[Libra Fire]

I noticed my Samsung Galaxy A3 (2016) internal storage was getting quite full. I shifted all the apps I could to the SD card, deleted unnecessary apps, shifted the photos to SD card, deleted all videos and started clearing the cache regularly. Despite there now being more space, the free space started slowly filling up again.

2 weeks ago I did a factory reset and again moved all apps to SD etc. I had 4.7 gb free which was fine. I have since cleared the cache regularly but in just 2 weeks I have watched the available memory shrink down to 3.3 gb.

I tried the "*#9900# dump logcat" fix just before writing this. It made no difference.

The phone itself is behaving well but I don't want to be doing factory resets several times a year to avoid the internal memory becoming to full.

Can anyone offer some clarity on this issue?

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! Thumbnails can actually take up quite a bit of storage, if you have a lot of photos (although I'm not sure if the thumbnails for SD photos are saved to the SD or Internal Storage). Using My Files, go to the /DCIM/.thumbnails directory and see how much storage that takes up.

[Libra Fire]

Thanks for that. Have followed your advice. Found nothing in the DCIM file. Just a screenshot folder which was empty. So no joy there. Also looked through the downloads folder. Nothing there that would take up a gb of memory.

[B. Diddy]

Just to be sure -- make sure your file manager app is set to Show Hidden Files/Folders. The thumbnails directory is usually /DCIM/.Thumbnails -- the leading period denotes a directory that would be hidden, if the file manager is not set to show hidden files/folders.

[Libra Fire]

Okay, didn't know that. Had a look. There were only 7 thumbnails in there. Removed them anyway. No change. Checked the size of the folders in My Files, Android was the largest at 180 mb, every other folder was a great deal smaller (under 40 mb - mainly a lot less). It's a conundrum.

[B. Diddy]

The phone didn't get a system update during this period, did it?

Can you show us a screenshot of the Settings>Storage menu? http://forums.androidcentral.com/gen...d-central.html

[Libra Fire]

Nope. Running OS 6.0.1 Having a devil of a time attaching screenshot as requested. "PNG image has the incorrect file extension" is what pops up when I try. I'm afraid the link you provided didn't take me to a thread that gave any direction. Screenshot would show 12.53 GB used out of 16.00 (internal memory) and 13.55 GB used out of 28.96 (external SD card).

[Libra Fire]

[Libra Fire]

Spotted the link within the link you provided. Hope it's the screen shot you wanted. Thanks for your help.

[B. Diddy]

Usually, there's a way to see a more detailed breakdown of the storage usage. Do you get more details if you tap the Internal Storage area in that screenshot?

[Libra Fire]

These are the ones I think your after.

[B. Diddy]

Ok, and from there, do you get a further breakdown if you tap the Used Space and Other listings?

[Libra Fire]

This is the Used Space info...

[Libra Fire]

Used Space info above. Here's a breakdown of "Other" listings - both Owner and Knox with the amount of space used for each folder recorded:

Owner Other (1.28 GB):

Voice Recorder - 0.00 B
Simple Notepad - 2.11 KB
Samsung - 3.21 MB
Ringtones - 0.00 B
Podcasts - 0.00 B
Pictures - 0.00 B
Notifications - 0.00 B
Music - 0.00 B
Movies - 0.00 B
Download - 3.66 MB
DCIM - 53.14MB
CanonIJ - 0.00 B
CalendLunImages_cache - 596 KB
Android - 204 MB
Alarms 0.00 B


KNOX other (1.71 GB):

Voice Recorder - 0.00 B
Simplenotepad - 2.11 KB
Samsung - 3.21 MB
Ringtones - 0.00 B
Podcasts - 0.00 B
Pictures - 0.00 B
Notifications - 0.00 B
Music - 0.00 B
Movies - 0.00 B
Download - 3.66 MB
DCIM - 53.14 MB
CanonIJ - 0.00 B
CalendLunimages_cache - 596 KB
Android - 2.04 MB
Alarms - 0.00 B

Let me know if there's anything else you need

BTW I've hit "3 GB free" for the first time tonight. Clearing the cache has taken the phone back to "3.3 GB free" but it's the first time since the factory reset that it's gone that low...

[B. Diddy]

Thanks for getting all of that info, but I'm afraid I still can't figure out what's causing the decreased storage space. My guess is that some app (most likely system, but also could be 3rd party) is storing more data, perhaps related to a recent update. You could try DiskUsage or a similar storage analyzer to see if it gives you any more helpful info.

[Libra Fire]

Downloaded the app - quite useful. The largest app was facebook using 228 MB. System data is using a total of 1.94 GB. HOWEVER - I saw that 933 MB of SD storage was being used for ".trashes". I put the SD card in my computer, deleted the downloads trash and returned the SD card to the phone. The result is that my free internal storage has now increased to 3.6 GB. A little confused about the link between internal and external storage. Any insights?

[B. Diddy]

Sorry, I'm not sure how it's calculating that, nor what the ".trashes" folder is related to. Let me see if any of the other Ambassadors have any insight into this.

[Libra Fire]

Thanks. BTW the app shows my internal system data has increased from 1.94 to 1.98 GB in just a few days. Not sure if thats the culprit but I see it is the subject of a number of other threads. (No effective advice given outside of rooting the phone which I refuse to do.) Free internal space has returned to 3.3 GB. Clearing cache doesn't make any difference.

[Libra Fire]

As an addendum to my reply above - the DiscUsage app is now telling me the system data is taking up 2.01 GB.

[Libra Fire]

Another addendum to the above - the DiscUsage app tells me the system data is now up to 2.07 GB. That's within the space of 7 days.

[Libra Fire]

Anyone there?

[Janusz Matela]

Having the same problem I found your thread.
I found that the Chrome (what I did not use as it had been disabled) took more than 5 GB of memory.
You cannot remove it as it is a part of Google. So I found Chrome in Play Store, (trying to reinstall it, hoping it would remove unnecessary files), but it gave me the option to remove all the updates. So I did so. As I had disabled the Chrome before, it appeared again in My Apps. I immediately disabled the Chrome. It released 5 GB of memory.
I wonder now what else can harm the memory. If found let me know.

[Janusz Matela]

I used DiskUsage to identify, what was eating so much of memory.