Why does Smart Switch require storage on my phone?

[Android Central Question]

I am trying to backup my phone to pc with Smart Switch. It wont start saying I need to free up 1.7GB data on device. I have plenty of room on my PC. Even when I deleted a couple apps it gives me the same message. Any ideas on how to proceed?

 

[mustang7757]

Which Samsung devices ?


I'll leave a Link to register so you can communicate here as a guest account you can only post questions but can't reply

https://forums.androidcentral.com/showthread.php?t=409154

 

[Amy Pierce]

I have registered. Device is J337A. Thanks

 

[mustang7757]

I have registered. Device is J337A. Thanks

Hi, welcome to AC!

This a Samsung j3 ? What andriod version its on and storage size of the device?

 

[Amy Pierce]

Yes - it is a Samsung J3. Android version 9. Storage 16 GB.

 

[mustang7757]

Ok so your phone storage is almost full , when you connect to smart switch on the pc it won't let you back up because phone storage is full , that correct?

 

[Amy Pierce]

Yes - storage is 99.9% full. I have been told this is likely due to corrupt files (because it all shows up under "Other" in the Storage Analysis) and the way to resolve is do a factory reset. Thus I am trying to use Smart Switch to do a backup to my PC to ensure I can get back what I need. And yes you are correct that when I connect to Smart Switch on PC it wont let me back it up. I don't understand why it needs the room on my phone as I am trying to save the backup on my PC which has plenty of room.

 

[mustang7757]

Yeah that doesn't make sense , but I never had my device full on storage.
Do you see this message when plug into Smart Switch on phone or Smart Switch itself?

 

[Amy Pierce]

I see the message on the PC in Smart Switch after I choose the backup option. This is what happens: I connect the phone via USB to PC. I start Smart Switch on PC. It connects to the device and smart switch screen comes up on phone. I choose the Backup button on PC screen. It gives me a checklist of items to backup and I have about half of them selected. Then I push the button to start. "SM-J377A data us being backed up" message appears. Also message at bottom "Loading backup lists..." and the 3 dots keep moving for about a minute. Then a popup box appears with "Insufficient space to back up." message on top and "There's not enough space. Delete 1.12 GB from your device to back up data."

I did delete 2 apps since yesterday and it has changed from delete 1.7 to delete 1.12 so it does seem to recognize the change in space.
I was just hoping for a setting to be looking for the space on PC instead of the phone.

Thx

 

[mustang7757]

I see the message on the PC in Smart Switch after I choose the backup option. This is what happens: I connect the phone via USB to PC. I start Smart Switch on PC. It connects to the device and smart switch screen comes up on phone. I choose the Backup button on PC screen. It gives me a checklist of items to backup and I have about half of them selected. Then I push the button to start. "SM-J377A data us being backed up" message appears. Also message at bottom "Loading backup lists..." and the 3 dots keep moving for about a minute. Then a popup box appears with "Insufficient space to back up." message on top and "There's not enough space. Delete 1.12 GB from your device to back up data."

I did delete 2 apps since yesterday and it has changed from delete 1.7 to delete 1.12 so it does seem to recognize the change in space.
I was just hoping for a setting to be looking for the space on PC instead of the phone.

Thx

I'm looking this up. Like I mentioned I never ran into this because my phones had plenty of space

 

[mustang7757]

I'm not seeing any mention on the Smart Switch notices about phone has to have certain amount of free space but if that message in SS scores up I would try to delete maybe little more see if it goes through.

 

[AndroidUser333]

I ran into the same issue...

"Insufficient space to back up"
"There's not enough space.Delete 155.22MB from your device to back up data."
([sic] missing space in actual message)

The first message mentioned ~5GB which, after freeing more than 5GB, then mentioned (as shown above) ~150MB without going away even after removing more than the amount specified.

I downloaded Smart Switch the official link.

That download was Smart Switch version 4.3.22063.6. I was offline when hitting the error mentioned above. After connecting to the internet, Smart Switch offered to upgrade from version 4.3.22063.6 to version 4.3.22083.3. I accepted the upgrade which seemed to get past the error message, though it still required me to free an enormous amount of a space across testing multiple smartphones. IOW, the upgrade seemed to not get stuck constantly asking me to free up space, but it was still asking me to free up some space (it just did not get stuck constantly asking).

Generally, I really appreciate that company's efforts to create great hardware/OS experiences, but I must agree with the OP and others... a backup program in this day and age should never require freeing up source device space, or at least have an option (even if slower) to avoid such.

A user should never be forced into starting apps to manage files on the source device in order to delete files before being allowed to back up. There are several good reasons for this, one being that a backup is usually a way of saving data before such file management. IOW, let a user perform a backup, then prune files to free space, not the other way around. As well, a user should be able to grab a backup without using apps and hassling with the source device... just get the data as fast as possible and let a user back it up. The idea that a user has to delete files off the "hard drive" before backing up the "hard drive," is somewhat silly. A device backup system simply should not force the user to run programs and delete files.

Insufficient space to backup...


Offer to upgrade Smart Switch from version 4.3.22063.6 to 4.3.22083.3...

 

[tommee98]

What worked this time for me was going to the MyFiles folder under the Samsung group app on the main screen. Drilling down to the podcasts I deleted virtually all podcasts but a few, making sure I did not delete other files, such as songs somehow located in same storage space. This freed up enough storage space on the android and the back up proceeded without a glitch.

 

[Mr Bojangles1]

Do you have a lot of text chats on your phone with a lot of history in them? That might be where some of the storage labeled as other is coming from.