S3 LTE (i9305) says not enough memory G+ taking up 1.72GB is that normal?

[six_h]

Not use my phone for a couple of days and on booting up today had a queue of apps wanting to update.
I was asked by one app (can't recall what!) to "allow" further permissions and I declined the request and immediately received many "Error - not enough memory" notices!

Investigating Application Manager, I notice that the top of the usage list was "Google+" taking up 1.72GB!
I don't think I even use Google+!!

I'm not very clever with these things, but suspect this is wrong!
Can anyone help me?
What do I need to do to reclaim this memory capacity?

Could the fact that I had problems attempting to delete a short video from within the "Photos" App have anything to do with it?
I had a permanent "Deleting Video" notice, and had to force the App to close.

If it helps, this is a standard unmodified phone which updated it's software end of April 2015 to Android 4.4.4 KitKat.
No real issues with that!

Edit (one hour later!)
Just put the phoner on charge and re-booted it...the previously queued items which generated error messages have now all updated successfully! (Don't you just hate it when that happens!)
However, I have now identified the App which wanted "unreasonable" access, ... it was Amazon!
That for some reason wanted full access to my Photo and video files as well as camera and microphone!...my response - Sod off!
that done, Amazon stands in glorious isolation, still wanting an update!

Checking the state of my memory usage, "Google+" still hogs 1.72GB, however the "Avaliable" RAM has increased from 500MB when I was receiving the "Low Memory" notices to 624MB now after installing the 13 updates which previously failed!

And they say that digital technology strictly follows logic....
Can someone explain what has just happened?
I'm still in the dark ...what would happen if I just deleted "Google +"?
Would Armageddon be upon me?

 

[B. Diddy]

RAM is different from Internal Storage. RAM is where active apps reside while open, while Internal Storage is where the actual app files and data are stored. Your phone has 1 GB of RAM, I think, and the system will decide automatically which apps to keep open in RAM in order to make things more efficient.

The 1.72 GB that Google+ is taking up is in your Internal Storage. If the phone was advertised as having 16 GB, for example, that means 16 GB of total internal storage. On the S3, that probably means about 9-10 GB available to the user, because the system and the various preinstalled Samsung apps take up a substantial amount of storage.

Google+ does tend to use a fair amount of Internal Storage, much of which might be temporarily cached data. You could go to the App Manager, select Google+, and Clear Cache. If most of it is actually part of the App Data, you could still clear that, but it means that you'd have to sign back into Google+ if you wanted to use it again. If you never use Google+, then you could Disable it in that same App Manager menu, which will prevent it from opening (and therefore building up more data).

 

[six_h]

Thanks B. Diddy, my apologies for the confusing terminology!
You are quite right, I did mean the phone's memory which is as you say 16GB.
I have no idea if I use G+ or not, but if I do, then it is unintentional!
This "feature" was foisted upon me by Google, want it or not.
I suspect the constant mithering to"Sign in" with the totally inane statement ... "Gallery would like to: Picasa Web Albums."
...Picasa Web Albums what!
The blessed statement makes no sense! Grrr
Rant over!
Good news that I can just disable G+ ('cos I don't understand it!) and hopefully continue to use other Google facilities ...without recriminations?

 

[B. Diddy]

Picasa Web Albums refers to your photos in your Google Photos cloud. Google acquired Picasa a while ago, but the name Picasa still persists in some phones (mostly Samsung). On these phones, Picasa refers to your cloud Google Photos that can be shown in Samsung's stock Gallery app. That's why Gallery wants permission--it wants to be able to access your Google Photos (aka Picasa) in the cloud so that they can be shown in the Gallery.

You can try to turn that off by going to Settings>Accounts-Google>[your Google account] and unchecking Gallery or Picasa (it might vary depending on the device).

Google Photos used to be part and parcel of Google+, but they recently split the Photos part off as a separate app. Look in the Google Play Store for Google Photos, if you want to use it. I'm not sure if disabling Google+ will cause any significant issues otherwise. YouTube comments used to be connected to Google+, but I think they uncoupled that as well.

For what it's worth, I actually find Google+ to be a valuable resource for my interests. It's easy to find Communities based on your interest, and many of them are very active. I get lots of interesting tech news this way, without all of the selfies and photos of food that seem to be standard on Facebook these days.

 

[six_h]

WOW! Thanks for your instruction there, I've rarely dug that deep as I suspect I'm likely to make more problems than I solve!
I have two gmail accounts and have now "unticked" all except the top five items for synching on both accounts, that includes G+ (mainly 'cos I don't know how to use it!)
I'm no-longer seeing that "Gallery Sign In" request which is excellent as I never had any cloud content anyway!
As instructed, I've cleared the G+ cache, and reclaimed 5.58MB !
Despite not consciously using G+, I have not yet disabled it fearing unpleasant consequences, but if the data it squirrels away increases much more, I will do it regardless or my phone will become useless!

Meanwhile, your recommendation of the usefulness of "G+" has made me re-consider devoting some time to exploring its possibilities in my miniscule and humdrum life!

I'm most grateful for access to this forum and in particular for your help and availability when I have these problems!
Thank you.

 

[B. Diddy]

I'm glad this helped! Remember that if you disable an app and then encounter a problem, you can easily re-enable it again, so there's really no harm in a trial of disabling Google+.

As for how to use Google+, check out these excellent articles:
What is Google+ and why should I use it? | Android Central
The ultimate guide to Google+ | Android Central