Why is my E-mail pplication getting so large?

[AC Question]

I have got a LG Magna, it has an internal storage of 8 GB.
The storage gets full way too quickly. So I moved already everything to my SD Card and uninstalled every unnecessary piece of software. Full storage remianed though.
After a little bit of more research I discovered that my e-mail application has a staggering size of over 1,25 GB. So I made sure it was not syncing any `meaningless information like contacts or e-mails that are way too old. The things I can do with this app are limited as well... Internet doesn't seem to regonize the problem so this is my bst chance of getting more information...

 

[paul1990]

It was me who posted this question. Below I attached a screenshot of the situation.

 

[Javier P]

Hi Paul, welcome to the forums!

Tap on the email app in that list and you'll get more details. See how much is data and cache. The cache can be deleted safely without losing any personal information.

 

[paul1990]

Thank you for your quick response!
The things you mentioned I already did unfortunately.. that is why I'm staggered..

 

[Crashdamage]

As phone technology marches on, storage demands increase. It's now to the point that 8GB is kinda minimal. By the time the OS, legitimate software plus bloatware, etc is installed there's not much left sometimes.

Unfortunately, you've spent some time and effort doing some stuff that doesn't help much. For starters, install this simple little app called Storage Truth. It's very small and will install in very limited space. It will tell you how much space you actually have left for installing apps:

https://forums.androidcentral.com/e...pps/details?id=sa.storagetruth&token=P2V3_K17

Ok, regarding your problem...These are things that usually make little difference:

When you move apps to SD you cannot move entire apps. Part of the app must remain in /system for it to operate. Sometimes very little or none if an app can be moved. Also, pre-installed bloatware, any such apps which cannot be removed unless you root the phone, are installed in different space than apps installed from Play or other sources. So uninstalling those does nothing to increase space available for installing regular apps.

Contacts take up little space, a few MB even if you have hundreds with photos and lots of other info. And turning off contacts sync makes no difference in the space used, unless, I guess, you don't keep contacts on the phone, kept online only. That would be awkward...
I strongly, highly recommend syncing contacts to your Google account!

Clearing cache files is not a solution. It's the Fool's gold of making space. Fool's gold is not real gold and space made by clearing caches is not real space. It will only make space temporarily since cache files will rebuild over time. Also, while clearing cache files won't hurt anything, they're there to speed up operation and should be left alone.

That said, in this particular case I would empty the cache for your email app, but only the email app.

These are things that can help make significant additional space:

I think with every fairly recent email app I've ever seen, you can set limit on how much email is synced (downloaded) to the phone, either by date received or number of emails. Check this to see if it keeps email from certain people too long or an excessive number of emails.

To make space you can also:
Delete texts. If you have a LOT of texts, especially MMS, saved on the phone this can help.
Delete or move photos, videos, documents, etc to SD, cloud storage or a computer.
Uninstall app updates.
Uninstall apps you have downloaded and installed.

 

[paul1990]

Things I did already, regardless of how effective they really are:
- Move apps (partially) to my SD card
- Disable apps I don't use. This will make than restore them to the verison as when the mobile came out the factory. As you set: you can not make them smaller than that.
- Clearing caches. Stopped doint that since it is not a durable solution. As you can see the cache of the e-mail app is smaller dan 100kb. This is not the source of such a large application.
- Deleted all texts. That didn't help much.
- Deleted a lot of whatsapp sh*t. This helped me free up 0,6 GB. A fair amount. At the moment it has grown again to a 85,5 MB. Managable I would say..
- I uninstall every app that I don't use anymore. Pretty systematic guy

This is the result I got even before posting my problem here.



So I do have space left to install any app I want, but I'm still amazed by the size of my Mail application. You can see that the department apps occupy more than 3 GB on my internal storage. 1,24 GB to be exactly is coming from my mail app. Inexplicably large!!

What I've done so far to counter that:
- Stopped syncing calenders and contacts in the 3 accounts
- I maxed the time the application will sync my mail to at most 1 month in the past. Moreover, I don't have large attachements in my mail.

To conclude:
I'm very happy with your interest, help, and attention. But the real problem has not been solved yet...
I hope you guys want to give it another try

 

[paul1990]

Edit: accidental double post

 

[Javier P]

You're right, it's weird the email app taking all that storage. I haven't used that mail app but I would try a fresh start. If you clear all that data you are going to delete all your personal information in the app but your mails will be recovered as soon as you sign in back. Do you have more than one account? Maybe you could try with a different app like Gmail. I've got three accounts and data in the app is less than 4mb.

 

[paul1990]

Yeah, one of the possible solutions is a reboot of the phone to factory settings.
Will be using Outlook probably afterwards then.

I have 3 mail accounts.

 

[Javier P]

Yeah, one of the possible solutions is a reboot of the phone to factory settings.
Will be using Outlook probably afterwards then.

I have 3 mail accounts.

No, I didn't mean that, just clearing data for the email app in that screen you posted before

But I just noticed that option is closed in your phone. Strange. Maybe in the app settings there's an option to clear data and start fresh.

 

[paul1990]

Since I looked for that option (clearing data within the app) numerous times without result, I am kinda desperate and starting to think that a hart reset of my device is the only solution. I will wait for other responses before doing that..

 

[Javier P]

Before a factory reset you could try removing one by one those accounts. I did a little search and it seemed to work for some people. Does your phone have a menu button available in the email information screen? Do you get more options there?

 

[Crashdamage]

Did you install Storage Truth? If so, what does it say? If not, you should.

Not syncing contacts and calendars is saving virtually no space. You're only losing the several and significant benefits of keeping them synced to your Google account. I very strongly suggest re-enabling sync!

Deleting texts ususally doesn't make much difference. But some people have a LOT of texts saved, many or most being MMS. So for some it can be significant. Similarly, I have no idea how much email you get, but for some people a month's worth can be significant. Hundreds, even thousands. That can eat a little space. I have a few hundred emails in 4 accounts on my phone, light on the attachments, and right now it says I'm using 519MB.

BTW, how many email accounts do you have on the phone? Are they IMAP, POP3 or a mix of both?

 

[paul1990]

at Javier P
Removing the accounts one by one is something I will definitely try before a hard reset.
My phone doesn't have this option. The application does though. But I think I went through all the menu options (over and over).
I will show you my possible options:

Submenu in main mail screen (combined view of all accounts)


If I choose settings, this is the menu I get.
at Crashdamage
The mail account ending with outlook dot com is Microsoft Exchange
The first mail account ending with dot nl is Microsoft Exchange as well
The second mail account ending with dot nl is IMAP4


If I select general settings, this is the screen I get.
Below 'Auto advance' I only have 'Resize Image (st the default size for image attached while composing)', 'VIP settings', and 'Trusted Certificates' as options to choose from.


at Crashdamage


Moreover, I have only 111 mails combined with my 3 accounts.
Two mails are between 1-5 MB
One mail is between 500 kB - 1 MB
Seven mails are between 100 - 500 kB
The rest is between is lower. So at max I have 25 MB of visible mails in my client. Older ones won't be displayed anymore.

There could very well be the crux of the whole matter. Althoug it isn't displayed anymore, I expect the mail application to be so large because it is not able to get rid of old mails. **** neither am I.

I wrote this complete story to discover the following:

Android Forums Message
An error has occurred paul1990! You must have 10 posts in order to post links. Your current post count is 6.

Afraid to have lost everything I had written I was pretty frustrated already when I couldn't got to adjust my story nor return to the previous page before the error message.

Then I saw the 'Restore auto-saved text' option.

Haleluja!!

!!!

 

[paul1990]

Anyone? Any idea?