What is the function of the folder “/storage/emulated/0/DCIM/.thumbnails”?

[AC Question]

Function of the folder “/storage/emulated/0/DCIM/.thumbnails”

I have a Samsung S5 running version 4.4.2 from Verizon.

I am trying to clean up disk space on the phone’s 16 GB internal storage.
I have
9.95 GB in Applications,
121 MB in Pictures
15.22 MB in Audio
6.05 MB in Downloads
654 MB in Cached Data
8.8 GB in Miscellaneous files.
1.02 GB free
20.566 GB total
There must be more storage on the phone than 16 GB as this equal more than 16 GB.
I was manually cleaning up file when I found a directory on my phone under the DCIM folder named “.thumbnails” at location: “/storage/emulated/0/DCIM/.thumbnails” it appears to have multiple thumb nails of every picture I have had on my phone.
From 1379616267892.jpg
To 1429740133739.jpg


I have a couple of question about it:

Does anyone know the function of this folder?
Can the thumbnails of pictures be deleted for it with our causing any problems?
Why are the several thumbnails for the same picture?
Can I delete the multiple copies so only one copy of each remains?
Why are there thumbnails for pictures I have deleted from my phone still here?
Which program generated the thumbnails that are stored here?
Why does is not clean up after itself?

Any information would be helpful. Also what is the best App for managing you programs that will give you the actual size of each?

Thanks you for any help.

 

[B. Diddy]

Re: Function of the folder “/storage/emulated/0/DCIM/.thumbnails”

Welcome to Android Central! The system and other apps generate thumbnails on a regular basis, of everything from your locally stored photos to images that are seen on the browser or used by apps. You can delete the thumbnails, but many of them will be regenerated anyway. I'm not sure why you have multiple thumbnails of the same image, but they might be different sizes or resolution, depending on what app generated them.

The file that takes up most space is usually the .thumbdata3 file. You could delete that, but the system will create it again, and it will eventually get big again. See this article for more info: More information about Android THUMBDATA files