

Yes, good point. This guide was meant specifically to address the issue of storage (referred to in the specs as ROM) rather than active system memory (referred to as RAM). It's true that older versions of Android on older devices didn't manage the limited amount of RAM that well, and task-killers may be reasonable to use on an as-needed basis in those situations.

Thanks also for the info about SD card partitions. I have no rooting/ROMing experience, so it's a helpful addition to the thread!

 

[bigsupersquid]

Yes, good point. This guide was meant specifically to address the issue of storage (referred to in the specs as ROM) rather than active system memory (referred to as RAM). It's true that older versions of Android on older devices didn't manage the limited amount of RAM that well, and task-killers may be reasonable to use on an as-needed basis in those situations.

Thanks also for the info about SD card partitions. I have no rooting/ROMing experience, so it's a helpful addition to the thread!

in more recent Android versions from 4.0 on up, the built-in manual task killer seems to work pretty well (long press home to see recent apps, swipe them away to kill them) as RAM usage definitely goes down after stopping running apps. The built in OOM (out of memory) killer still is pretty weak on legacy devices around 512Mib RAM on these recent versions... kitkat for example just seems to want around 280Mib minimum RAM to even run, which is a large chunk of these older devices full capacity.
the SD partition info may or may not apply to non-CM ROMs unfortunately. but that's all I've had to play with except for stock.

 

[cezjan]

Thanks for the article.
I have found at my Xperia LT with Android 4.1.2 that the term 'Phone Memory' being used in the meaning 'Application Memory' from the article.
Regards, Cezary

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! Yes, there can be a few variations of terms used, and it can become confusing!

 

[Javier P]

I just want to add something to this fantastic guide. It's a funny thing I've found when trying to fix some friends and relatives phones with storage problems.

If you go to settings - storage there's a section called MISC. The theory says that here is where apps store data, and clearing data in settings - apps or uninstalling an specific app should delete the files under MISC. Well, that's true ...* most of the time.

I've found huge files not included at all in the app information (settings - apps). The biggest one was a file with a cryptic name and 450 Mb! It came from a tapatalk based forum (not AC Forums). I just uninstalled the app and problem solved.

Some wallpaper apps create huge files as well, even if you just downloaded a couple of pictures from them. And if you don't have a tool that check when you uninstall an app some residual file could remain in your phone after the app is gone. This was the case in my wife's phone with a well known weekly news magazine. It left a file with more than 300 Mb after being uninstalled.

So, worth a try checking the MISC section from time to time.