Why are all of my folders empty???????

[jesseber]

Ok my 16GB (which of course is actually only <10gb) S4 only has 300 something mb of space left so i'm trying to clear things off of it and onto my ample 32gb SD card.

However, when I browse through the phone in Windows, the camera and music folders (among many others) are completely empty, despite my phone settings telling me that music and pics are taking up the majority of my space.

The phone is 4.3 and is set to media device.

Tried 3 computers. No luck on anything. Phone is running worse and worse due to lack of space.

Help??

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! Have you looked at those folders using your phone's file manager (or with a 3rd party file manager like ES File Explorer)? Are they full of files when you look at them there? If not, it's possible that you have a lot of music and photos cached from apps like Google Play Music or Photos. Try clearing the app caches of those apps to see if some storage space is freed up.

 

[jesseber]

No luck with exploring. Caches are minimal.

There's 4gb of pictures mysteriously hidden on my phone somewhere. All 537 pictures in my camera roll are accounted for on my SD card, as well as the 366 pictures on put on there from my old phone. I do, however, see the 4 Vine videos and 101 downloaded pics (that don't even remotely total 4gb) on the phone, as they should be and I can see this from any format.

Just not understanding how I still have 4gb on my phone of pictures that I don't know about...

 

[jesseber]

Anyone?

 

[hardrocker89]

Anyone?

You need samsung Kies for your pc, it installs the driver for your phone and should show your files and folders.

Posted via Android Central App

 

[hardrocker89]

Be sure to disconnect your phone from your pc before installing Kies and the driver.

Posted via Android Central App

 

[jesseber]

You need samsung Kies for your pc, it installs the driver for your phone and should show your files and folders.

Posted via Android Central App

I've had Kies for some time now. I just never use it. You're saying I can access the files through Kies?

 

[hardrocker89]

I've had Kies for some time now. I just never use it. You're saying I can access the files through Kies?

Yes and when Kies installs it installs the driver for the s4 as well. The missing driver could be why you can't view anything on your phone

Posted via Android Central App

 

[jesseber]

Reinstalled the driver, no luck in Windows.


Looking through the photos with Kies itself reveals that they are all on the SD card as always except what I had previously listed, which totals a whopping 183mb AND YET here I am still sitting on 4gb of magic fairy dust.

Even the 500+ photos that are on the SD total 1.69gb, so unless every single picture I own period is double duplicating itself to the phone memory, idk wtf is going on here.

My phone is running like absolute **** now and I can't even update any apps.

Please someone help.

 

[jesseber]

Can't open Snapchat videos, Instagram videos, or Twitter pictures. Google now returns completely blank search results under the web section. Phone as a whole has gone from my best friend to a total pos.

 

[kernmal]

Are you verifying the 4GB of photos from Settings>Storage?

I would try removing your SD card and rechecking your storage. Sometimes media files on the SD card are erroneously reported under your internal storage.

Are you familiar with DiskUsage from the Play Store. Great app that can help with troubleshooting storage issues.

Also, with your file manager of choice, select Show Hidden Files and look in your DCIM folder and Pictures folder. Look and see if there are thumbnails of the pics that are on your SD card. I used to have a recurring issue on my Epic 4G Touch, the system would generate thumbnails of the photos on my SD card every time that I used the Gallery. I had 2GB worth of thumbnails before I tracked it down.


Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Harjinderpal Sidhu]

Hi experts,

I am having the same issue. Files are there when I am accessing the folders from my phone. But When I connect my note 3 to the PC, all the folder are empty. Is encryption caused this issue? If so, I do not recollect if I have done the encryption.

 

[Justin0221]

Just incase anybody still needs help!! I had the same issue but unplugged my phone and set primary storage back to phone (was sd card) and plugged back in fixed the problem for me! Good Luck.