What gets labeled as other storage?

[AC Question]

What gets labeled as

I'm looking at my phone's storage, and the apps are taking up about 5GB, pics, docs, music, easy to understand as well and I'm not concerned there. My phone says "Other storage" and it is using about 7.5GB. What is grouped into other storage and what can be done to clear up space? I have already cleared out groups of old messages, but barely scratched the used "other storage" space at all.

I have an HTC One M8.

 

[B. Diddy]

Re: What gets labeled as

Welcome to Android Central! What happens if you tap the Other category--do you get more details?

 

[Rukbat]

Re: What gets labeled as

I'm guessing it's temporary storage being used by the system and data being stored by apps.

 

[DamienBlack500]

Re: What gets labeled as

I'm the guest who asked the question.
Thanks for the quick response!
When I trap the others category, nothing happens. I am not able to tap on any category for further details.
If it helps, I'm on android 4.4.4.

 

[Javier P]

Re: What gets labeled as

I think "others" it's what in other phones is called miscellaneous. I'm afraid that in an HTC you can't dig much in it. And being a new member you can't post screenshots yet, so let's try a workaround.

First install ES File Explorer from the Play Store, we are going to need it for a couple of things. I think there're some apps creating huge files that don't appear under app data. And some apps can left files behind after being uninstalled. Hit and miss for now

Open ES and select "small icons" in view. Check for a file like the one I circled, or, even better, one named OCQ. Long press on it, tap on the three dots bottom right and select properties. See the size. Check if in that list you recognise a name of an app you uninstalled.

If you can spare some time repeat that process for as many folders as you can, especially with those from wallpapers, news and media apps. Tell us what you find and we'll try to find a way to safely recover that space.

 

[DamienBlack500]

Re: What gets labeled as

Installed the app and checked for the folder, but it's not there. Would the "other storage" just be the Android OS and temporary files? Or does the OS not even show up there? All of the used space adds up to the right amount. I'm using about 11Gb of my 32Gb. I know it's not truly a full 32Gb because of how the math works out. I'm just curious as to what gets thrown into the "other storage" category.

 

[Javier P]

Re: What gets labeled as

I haven't found a good explanation of how these other / miscellaneous files are created. I'm assuming that they are the same. I had almost 1G in there and made a good clean up. Now is around 300M. In the screenshots you see some of them. Look at whatsapp. There's a much bigger file under MISC than in the app data information!

It's a pity that you can't access that list in your phone. Try to see the size of the folders with ES. Forget the Android folder.

 

[Javier P]

Re: What gets labeled as

There's something else you can try. I'm not very proud of telling you this, and with two Ambassadors posting in this thread there's a risk they ban me from this forum

Install Clean Master. Open it and tap on "junk files". See how much space is that. You can safely delete that.

My recommendation, don't look anymore in there and uninstall it straight away

Don't worry, it's not risky at all. That type of apps are considered kind of useless round here (and I agree with that), but it can be helpful for you.

 

[B. Diddy]

Re: What gets labeled as

That type of apps are considered kind of useless round here (and I agree with that), but it can be helpful for you.

Javier P, you are banished to the Wasteland!

Just kidding. I don't think apps like CleanMaster are completely useless. You just have to be aware of which functions are useful, and which are potentially counterproductive. The main unhelpful function of those kinds of apps is the "RAM cleaner" function, especially when it's set to be automated.

 

[anon8380037]

Re: What gets labeled as

I think Other is System + Stock Apps + Downloaded apps + Miscellaneous files.

Application Data in Storage - Used Space is all apps, stock and downloaded.

In this Samsung Galaxy Note 3 32gb My Files app, Others adds up whats left after Music, Video, Photos - if 0.94gb of Miscellaneous is added though not shown in My Files.

I worked this out months ago, but I'm too sleepy to see any error here.

For shame Javier, for shame!

 

[DamienBlack500]

Re: What gets labeled as

Thanks for the tip. Clean Master removed about 450MB of files. Still using 7.56GB in "Other Storage" though, which is the same amount as before I ran it.
I uninstalled a game I no longer cared to have, and it went down .02GB (down to 7.54GB now). I'm thinking that it is temp files for apps. To be honest, I never really looked at the amount of data under "Other Storage" prior to now, so I don't have a benchmark as to what is normal. I'm getting an idea of what it classifies under it now though.
Also, the screenshots of the Samsung My Files app are helpful.
I'll play around with my apps and look into clearing out more cache to see if that helps. I'll post my results when I get time. If you have any more thoughts in the meantime, send them my way

 

[Javier P]

Re: What gets labeled as

Oh no! Even Madd is here now. The little reputation I had is all gone. And just for 400M!

Just kidding. I think Madd is right. It seems that the Sense Explorer organise the storage the same way that TW does. I was assuming that "others" were the same that miscellaneous, and that's wrong.

All good then. B. Diddy said it all about apps like Clean master. Use them wisely.

 

[DamienBlack500]

Re: What gets labeled as

OK. I tried removing more apps and games I no longer cared to have on my phone, something that needed to be done for a while anyway, and my "Other Storage" category did not decrease. It is holding steady at 7.5GB. I think it is safe to conclude that it is for the OS, factory installed apps, cache/temp files, and anything else that is not a picture, video, or document like Madd54 and Javier P said.

Thank you all for helping me out. I found a couple more good apps to keep like ES File Explorer and CleanMaster. Another good one I found is Storage Analyzer. It shows everything on the phone, and you can sort the folders by size to see where all the space is being used.

Thanks again for the help. I'm happy with the answers I got