Why is my system taking so much space?

[Hofcah]

Yes, it appears to be internal storage. But in the first picture I sent it shows apps as using 2.47 GB...why the discrepancy? And the internal memory is supposed to be 16 GB - so why does it say Storage card is 10.4 GB?

 

[B. Diddy]

The phone's total internal storage is never entirely available to you, because some of it will always be taken up by the OS and any bloatware the manufacturer or carrier threw on there. 5-6 GB is relatively common, so that can easily explain why it tells you that only 10.4 GB is really available to you.

I'm not sure why the system's menu only shows 2.47 GB for apps -- it might be that they truly mean app data, and aren't including the storage that the app files themselves take up. Note that the Device Maintenance app is "Powered by Clean Master," which is from Cheetah Mobile, a company that has never seemed to understand how Android works (i.e., always trying to encourage users to "clean" their phone storage and kill apps from RAM), so I wouldn't put it past them to make that menu completely unintelligible.

 

[Hofcah]

OK. Thank you for your help.

 

[WOOPS WOOPS]

7.13 GB doesn't sound that unusual for system files and other preinstalled stuff on an M8. 2.3 GB definitely sounds too small to account for system files--the OS usually takes up around 3-4 GB of space, not counting bloatware. I wonder if that 2.3 GB figure you remember seeing was something else?

7.13 doesn't seem unusual?! That's unlikely statement...
Well, mine is taking 18.6 GB still usual?!

Diskusage doesn't allow me to open nor view my sys files, I've ES Explorer pro, I need a way or tool to help me kill that space eater, I've done reset many times to my phone, but it back to be filled again super quickly I don't know what's doing that and I don't want to reset my phone every few month and losing everything .
Please I need a real help!!!!

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! I don't think it's an unlikely statement for an older phone like the HTC One M8. Some phones in the bad old days (like the Galaxy S5) would have 8 GB out of the total 16 GB of internal storage taken up by the OS and bloatware. Manufacturers and carriers are generally better these days about easing off on the bloat (or allowing bloat to be uninstalled).

Which phone do you have? You're right, 18.6 GB taken up by the firmware would mean something's wrong. But could it be partly due to data that's being built up in something like Chrome?

 

[Spektrym]

I updated my HTC One M8 to Android 6.0 Marshmallow a few days ago. I got 16GB internal storage and have been using lots of it for a long while. After the update the system took up about 2.3GB. My spotify was taking up about 6GB. Nothing wrong with that, but now I wanted the space so I removed some of my spotify playlists that I had available offline. The space spotify took up went down but now system went up to abou 9GB. I guessed it got put in the trash or something and would go down soon but it didn't. I tried making a soft reset by restarting my phone. It rebooted as normal but got stuck for several hours at "optimizing app 3 of 7". It was completely unresponsive and I couldn't do anything with it. I eventually figured out that holding down volume up, down and Power at the same time for 10 seconds made it restart. Now the system part is still huge (just above 7GB) and I don't know how to free the space. I'm not too pro at unix.
Any help is much appreciated. I'll do my best to provide any additional info if it's any help.

youre lucky, my system is taking up 698 GB.

 

[Sarap3038]

Help! On my daughter's phone it is taking up 18GB and the phone is not working. How can we reduce the space used? Every time she deletes something, the OS system increases!!

 

[mustang7757]

Help! On my daughter's phone it is taking up 18GB and the phone is not working. How can we reduce the space used? Every time she deletes something, the OS system increases!!

Hi, welcome to AC!

Which device? Can you show screenshot of your storage page ?

https://forums.androidcentral.com/showthread.php?t=413366

 

[Sarap3038]

Hi and thank you. It is a Huawei P10 lite WAS-LX1A.

She's got it down to 17 GB by deleting something....but still far too high!

 

[mustang7757]

Hi and thank you. It is a Huawei Nova lite WAS-TL10.View attachment 337473

She's got it down to 17 GB by deleting something....but still far too high!

How much storage this phone comes with ?

 

[Sarap3038]

32GB

 

[mustang7757]

Try this app to see where else storage is being used.


https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.diskusage

 

[Sarap3038]

 

[Sarap3038]

 

[Sarap3038]

Do you need this expanded out further in any way?

 

[mustang7757]

Thanks, i think your camera ,dcim is taking lot of storage

 

[Sarap3038]

She did delete something like 5000 out of 6000 photos but it made no difference. It is like the phone is not wiping the memory released even though she has cleaned out the cache and the temporary trash copies...

 

[mustang7757]

She did delete something like 5000 out of 6000 photos but it made no difference. It is like the phone is not wiping the memory released even though she has cleaned out the cache and the temporary trash copies...

Hmmm strange , maybe time for factory reset.

 

[Sarap3038]

Thought that my be the answer, but wanted to check with someone more knowledgable. Thank you very much for your time and assistance.

 

[mustang7757]

Thought that my be the answer, but wanted to check with someone more knowledgable. Thank you very much for your time and assistance.

Your welcome!