Laggy Nexus 7? Try deleting thumbnails.

[retsaw]

I was poking around the storage on my Nexus 7 looking for stuff I could delete to free up space and I noticed that the DCIM folder was taking up a huge amount of space which I thought was odd as I had hardly used the camera. I had a look to see what was in there and found a folder called ".thumbnails" taking up 1.3 GB of space, I thought that was an obscene account of space for it to be using so I just deleted it, assuming it would just regenerate them if necessary, and after that my Nexus 7 was much more responsive again, as good as or pretty close to how it was when new. I've only just tried it so I've yet to see if it lasts, but the immediate difference was so great I thought I'd post about it straight away. There is also the possibility that the difference was solely due to freeing up storage space which was down to 1GB free. So if you are experiencing lag, try deleting that thumbnails folder and post back whether it worked or not.

N.B. You'll need to install a file manager to do this, like ES File Explorer, and enable the option to show hidden files to actually see this folder.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Android Central Forums

 

[mr_nobody]

Hmmm, I don't even have that folder (even after turning on "show hidden files"). I wonder what app generates it since it's clearly not a default android folder.

 

[retsaw]

No idea. I suppose it is possible it was generated when I connected it to my computer (running Ubuntu), I've no idea why it would have been so large though. Like I've already said, I guess the difference I'm seeing could just be a result of freeing that space, but I can't really undelete it to test, I might try filling up the space with something else though, and I'll also try connecting it back to my computer to see if that causes the folder to reappear.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Android Central Forums

 

[B. Diddy]

I'm guessing the thumbnail cache is used primarily by apps like Gallery (especially if you sync your photos with Google+/Picasa) and Play Music. If you use apps like that frequently, then deleting the thumbnail cache will probably be inefficient as well, since each time you open up that app, it'll take a little while to regenerate all of the thumbnails.