Question Why is my storage FULL?.....Aaaaaggghhhh!!!

[MisterKevster]

5 Year old Xiaomi Redmi Note 8.....has 64GB internal storage.....and 16GB SD
I have deleted huge amounts of pics/andio......still get messages saying that I'm running out of storage.
I am going crazy....trying to find the recycle bin....and failing completely.
Youtube videos have not helped at all.
There must be an idiot guide for users like me.....Please???

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! Can you show us a screenshot of the Storage menu in the system settings?

 

[MisterKevster]

 

[MisterKevster]

Is this what you wanted???

 

[Golfdriver97]

Looks like you have some really large apps installed. Perhaps there are some you don't need anymore?

 

[B. Diddy]

Adding everything up, the total is about 60 GB. Even though your phone's total storage is 64 GB, when you start to approach full, the system can prevent you from installing more apps because it still needs some buffer space for cache and data. So either you need to uninstall some of your larger apps, or look through the apps and see which ones might have built up a huge amount of data. Browsers and social media apps can do the latter.

If you tap the Apps & Data category, does it show you a list of your apps in order of size?

 

[MisterKevster]

Many thanks for your replies.
Don't play games at all. I can see that Gallery requires attention... even though I feel that there's very little in it ! Here's a shot of the 'big' apps......

 

[Golfdriver97]

Adding everything up, the total is about 60 GB. Even though your phone's total storage is 64 GB

Don't forget that formatting and OS takes up space too.

 

[Golfdriver97]

Many thanks for your replies.
Don't play games at all. I can see that Gallery requires attention... even though I feel that there's very little in it ! Here's a shot of the 'big' apps......

You'll have to go through and see what is going on. If you have any videos those can eat up space quickly. Even if each video is a few seconds long, many of them will still add up to GB worth of space.

 

[winmod21]

A question: (hope it's ok to interject it here) . . .
Where do pictures go – when they're deleted from the Gallery Trash? Do the files get completely wiped, and later written over?
Also, where do pics & texts go – when deleted from Messages? Since they don't get moved to a Trash, does the OS also wipe & re-write pics and misc texts/emo's that are deleted from Messages?

 

[MisterKevster]

A question: (hope it's ok to interject it here) . . .
Where do pictures go – when they're deleted from the Gallery Trash? Do the files get completely wiped, and later written over?
Also, where do pics & texts go – when deleted from Messages? Since they don't get moved to a Trash, does the OS also wipe & re-write pics and misc texts/emo's that are deleted from Messages?

That's...kind of...what I was wondering too!!
If there IS a trash/recycle area on the phone.....I'd like to find it.
I've supposedly 'deleted' so many things (mp3s/pics) in the past....yet storage remains full.

 

[Madd62]

Try the Security App, and the Cleaner there. I still have a 2020 Poco (Xiaomi)
Also look at Deep Clean there.

 

[B. Diddy]

Don't forget that formatting and OS takes up space too.

Oh yes, but the OP's screenshot does account for that (11.45 GB).

 

[B. Diddy]

Many thanks for your replies.
Don't play games at all. I can see that Gallery requires attention... even though I feel that there's very little in it ! Here's a shot of the 'big' apps......

That's definitely a lot of space taken up by Gallery, which doesn't make a ton of sense to me, because the Gallery app should just be a tool to display images and videos that are saved separately elsewhere in storage. You should be able to clear the app cache/data for Gallery without affecting any of those photos or videos that are saved to the phone.

 

[B. Diddy]

A question: (hope it's ok to interject it here) . . .
Where do pictures go – when they're deleted from the Gallery Trash? Do the files get completely wiped, and later written over?
Also, where do pics & texts go – when deleted from Messages? Since they don't get moved to a Trash, does the OS also wipe & re-write pics and misc texts/emo's that are deleted from Messages?

According to this help page, trashing a photo or video using a gallery app (like Photos or the stock Gallery) will make it still available for recovery for 30 days: https://support.google.com/photos/a...video that's backed up,your trash for 30 days. If you use a file manager app to look in the /DCIM/Camera directory, you'll see files with the word "trashed" in them as a prefix. I'm assuming the system will delete these actual files after 30 days, although I think I've seen some of them stick around for longer.