I cannot find 8.9GB of files on my Nexus 7

[NickFromHouston]

I tried copying a few videos to my Movie folder tonight, but after a few files I got a "out of space" error. This seemed odd to me because I've been keeping track of what I put on there and there is no way I filled up the device, and I only manually place files under Music, Movies and the Downloads folder. Everything else I leave to the Google Play install process for apps, and I don't have that many new apps.

According to My Computer, when I connect my Nexus 7 to it, I have 1.48GB free. At what appears to be the root folder I put a * in the Search field and after a minute all the files on the drive show up. I select them all, and the total calculated is 2.82GB. So this leaves a total of 8.9GB that is filling up space that I cannot find. Incidentally I have "hidden files" set to visible but that hasn't showed me anything that was hidden to Windows in the first place, and I can see folders starting with a "." no problem in Windows.

I looked through ES File Explorer through the entire SD card, which is what shows in Explorer, and moved "up" to see other directories, went searching through them, and just can't find what is filling up that space. It's my understanding the "sdcard0" folder is essentially where the 13.2GB free space is for my use, and the rest (which shows up above sdcard0) is sectioned off for the Nexus OS to use. I could be wrong, so any clarification would be great.

What are my options here? I don't even know what to look for. The Nexus 7 is the first Android device I've owned, and I've only had experience with it for one month. Any help would be appreciated. The searches I've done on Google haven't helped, either. Thank you!

 

[anon(847090)]

how big are the files you copied when the error occurred? I have heard of indexing issue when you copy files to a folder.
it might be indexed as present but actually not because of the error.

try a reboot which would reindex it. at least we can ignore one scenario.

 

[MJKearney]

Download this and see if it helps answer your question.
https://forums.androidcentral.com/e...d=com.google.android.diskusage&token=bfPzBGkn

 

[NickFromHouston]

Thanks for this assistance so far! I downloaded DiskUsage. Here is what I found out:

3.8GB is media (the 3 vids I just put in Movies makes up 90% of that)
0.7GB is Apps
8.4GB is System data

Now I gotta figure out just what is in that. I know I tried moving an 8GB video overnight via AirDroid (as an experiment to see how long that file transfer would take) but it halted at 4GB and said there was no more room. I deleted that, and that's when I started looking into this issue. Maybe there are temp folders that are filled up, or something. I can't imagine what else is filling up more than 8GB of space in the "System data" area.

How best to look into that?

- - - Updated - - -

I just went under Settings\Apps (is that how you guys reference programs here?) and listed "ALL" and "Sort by size" and the app with the most file space used is Firefox Beta with 108MB and that's understandable since it's my browser of choice and #2 for file space used is Chrome at 55MB. So it's interesting to see this kind of issue, to me at least.

To be clear, this is an unrooted device, and I've not done anything with bootloaders, roms, etc.

 

[NickFromHouston]

Last update and I am done for the night. I went looking through a few utilities and most wouldn't show enough information to assist further, until I reached SD Maid, which shows 12.67GB under /storage/sdcard0/ but I can't get any more specifics as to where this file space is being consumed, and it's not visible either within ES File Manager or Windows Explorer when I connect to my home PC. So here's a summary:

SD Maid, which shows 12.67GB under /storage/sdcard0/
Disk space shows "System data" at 8.4GB. (note the Movies folder is separate)
Disk Usage shows 8.4GB in System data. (note the Movies folder is separate)
Several cache cleaners like Easy Cache Cleaner, SD Maid and what is listed under various locations under Settings isn't that much to be honest.
I can't find anything on the Google Play market which helps, and at this point I'm too tired to search any further tonight.

Maybe someone with a better handle on things might know what actions I can take next. Worst-case I'll try the backup and reset option, but it would be irritating to do so and not find out what is causing this. It could happen again in the future and I need to know how better to prevent it, if not fix it should it reoccur.

 

[JustinMueller8810]

OMG 'The Case of the Missing 8.9GB of Files on OP's Nexus 7'
I believe this is a job for.... SHERLOCK HOLMES!

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Android Central Forums

 

[NickFromHouston]

Indubitably, my good sir. I'm out of ideas for finding these missing files, and I am wondering if this is more an issue of a file system error of some sort. Is there a FSCK option for Android? I typed that into Google Play search and came out with nothing.

 

[mr_nobody]

fsck seems to be in busybox so I guess if you are rooted, you could theoretically run it...

BusyBox - The Swiss Army Knife of Embedded Linux

 

[Toast95135]

I don't know about Disk Usage but I always use Storage Analyzer, and after it does it's thing you can click on the folders and find what's taking up the space.

 

[MJKearney]

I don't know about Disk Usage but I always use Storage Analyzer, and after it does it's thing you can click on the folders and find what's taking up the space.

Thanks for the heads up about Storage Analyzer. I tried it out and like it, although it gives the wrong free space reading in the summary bar at the bottom, but the correct amount in another graph. Anyway, DiskUsage is more graphical and seems easier to see at a glance how your storage is being used.

The OP said the 8GB of mystery usage was in the system data folder. I think that unless you're rooted, this isn't available to even see with one of these storage usage apps.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Android Central Forums

 

[mr_nobody]

If the /sdcard partition is formatted fat32 (which may well be the case), you are correct sir.

 

[imobileface]

i dont think so 9 GB files deleted from your phone ..did you installed any new application or other software ?

 

[NickFromHouston]

You have GOT to be kidding me....

I was going down the forum threads and saw one "Over 1 gig of storage space unaccounted for after botched download?" and noticed one of the posters, mr_nobody asked someone in that thread:

"Did you try rebooting the device yet?"

And I thought to myself, I hadn't done that.

So I just rebooted. And now I have 11.3GB free out of 13.2GB free. That's all accounted for in the apps+files I downloaded and/or installed.

So one of two things (that I can think of, mind you) likely occurred. Incorrectly accounted for file space was checked for accuracy and fixed (ala scandisk or fsck), or some type of temporary space was cleared out of the "system" area upon bootup (via some clean-up code that might be ran). Whatever the deal is, I'm glad this issue is fixed. I'd like to get to the bottom of it some day, but for now at least things have returned to normal for me.

BTW, I just checked out Storage Analyzer, and that looks like a nice program, too. Thanks for the heads up on that. It's matching what other programs mentioned above report for me, so that's a good thing.

BTW part 2, I was also unaware of a 4GB file size limitation on this internal storage so I will keep that in mind as well. I was transferring an 8GB video via AirDroid in the first place so the complication may have arose from that.

Thanks everyone!

 

[ChromeJob]

If the /sdcard partition is formatted fat32 (which may well be the case), you are correct sir.

The internal partitions are most certainly not FAT32. In fact, that's part of the argument against having FAT32 external microSDHCs in Android devices, permissions and other file system records get lost moving back and forth from the ext[3|4] filesystem to FAT.

 

[mr_nobody]

The internal partitions are most certainly not FAT32. In fact, that's part of the argument against having FAT32 external microSDHCs in Android devices, permissions and other file system records get lost moving back and forth from the ext[3|4] filesystem to FAT.

Obviously (some of the) internal partitions are not fat32, they are linux system partitions. I said the /sdcard partition _might_ be fat32. Are you saying it's not?

[edit]: Nope, you're right. Unlike in earlier versions of android, where the /sdcard partition was formatted fat32, the entire internal storage in the nexus 7 is ext4. This is why the "app space" you can install to is only limited by your total storage where in earlier android versions it was a fixed size (due to partition size).

 

[ChromeJob]

Obviously (some of the) internal partitions are not fat32, they are linux system partitions. I said the /sdcard partition _might_ be fat32. Are you saying it's not?

[edit]: Nope, you're right. Unlike in earlier versions of android, where the /sdcard partition was formatted fat32, the entire internal storage in the nexus 7 is ext4. This is why the "app space" you can install to is only limited by your total storage where in earlier android versions it was a fixed size (due to partition size).

Yeah, started that in 2.3 IIRC.

 

[Dan Hoover]

Do you have a GUEST or second account on your tablet???

If you do and were signed into it, the files will go into a completely separate "Movies" folder that you cannot browse even from your pc if you are logged into your main account.

To explain. You have one storage pool, but the movies/pictures/podcasts folders that show up in your other account just appear as wasted space when you're connected (via pc or file manager) to the OS.

Hope that clears some things up

 

[nelhop]

Thanks to this wonderful forum! As a newbie I read threads to learn more about my Nexus 7. Both Storage Analyser and DiskUsage are very useful. I have installed both.

 

[willowoz]

This was driving me up the wall as well (32g model).
Further to positive advice re storage advisor, it showed me that over half of my storage was lost to videos going to "Keep Safe". NO, not naughty shows, they just seem to go into that folder. Pictures/bluetooth files didn't. Maybe a bit of a busted default setting since i turned off Instant Upload?
Anyway, a delete from Keep Safe & a reboot & I've got my gig back.
Will retry my shows later & see if they get "re-lost" again or stay in the pictures folder.
I'm a Nexus 7 newbie as well & would have struggled without the forum but my gut is that Instant Upload has a lot to do with these problems, even if "off".
Willow, Australia

 

[efyoiphone]

Do you have a GUEST or second account on your tablet???

If you do and were signed into it, the files will go into a completely separate "Movies" folder that you cannot browse even from your pc if you are logged into your main account.

To explain. You have one storage pool, but the movies/pictures/podcasts folders that show up in your other account just appear as wasted space when you're connected (via pc or file manager) to the OS.

Hope that clears some things up

I only have one account on my Nexus 7 and yet I have 3 or 4 copies of the same information. Storage Analyzer tells me I have 12 GB free in one graph and 2.46 GB free in another. Including a screenshot. Can I delete the other copies of my sdcard? If so which one do I keep?

Sent from my Cyano-Mod'd Nex7 using Tapatalk HD