Where did the memory go?

[AC Question]

I didn't have a lot of space remaining on my android galaxy s4. So I moved some apps to the SD card and cleared the cache and freed up enough space to download a larger game. When they installation reached 100% I got an error message saying insufficient storage memory. However, something was installed because I now only have 65mb of internal memory remaining when I originally had 1.8gb free. Yet the game does not exist on my phone. I've tried to hook the phone up to the computer but I cannot find the file anywhere. I tried to free up more space on the device and finish the installation of the game, but it seems playstore thinks nothing has been installed and wants to start again. I've spent 30 minutes googling and can't find anything related to my issue, please help.

 

[Rukbat]

1) The Play Store is "single-minded", it sends you a download of the app. That's all. If you "install" again, it sends you a download of the app.

Your phone then installs it.

2) Downloading the app's installation file took 1735MB, because that's how large it is. Now you need enough storage space to install the app. You don't.

There's not much you can do, but find the file (it may be in Downloads or it may be in Settings/General/Storage/Miscellaneous files) and delete it. Or you can free up more space (move apps you don't always use back to the device from the SD card, then uninstall them) then download and install the game again.

No matter how much storage a device has, if you keep installing apps, it's going to run out of space eventually. "Moving" an app to the SD card only moves small pieces f it, and leaves a link in internal storage for every piece, so it doesn't save you much space. (Android was never designed or intended to run apps from the SD card.) So even an S6 with 128GB internal storage will run out of space one day (when the average app uses 2GB of storage and someone like me usually keeps 200 or more apps on the phone). Of course, but that time, cheaper phones will have 1TB of storage (a 32MB thumb drive was once considered something to kill for) or Project Ara will have produced phones, so we can just buy a larger internal storage module.