photos 122mb but only 5 photos? confused!

[miriam_d]

Hi all,

I'm hoping someone can help. I have a Google nexus 4. In settings under storage for pictures/videos it says I have 122mb worth of them. I only have 5 photos on my device though which are only around 2mb each, the rest are backed up on my Google account through the photo app. I've cleared the cache as well in storage for cached data and in the photo app for that app as well as for several other apps to be on the safe side.

Not sure what to do or how, suggestions welcome please! This is affecting how much space I have overall for updates and being able to download other apps.

Thank you!

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! The rest is probably due to thumbnails, which the system creates for things like the Gallery and album art. They're located in /DCIM/.thumbnails. If you delete them, they'll eventually be created again.

BTW, he's Shaun the Sheep!

 

[miriam_d]

Thanks. How do I delete them? I don't know how to access those on a/my phone...

 

[miriam_d]

Hi again, Actually I've worked out how to do that. I've downloaded a file manager app called sliding explorer and deleted the thumbnails file. However on checking the storage file for photos again it still says there's the same amount of memory as previously, so no space saved. I don't understand. Maybe there's something I'm not doing! Would appreciate any more suggestions, thank you!

 

[B. Diddy]

Before you deleted the thumbnails folder, did you see how much storage it took up? You can select the folder in the file manager, then look at its properties to see how much space it takes up.

Look also for a thumbnails.db file, and see if that's large as well. And try rebooting the phone to see if the storage stats change after the reboot.

As I mentioned, the system will usually re-create the thumbnails, so one possibility is that they're getting created again. Does the thumbnails folder reappear pretty quickly after you delete it?