Hello,
My name is Al and I am a first time visitor to this forum. I know that this is a long and complicated email with a lot of questions from a newbie to your forum, but I will appreciate any help anyone can provide and I have no doubt that future visitors/searchers will be able to take advantage of any advice provided.
I have a 16 GB Samsung SM-G900V which runs on Android version 5.0. I have had this phone for about 3 years now and it has always worked great until recently when I tried to download an app, but was prevented from doing so by a lack of storage space.
I have identified the "storage hog" in my system that is causing me to not have any space left on my phone and that is Google Play Books. When I look at the App Info for Google Play Books on my phone it reads:
Version 3.8.41
Total 2.00 GB
Application 29.79 MB
Data 1.97 GB
There are also tabs I can press called "Force Stop," "Uninstall Updates," "Disable," "Show Notifications," and "Clear Data."
There are some things I understand about why the Books App may be using more storage than other Apps and some I am confused about. For the past 3 years I have subscribed to Bookbub - a great free service that sends you a daily email about free or low-cost ebooks that are available to get for a brief promotional period. First, let me tell you how I use Google Play Books. I only use it on my home laptop computer - I don't use it on my Samsung phone. For example, when I open the email from Bookbub on my laptop any Google Play link I press takes me to a new tab in my laptop browser which has my Google Play account info (https://play.google.com/store/). On this tab I can purchase, open and read, and find all books I previously purchased. Although I never asked it to, I assume my Samsung phone which is linked to my Google account has been automatically syncing to my phone the books I purchased without my knowledge over the years.
Over the past 3 years I have downloaded more than 500 ebooks to my Google Play account using the titles recommended by BookBub, but there is something strange that I don't understand. When I go into the Google Play Books app on my Samsung phone, there is a list of the books that I purchased in the past and a small image of the cover, but none of the books have actually downloaded into my phone. For instance, when I tap on the 3 vertical white dots on the top right-hand corner of one of the book covers, a small menu screen appears with 3 choices: "Download," or "Delete From Library," or "About This Book" which indicates the book had not yet been downloaded to my phone. It is only when I tap on the center of the image of one of the book covers, that the app opens the book and I am able to read it (I assume that the app begins downloading the book simultaneously when I do so).
Questions I Would Like Assistance With:
1) Given the above facts, does anyone know why Google Play Books is taking up so much room on my Samsung phone? According to my understanding of the app, the only thing that is inside the app is a list of purchased book titles and a small picture of the cover - this should only take up a few MBs at most - not 1.97 GB of space. Again, according to the Google Play Books app, none of the books are downloaded yet to my phone (at least as far as I can tell). The best solution for me would be to keep the list of purchased titles and their cover images in the Google Play Books app and get rid of any other data since I don't want to read or access any of the books on my phone - I will only access Google Play books on my home laptop. Does anyone know how I can do this? (Note: I tried downloading several books and then removing them after they downloaded to see if that would reduce the amount of space but it had no effect.)
2) I spent a lot of time over the past 3 years finding and downloading these many Google Books and I don't want to permanently delete them from my Google Play Account. However, if I can't eliminate most of the 1.97 GB in space taken up by the Google Play Books app under question 1 above, I do want to delete these books from my Samsung phone and set up my phone (if possible) so that the Google Play Books app does not keep synching new book purchases I make on my home laptop in the future to my Samsung phone (although I assume if I Disable the Google Play Books app on my phone, neither any books nor any updates will be loaded on my phone).
I have done some research online, and I am confused about the steps I should take to remove the large amount of data from the Google Play Books app. Do I first press the button in the App Info menu called "Force Stop," then press "Uninstall Updates," then press "Clear Data," and then press "Disable." Does the order I press these buttons matter? If so, what should the correct order be? Also, once I am done and have removed the data should I uncheck the "Show Notifications" button? Is my assumption correct that once the app has been Disabled that the Google Play Books app will not sync or download any more books or updates to my phone?
3) If I do decide to disable the Google Play Books app on my Samsung phone and stop Google Play Books from syncing to my phone, will this affect any other operations my phone needs to function normally? (For example, will I still be able to open and read PDF files I receive from a friend attached to a Yahoo email?) If I later change my mind, can I re-able or restore the Google Play Books app on my phone without having to do a manual factory reset? How would I do this? From research I have done online, I understand that I should not mess with the Google Play Services app which is different than the Google Play Books app - is this assumption correct?.
Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you for reading this post and for any assistance you can provide. I know it will be helpful to future visitors.
Al
My name is Al and I am a first time visitor to this forum. I know that this is a long and complicated email with a lot of questions from a newbie to your forum, but I will appreciate any help anyone can provide and I have no doubt that future visitors/searchers will be able to take advantage of any advice provided.
I have a 16 GB Samsung SM-G900V which runs on Android version 5.0. I have had this phone for about 3 years now and it has always worked great until recently when I tried to download an app, but was prevented from doing so by a lack of storage space.
I have identified the "storage hog" in my system that is causing me to not have any space left on my phone and that is Google Play Books. When I look at the App Info for Google Play Books on my phone it reads:
Version 3.8.41
Total 2.00 GB
Application 29.79 MB
Data 1.97 GB
There are also tabs I can press called "Force Stop," "Uninstall Updates," "Disable," "Show Notifications," and "Clear Data."
There are some things I understand about why the Books App may be using more storage than other Apps and some I am confused about. For the past 3 years I have subscribed to Bookbub - a great free service that sends you a daily email about free or low-cost ebooks that are available to get for a brief promotional period. First, let me tell you how I use Google Play Books. I only use it on my home laptop computer - I don't use it on my Samsung phone. For example, when I open the email from Bookbub on my laptop any Google Play link I press takes me to a new tab in my laptop browser which has my Google Play account info (https://play.google.com/store/). On this tab I can purchase, open and read, and find all books I previously purchased. Although I never asked it to, I assume my Samsung phone which is linked to my Google account has been automatically syncing to my phone the books I purchased without my knowledge over the years.
Over the past 3 years I have downloaded more than 500 ebooks to my Google Play account using the titles recommended by BookBub, but there is something strange that I don't understand. When I go into the Google Play Books app on my Samsung phone, there is a list of the books that I purchased in the past and a small image of the cover, but none of the books have actually downloaded into my phone. For instance, when I tap on the 3 vertical white dots on the top right-hand corner of one of the book covers, a small menu screen appears with 3 choices: "Download," or "Delete From Library," or "About This Book" which indicates the book had not yet been downloaded to my phone. It is only when I tap on the center of the image of one of the book covers, that the app opens the book and I am able to read it (I assume that the app begins downloading the book simultaneously when I do so).
Questions I Would Like Assistance With:
1) Given the above facts, does anyone know why Google Play Books is taking up so much room on my Samsung phone? According to my understanding of the app, the only thing that is inside the app is a list of purchased book titles and a small picture of the cover - this should only take up a few MBs at most - not 1.97 GB of space. Again, according to the Google Play Books app, none of the books are downloaded yet to my phone (at least as far as I can tell). The best solution for me would be to keep the list of purchased titles and their cover images in the Google Play Books app and get rid of any other data since I don't want to read or access any of the books on my phone - I will only access Google Play books on my home laptop. Does anyone know how I can do this? (Note: I tried downloading several books and then removing them after they downloaded to see if that would reduce the amount of space but it had no effect.)
2) I spent a lot of time over the past 3 years finding and downloading these many Google Books and I don't want to permanently delete them from my Google Play Account. However, if I can't eliminate most of the 1.97 GB in space taken up by the Google Play Books app under question 1 above, I do want to delete these books from my Samsung phone and set up my phone (if possible) so that the Google Play Books app does not keep synching new book purchases I make on my home laptop in the future to my Samsung phone (although I assume if I Disable the Google Play Books app on my phone, neither any books nor any updates will be loaded on my phone).
I have done some research online, and I am confused about the steps I should take to remove the large amount of data from the Google Play Books app. Do I first press the button in the App Info menu called "Force Stop," then press "Uninstall Updates," then press "Clear Data," and then press "Disable." Does the order I press these buttons matter? If so, what should the correct order be? Also, once I am done and have removed the data should I uncheck the "Show Notifications" button? Is my assumption correct that once the app has been Disabled that the Google Play Books app will not sync or download any more books or updates to my phone?
3) If I do decide to disable the Google Play Books app on my Samsung phone and stop Google Play Books from syncing to my phone, will this affect any other operations my phone needs to function normally? (For example, will I still be able to open and read PDF files I receive from a friend attached to a Yahoo email?) If I later change my mind, can I re-able or restore the Google Play Books app on my phone without having to do a manual factory reset? How would I do this? From research I have done online, I understand that I should not mess with the Google Play Services app which is different than the Google Play Books app - is this assumption correct?.
Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you for reading this post and for any assistance you can provide. I know it will be helpful to future visitors.
Al
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