Why is my Android using more storage and calculating it wrong?

[AC Question]

Why is android using more storage and calculating it wrong?

Biggest example of this this is on the storage screen of setting, it says Apps uses a total of 3.24 gigs (a large portion of my puny 8 gigs total internal storage). When I go to the 'Make more space' page it says apps only uses 423 megs.

Also this is the exact reason I bought a 32 gig sd card, but of course it's not even possible to store an app completely on the sd card, only partially, and only if the developers supported it with that particular app.

Thanks, Michael

 

[Javier P]

Re: Why is android using more storage and calculating it wrong?

Welcome to the forums. What device do you have? That 'make more space' option, is it from a cleaner app or the stock settings? It's possible that it refers just to data cached by the apps and not the apps total storage. Could you post a screenshot of that screen?

 

[MichaelD12]

Re: Why is android using more storage and calculating it wrong?

Everything is from the stock settings. It could be cache but I thought that 2.8 gigs of cache data seems unlikely.


Also I am using a htc desire 510.

Thanks, Michael

 

[Javier P]

Re: Why is android using more storage and calculating it wrong?

Hello Michael, thanks for joining! Never used that device so I'm just going to guess after looking at your screenshots

It's possible that your first screen shows all your apps, including system apps that came preinstalled and can't be removed. Your second screen shows apps that you downloaded (22) that can be easily deleted.

Also, the 'other' section is quite big. Can you get more details if you tap on it?

 

[MichaelD12]

Re: Why is android using more storage and calculating it wrong?

Sadly no, I can't get any more information if I tap on any of the categories from the first screen. Just out of curiosity, what is supposed to be in the "Other" section, is it the android OS itself. And if so, how big is it supposed to be?

Forgot to mention before but if it matters, I'm on android 4.4.3 with HTC sense 6.0.

Thanks, Michael

 

[Javier P]

Re: Why is android using more storage and calculating it wrong?

Just out of curiosity, what is supposed to be in the "Other" section, is it the android OS itself. And if so, how big is it supposed to be?

Forgot to mention before but if it matters, I'm on android 4.4.3 with HTC sense 6.0.

Thanks, Michael

It could be but I'm not sure. You could try this. Go to settings - apps - all - sort by size and see what apps are specially bigger. From that screen you can select one by one and clear cache (only cache, not data). Repeat for some of them with more attention on browsers, gallery, wallpapers and social media apps (they can create huge cache files). When done check the storage settings again and see what changed and in which section.

 

[MichaelD12]

Re: Why is android using more storage and calculating it wrong?

Hmm, I just cleared the cache for all of the big apps, but they all had around 12kb to 5mb cache sizes, nothing massive at all (I'm sure I deleted the cache recently). As for what section they came from, I think it was just the apps section, since that went down a bit.

Thanks, Michael

 

[Corey Dorsey]

Hello Michael,

I went on HTC a while ago to ask what the "Other" section was and they said it was files specific to HTC, like Sense. They're proprietary things that can't be removed.

 

[MichaelD12]

Ah, that makes sense, although it doesn't explain why the "apps" section is around 3gb more than it should be. Surely there can't be 3gb's of preinstalled apps? Thanks anyway though

 

[Corey Dorsey]

You must have Cricket or some other carrier. My wife's phone showed 8GB like yours and she had Cricket.

The Boost Mobile one shows 4GB which I believe is /system + /data. Why the different carriers do this, I don't know. /system is 2GB max and /data is 2GB max. Which is 4GB + 4GB of Sense and other HTC proprietary stuff like the Sync Manager disc drive. That's why when they tell people they have 8GB it's misleading because they use up so much of it and we're left with not much after updates, if we're not rooted.

The "Apps" that are shown on your phone are probably /system pre-installed apps combined with /data updates. If you download https://forums.androidcentral.com/e...tails?id=sa.storagetruth&hl=en&token=SYIGLQD6 you'll see exactly what is going on. I'm rooted and I only have .92GB /system apps because I deleted all the Google pre-installed apps and some other stuff I don't use like Facebook.