Why do I have no storage left on my Samsung Galaxy J5?

[J4mesMW]

Hello, I have a samsung galaxy J5 2017 edition, running on oneui 1.1. It has a 16gb storage capacity, however is almost full, only around 1gb left (according to the system device care) despite only having just over 3.5gb of apps, images, videos, etc... even after clearing all of the cache files of my apps. Are there any methods that anyone can suggest to help me get some storage back? I mean I'm no tech expert but surely the OS shouldnt take up 11.5gb of storage (please correct me if I'm wrong though.)

Any tips and such would be much appreciated, and thanks for your time!

Edit: So today I noticed that I had the secure folder function running on my phone, and despite never having used it, it had taken up around 1gb if storage on my phone, so I just uninstalled it and have much more storage left now! Anyone with a small storage samsung phone should be aware that even if you dont use it but still have it installed, the secure folder takes up a lot of space, and it might be a wise idea to uninstall it.

 

[mustang7757]

Is this you here ?


https://forums.androidcentral.com/showthread.php?t=990216

 

[J4mesMW]

Hey, just made an account so I could reply, and no, the OP from the other thread isnt me, but I'll look into that thread and try some of the stuff on there

 

[Rukbat]

Try [Guide] Checking the ACTUAL storage space on an Android device to see how much storage you actually have. (16GB doesn't mean that you get 16GB for apps, images, videos, etc. About 8GB is used just for Android, that you don't see listed in any app. Then there's system storage - that you also don't see listed in any app. In 2020, a 16GB phone is barely large enough for anything but phone calls and texts. (That's why most people have replaced their phones within three years.)

 

[J4mesMW]

Ok so I tried out the terminal emulator, but I'm not really sure how to interpret the results it is showing me, or what I should do with this info. Any help with this would be much appreciated!

 

[mustang7757]

Hey, just made an account so I could reply, and no, the OP from the other thread isnt me, but I'll look into that thread and try some of the stuff on there

Welcome to AC Forums!
Ok no problem !

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! It might help to see a screenshot of your Settings>Storage menu: http://forums.androidcentral.com/ge...ide-how-post-screenshots-android-central.html. Keep in mind that the OS and any bloatware take up some of the total internal storage, and some phones have a lot of bloatware -- so all of that might potentially take up 8-10 GB of storage. On a 16 GB phone, that means you might be left with only about 5 GB of usable space.