Problem with migrating data from internal storage to SD card

[AC Question]

Hello,

I have a Moto G 2nd generation, Androd version 6.0.
I have a SD card which currently is about 50% full. I was running out of space on the internal storage, so I went to Settings-Storage-internal and selected Migrate data. It told me that about 3.5 GB of data would be freed, and I had that much available space on the SD card.
Process started, but after some time got a message that there is not enough space and the migration was not successful. But the real problem is that after that operation my internal storage was left completely full, obviously with some kind of temp files created during migration attempt, which now I cannot see nor clear. It says that 5.3 out of 5.5 gb are used, but the apps total to only 2.6 gb.
I have removed couple of apps to free some space and retry the migration, but with the same effect. I tried also to install a relatively large app (Total Commander, so that I try to find that hidden big chunk of data), but it only filled my internal storage without installing the app.

For what is worth, my SD card seems to be working fine - I can access the media and the apps that I have stored on it.

 

[Harikrishna Kundariya]

Hi,
Go to Playstore and Download "ES File explorer" Application.
Open it and there is an option to clear all cache and temporary files, which don't show in another file manager.
Just clear it and your lot of phone memory will free.
Do it 2 to 3 times.
Good Luck.

 

[greenrhyno]

I posted a solution here:

https://forums.androidcentral.com/showthread.php?t=637094&p=5890012&viewfull=1#post5890012

 

[anon(10522228)]

If your device is rooted there is a much simpler way to deal with this problem.

While migrating data to sd card (formatted as "internal" storage) all data under /data/media/0 should be moved to the sd card.

Now, for some unkown to me reason, in your case (and mine also) the data was copied and not moved.

The solution to this is to open a terminal as root user (like termux for example) and after reading this warning,

*************WARNING*************
Make sure that your data was copied to your sd. Navigate to your files via any file explorer and for example rename a couple of files or create a new etc. Then with a root explorer (like Total Commander for example) navigate to /data/media/0/....... to make sure that your changes DO NOT APPEAR there i.e. make sure that these files are the original files in your phone's internal storage thus duplicates of your sd card files.
If you are not sure just DONT DO IT.
***********END WARNING***********

type:

rm -r /data/media/0

The space in the phone memory is now available.