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So I have four partitions in my galaxy mini :
System rom 216mb (21.4mb free)
Internal 479mb(447mb free)
Sd card 15.3gb(13.5gb free)
Sd card(a2sd) 187mb(8.54mb free)
When I try to move my apps to sd card using the default move it moves to sd card(a2sd) and not to sd card .
So how do I do that ? + Is their a way I can move stuff from my system rom to other partitions ?
im abcd said:
So I have four partitions in my galaxy mini :
System rom 216mb (21.4mb free)
Internal 479mb(447mb free)
Sd card 15.3gb(13.5gb free)
Sd card(a2sd) 187mb(8.54mb free)
When I try to move my apps to sd card using the default move it moves to sd card(a2sd) and not to sd card .
So how do I do that ? + Is their a way I can move stuff from my system rom to other partitions ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First Search in Google Then Post......
P.S.=Don't Spam please
pratyush369 said:
First Search in Google Then Post......
P.S.=Don't Spam please
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry to not meet upto your expectations but nowhere in google did I find the desired result and In no way do I feel that I have spamed xda forums .
Maybe you can help me to recognize in what way I have spammed ?
Bump , no help ? :/
sdcard, external_sd
a2sd is moving apps to your other partitions. the 16 gig card you got has to be the one where you got to move apps. all apps are stored in your internal memory. the system rom is read only, so you wont be able to move or erase it. its permanent, programmed at the factory. so forget rom. if you formatted your sdcards correctly, then you must be able to delete partitions, or reformat them. i recommend deleting the partition after uninstalling all apps on that partition. remember, you are rooted, so if you have root access apps on that partition, then you first have to undo everything the apps did. eg: if you have chainfire, then you got to remove all plugins(qualcomm, nvidia, powervr if installed) the cf3d plugin with egl if installed, then uninstall cf. connect your mobile via usb cord, or get your sdcard in a memory card reader, connect to pc. use "device manager" in your pc to see all partitions of your hard drives. look for your sdcard drive, and you will see all types of data divided in it, that is, formatted data, raw data, etc. if you see raw data, then you have to format it, and its likely that you will be done there. but i f you see formatted data, then just delete the 8 mb partition, and then its possible that you may succeed. this is dangerous, and your data can sort of "vanish", but it will only be the 8mb data according to me. its also possible that you may not be able to delete the partition after all, as this usually works for hard drives. if so, you may use hp format tool to format your device to NTFS and try again. this also can make your data vanish by what you say. the simplest would be to try and delete the partition from your mini itself. the app which you used to partition must allow you to remove partitions also, so look for it. and if this particular app is in the sdcard(a2sd), then you would better move tit to phone memory first. remember, uninstall ALL apps on the partition, and undo ALL the changes they made to your device before trying this out. this may horribly go wrong, so beware! (i havent tried it yet, so. and someone gifted me an ipod 5g, which i tried to partition, but was unsuccessful.) just hit thanks if you find this helpful!
---------- Post added at 11:16 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:10 PM ----------
Link2SD is an application that makes it easy for Android 1.6+ users with root privileges on their phone to move applications to the SD card.
The idea behind is same with apps2sd scripts, linking applications to SD card's second partition but differs in two ways.
One, instead of linking /data/app folder (that means moving all applications), you can select applications that you want to move.
Two, it's an application which means has a user interface. You can manage your applications with few clicks.
It also provides native apps2sd features on Android 2.2 and higher. It can move any non-protected user apps to SD card (force move), with batch moving capability.
That feature uses Android's standard SD-card installation feature and does not require a second partition. It can break some apps if they are not meant to be moved to the SD card (Such as Widgets).
Features:
- Create and remove link for apk, dex and lib files of the applications you select
- Automatically link newly installed apps (optional)
- Move any user apps to SD even though the app does not support moving to SD (a.k.a. "force move", for Android 2.2 and higher)
- Shows the apps that support moving to SD with native apps2sd (for Android 2.2 and higher)
- Set the default install location of the apps; auto, internal, or external (for Android 2.2 and higher)
- Batch link, unlink, reinstall, uninstall, "move to SD", "move to phone" functions (multi-select mode)
- Uninstall system applications (bloatware removal)
- Freeze and un-freeze system and users applications
- Convert system apps into user apps
- Convert user apps into system apps
- Integrate "Updated" system apps into system (ROM)
- Clear data and cache of the application
- Clear all apps cache at once (1-tap cache cleaner without being root)
- List applications, show detailed size information and link status
- Sort and filter applications
- Search applications by name
- Display available space information of internal storage, SD card and SD card 2nd partition
What you need:
- root permission.
- a second partition on your SD card.
You should have two partitions on SD card and both should be primary.
The first FAT partition is your standard SD card storage. The second partition is used for application files and can be ext2, ext3, ext4 or FAT32.
Some phones lack the ext2, ext3 or ext4 file system support and you may get mount errors like "no such device", "invalid argument". These phones need ext2.ko or ext3.ko modules and even some additional modules to be able to mount. Using FAT32 on the second partition will eleminate such problems, because FAT32 is supported on all phones.
Link2SD does not create the second partition, you need to create it yourself. You can use any partition manager such as Minitool, Paragon, Easeus etc. for this.
How it works:
Link2SD mounts the second partition of your SD card and makes OS mounts it at boot time.
When you press "Create Link" button Link2SD moves apk file, dalvik-cache (.dex) file and lib files (.so) to SD card's 2nd partition and creates symbolic links in original directories.
Note: On Android 1.6 and 2.1, shortcut and the widget of the app should be re-added to homescreen if you move the apk file.
You can remove the links and put application files back to phone. Just click on "Remove Link" button.
Some points
- System applications should not be linked to SD card. Link2SD does not allow these applications to be linked.
- When you connect your phone to PC as mass storage, Android unmounts the first FAT partition but the second partition remains mounted. Therefore linked applications are not affected and can be run without problems.
- Link2SD does not move application's private data files; it moves apk, dex (dalvik-cache) and lib files.
DISCLAIMER: It is made available for use at your own risk with no warranty of any kind.
you may try this before everything else!
To move apps to sdcard, use link2sd and long press the desired app & select "Move to sdcard"(if u have root).
Sent Via XDA™ Premium
Hello everybody.
I'm searching for a way to swap between the internal sd storage and the external one on my Galaxy S3 Mini because the internal storage is not enough big to install games and other big apps. I've seen there is a way for the S3, but I don't know if it's possible for the Mini too...
So, please, if anyone can help me...
EDIT: I've found a way to do that, and it only needs to have a Galaxy S3 Mini i8190 rooted.
Okay let's go.
I took the method from this thread: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1886091
But it's not exactly the same on the Mini.
The following quote is the instructions taken from the thread with the improvements ( in red ) for the i8190.
NB: I can't answer to questions since I'm not expert at all, I got it working so I give you the solution, that's all I can do.
1. First, I'd recommend making a Nandroid backup of your phone.
2. Next, just to be extra safe, I would backup your internal SD card to your PC. While you are doing that, if you have data on the external SD card, back that up too.
3. Next, I would format your external SD card to fat 32. (You could probably use Ext format too, but I didn’t test that.)If you already have it in that format, and have content on it, this won't affect the content, but back it up just to be safe. It’s probably better to have the Ext SD blank to begin with, you can always copy back its content from your pc.
4. Next copy the contents of the internal SD to the External SD card. This is to avoid confusion about apps and such.
5. Next install script manager free from the play store:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/...anager&feature=nav_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwyLDNd
It will show up on your phone as S manager ads.
You MUST install BusyBox too!! https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=stericson.busybox
6. Download the mod from here: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/6305/SD Card Hack SG3/11extsd2internalsd
( save as ) And put it into the /data directory of your phone
7. You must edit this script for it to work on Mini. Change /mnt/sdcard to /storage/sdcard0 and /mnt/extSdCard to /storage/extSdCard
(This vary depending of your phone, so check where is located internal storage, it was /storage/sdcard0 for me, and the external SD, it was /storage/extSdCard for me.)
8. Open the script manager app, and select Browse as Root in the config screen. Tell it to remember this setting.
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/6305/SD Card Hack SG3/Script manager browse as root and save.png
9. Using Script Manager, navigate to that file in the /data directory. Press and hold the file name until the menu pops up, and click on properties.
(Unix geeks set them to 777, and everyone else copy the picture below. Click OK.
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/6305/SD Card Hack SG3/Permission settings 777.png
10. Click on the scipt now.. Click on the “Is script” button.
11. Now tap on the buttons that say Su, Boot, and Save. The file name will come up in yellow after the save.
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/6305/SD Card Hack SG3/Script manager setting after save.png
12. Reboot your phone and you should see the swap working and be able to access both internal and external SD cards. The external card will show up as sdcard, and the internal card will show up as extSDCard. Your apps should now install to the external card, since your phone will think it's the internal card. Is that confusing? It was to me too!
Good luck and please share your experiences specifying which ROM you used, so that others can avoid frustration.
Thank you’s always appreciated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try this it might solve you're solution. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1410262
Sent from my GT-I8190 using xda premium
No, sorry, I've already seen that but it's not a way to swap the internal with the external sd storage..
Jalubyc said:
Hello everybody.
I'm searching for a way to swap between the internal sd storage and the external one on my Galaxy S3 Mini because the internal storage is not enough big to install games and other big apps. I've seen there is a way for the S3, but I don't know if it's possible for the Mini too...
So, please, if anyone can help me...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
for big apps or games you need to put a additional "external" sdcard in your galaxy s3 mini..... for example i have installed the game "Need for Speed - Most Wanted" 1,8GB of the game is on my additinal "external" sdcard and the rest (40mb) are installed on device.....
enox.co said:
for big apps or games you need to put a additional "external" sdcard in your galaxy s3 mini..... for example i have installed the game "Need for Speed - Most Wanted" 1,8GB of the game is on my additinal "external" sdcard and the rest (40mb) are installed on device.....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've an external sdcard, I bought one of 32GB, but I can't use it as I wanted to because there is no way to install apps into the sd card. So I'm searching for a way to let know the phone that the external sd is the internal storage and that the internal storage is the external sd card.
I've found a way!
Well what is it then.
Sent from my GT-I8190 using xda premium
kicker63 said:
Well what is it then.
Sent from my GT-I8190 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Please take a look at my first post. I edited it with the solution.
Hi Jalubyc
I've just tried your solution above and my phone is showing under storage
Device memory Total space 4.54GB
Available 378Mb
SD Card Total Space 29.71GB
Available 27.12GB
So it looks like my first attempt didn't work
Problems I found were firstly at step 6, I couldn't download the mod on phone. I was using chrome and there is no (save as) option. I can only save the link. On PC I saved the page as a text doc and edited the sdcard and extsdcard bits before saving the script. Where is the /data directory? Am I supposed to create a "data" folder in the root of my internal sdcard or copy to the data folder in the android folder? I put it in the android/data/ folder and it didn't work.
Once this is working is it safe to delete the contents of sdcard0 to get my 4.54gb back. I also take it any ROM updates would revert everything back
jazzzy786 said:
Problems I found were firstly at step 6, I couldn't download the mod on phone. I was using chrome and there is no (save as) option. I can only save the link. On PC I saved the page as a text doc and edited the sdcard and extsdcard bits before saving the script. Where is the /data directory? Am I supposed to create a "data" folder in the root of my internal sdcard or copy to the data folder in the android folder? I put it in the android/data/ folder and it didn't work.
Once this is working is it safe to delete the contents of sdcard0 to get my 4.54gb back. I also take it any ROM updates would revert everything back
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh no you're totally out of the solution. The /data directory is at root of the phone, so not in a sdcard. Use chrome from your PC to save as and put in into your sdcard before putting it into the /data directory with ES Explorer or another file explorer that's supporting root.
For the ROM updates I don't know because I've never tried.
I still cannot save the script using 'save as' as I don't have the option. I have 'save link as' which saves it as a text document. Edited it as stated.
I've found the data folder but ES explorer wouldn't allow me to copy my script to it and is showing the folder as blank.I got root browser lite from the play store which worked okay in allowing me to copy to the data folder. I used s manager lite to do its stuff and rebooted. No success - .
I'm using Android version 4.1.2/ Build number JZO54K.I8190DXALL3 .
Are you positive about the /storage/ change to the script as I remember when using directory bind it was /mnt/extSdCard/ and /sdcard/.
There is a /mnt/sdcard/ too which contains the same files as other location so possibly script can run unchanged. Getting a bit frustrated now as I have an old HTC Desire with over 300 apps (70+ games) with internal memory of 137Mb out of 148Mb and 10Gb free on sdcard out of 32gb
---------- Post added at 02:20 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:42 PM ----------
Ok working now. Your script changes were correct. Device memory total space 29.71GB with 27.12GB free. Sd card total space 4.64gb with 800Mb free.
Now to get my full 4.64Gb back which folder contents do I delete? I think deleting the contents of extsdcard in my files. Thanks you've changed my phone from a very limited phone to something much better.
It is a bit strange way to solve free space problems.
I have 8GB version with 4.5GB free the box. When I installed all games and apps that I needed there was something about 800MB free.
My solution is simple:
1. install Directory Bind
2. Make link: mount="/sdcard/Android/", source="/storage/extSdCard/Android/" with "Transfer Files" option
3. Wait till the end of process (can take alot of time depends from your data)
4. Enjoy!
After this simple manipulations I got 3.6GB free in internal memory, installed 2 additional games (including Need for Speed Most Wanted with huge data) and it shows 3.4GB now.
You can make as much links as you want, of course. But moving "/sdcard/Android/" to external SD is enough
I tried directory bind and it just copied the contents of my internal sdcard to my external sdcard. It didn't move the contents as it was supposed to. I ended up with a copy of the files on both sdcards. If I tried to delete from my internal sdcard it also deleted the contents of my external sdcard. I couldn't for the life of me figure out what I had done wrong as I'd followed the instructions as far as I could tell. Now my phone is seeing a massive internal sd card and a 4Gb external sd card. I still can't get spiderman total mayhem to work though it throws up an error while downloading the game data
you should not bind root folders via directory bind. And it makes symlinks so it will looks like content does not deleted from internal SD but it shown from external SD already.
flashable zip
Hi!
Do you think that is possible to install the mod via a flashable zip?
Many thanks!
Yes it is possible. Take a look of the post for the galaxy s3, it is explained. But you must edit the script to make it working.
plvigo said:
Hi!
Do you think that is possible to install the mod via a flashable zip?
Many thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not possible, we do not have a unlocked kernel, therefore we cannot load unsigned zips.
dolar4ik said:
you should not bind root folders via directory bind. And it makes symlinks so it will looks like content does not deleted from internal SD but it shown from external SD already.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry I don't understand what you've written. What do you mean do not use to bind root folders? What's a symlink?Are you saying the folders I'm seeing on sdcard0 are dummy folders and the contents have been moved to extsdcard? I've swapped my sdcards over using the script now so no longer using directory bind.
Jalubyc said:
You MUST install BusyBox too!! https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...ricson.busybox
6. Download the mod from here: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/6305/SD C...tsd2internalsd
( save as ) And put it into the /data directory of your phone
7. You must edit this script for it to work on Mini. Change /mnt/sdcard to /storage/sdcard0 and /mnt/extSdCard to /storage/extSdCard
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i have two questions:
1: What do i have to do with this data:
#!/system/bin/sh
#extsd2internalsd is a modification that allows to switch internal sd to external sd and viceversa. With this you can use default internal sd only for app storage #and the external sd to store all apps resource and all others stuff. The resut is a very big increase of installable apps on gs3
#All credits to Mattiadj of xda forum for the idea and script and to mike1986 for the cmw zip.
#xda thread url at
#Script Modified for U.S. Galaxy S3s by Zedomax at GalaxyS3Root.com to be compatible when sdcard is not inserted.
busybox mount -o remount,rw /
busybox mount -t vfat -o umask=0000 /dev/block/vold/179:97 /mnt/sdcard
busybox mount -t exfat -o umask=0000 /dev/block/vold/179:97 /mnt/sdcard
if busybox mount | busybox grep vold/179:97; then
busybox mount -o bind /data/media /mnt/extSdCard
fi
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And 2: how do i edit what is on step 7?
jazzzy786 said:
Sorry I don't understand what you've written. What do you mean do not use to bind root folders? What's a symlink?Are you saying the folders I'm seeing on sdcard0 are dummy folders and the contents have been moved to extsdcard? I've swapped my sdcards over using the script now so no longer using directory bind.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Symlink
symlink in human words is just a folder redirect.
For example, you have symlink that links folder "/storage/mydata/" to folder "/sdcard/mynewdata/"
When some application, system or user will try to get data from folder "/storage/mydata/", the data data from "/sdcard/mynewdata/" will be shown but folder path will be not changed.
You should not link root folders such as "/sdcard/", "/" ... coz it may prevent problems.
So my One has been well above 20gigs of used space for some time, With an average of about 3 gigs of free space at any given time. I've checked my sdcard folder and it is about 5gb of space total (with downloads and everything else). There have been occasions where I plug the phone into USB and go to a folder quick and the files are ones I've never seen before (example in downloads folder the files are different then my actual downloads folder). I also have a directory 0, emulated, and legacy inside of Storage. These are exact synced copies of sdcard. Each taking up the same space (so 4x the actual amount of used space) and if I delete a file/folder for anyone of these directories it removes it from all including the sdcard.
Has anyone experienced this? is there a way to fix this without wiping the entire phone clean?
jmalone1187 said:
So my One has been well above 20gigs of used space for some time, With an average of about 3 gigs of free space at any given time. I've checked my sdcard folder and it is about 5gb of space total (with downloads and everything else). There have been occasions where I plug the phone into USB and go to a folder quick and the files are ones I've never seen before (example in downloads folder the files are different then my actual downloads folder). I also have a directory 0, emulated, and legacy inside of Storage. These are exact synced copies of sdcard. Each taking up the same space (so 4x the actual amount of used space) and if I delete a file/folder for anyone of these directories it removes it from all including the sdcard.
Has anyone experienced this? is there a way to fix this without wiping the entire phone clean?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you go between AOSP/Sense roms? I don't see it anymore but it used to happen back when AOSP first starting coming out for the phone. It had to do with the multiuser support. It would leave all your Sense files but it would move the AOSP folder so you couldn't access them. Flashing a sense rom would let you access those files. I believe you can also access them by using a root explorer (es file also has a root option) and going up to /data/media you should be able to see those files and /data/media/0 should be the AOSP files.
jmalone1187 said:
So my One has been well above 20gigs of used space for some time, With an average of about 3 gigs of free space at any given time. I've checked my sdcard folder and it is about 5gb of space total (with downloads and everything else). There have been occasions where I plug the phone into USB and go to a folder quick and the files are ones I've never seen before (example in downloads folder the files are different then my actual downloads folder). I also have a directory 0, emulated, and legacy inside of Storage. These are exact synced copies of sdcard. Each taking up the same space (so 4x the actual amount of used space) and if I delete a file/folder for anyone of these directories it removes it from all including the sdcard.
Has anyone experienced this? is there a way to fix this without wiping the entire phone clean?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2158466 here is some info
Thanks for the replies! Will give this stuff a shot. Thank you
I'm very confused about the storage on my Moto G 2nd Gen 2014, running stock KitKat.
If I look at System Settings - Storage, for the Internal Storage it shows Total 5.51GB, Available 1.08GB, Apps 6.06GB (what!), Pictures 7.09MB, Audio 220KB, Downloads 24.49MB, Cached data 389MB, Misc 316MB.
Link2SD - Storage Info shows the same 5.51GB Total, 1.08GB Available for Internal /data and SD Card /storage/emulated/legacy.
When I look with ES File Explorer, it shows 5.51GB Total and 4.43GB Used for my internal SD (/storage/sdcard0 or storage/emulated/0). However, checking the properties of the folders, they don't add up to anything like that and if I run SD Card Analyst with Root Explorer and Show Hidden Files enabled and tap Directory Analyse it finds a total of 735.78MB, with Apps being only 42.30MB, Others 460.79MB, Audio 194.90MB, Picture 15.19MB, Document 17.79MB and Video 4.82MB. In the folder view sorted by size it shows Android 402.12MB, Recordings 109.34MB, voix 82.82MB, TunnyBrowser 50.58MB, com.alk.copilot.mapviewer 27.20MB, Download 24.41MB, six more folders under 10MB and 40 more under 1MB, with about half of those showing 0.00B.
So can anyone explain what's going on here, as I'm completely baffled?
Just bumping in the hope someone will see this who can help me.
Depending on how an app works when it stores it's data on the microSD it can still show in the Settings>Storage as on the internal memory (WoT Blitz did this when I had that installed) so that can make your apps look like you have 6.6GB on the internal memory, also in a file explorer the directory in which Android, DCIM, Music, Ringtones ect. is not the 'top most' directory, in ES File Explorer you can hit the '/' (also called Device) in the top bar and there are a load more files there. If you do a 'Select all'>Properties does that come close to the 4.4GB space used?
jay2the1 said:
Depending on how an app works when it stores it's data on the microSD it can still show in the Settings>Storage as on the internal memory (WoT Blitz did this when I had that installed) so that can make your apps look like you have 6.6GB on the internal memory, also in a file explorer the directory in which Android, DCIM, Music, Ringtones ect. is not the 'top most' directory, in ES File Explorer you can hit the '/' (also called Device) in the top bar and there are a load more files there. If you do a 'Select all'>Properties does that come close to the 4.4GB space used?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm, I am using Obb2SD to move all my game data from Android/Obb to the external SD card, so maybe that's confusing it but that seems like it could be a problem as if it think the internal storage is full even when there's really plenty of space free, I imagine it will start throwing up errors and won't allow me to store anything else on it, which rather defeats the point of moving the games in the first place.
If I do select all->properties from / that includes my external SD as well and totals 46.42GB. Even if I unselect /mnt and /storage it still comes to 8.03GB which can't be just the internal storage as that's only 8GB in total and I supposedly have 1.43GB free on that. Just /data is 6.21GB.
You do know that your internal storage is a combination of your phone storage and internal storage right?
In case you didn't know just open root explorer and go to data folder (long press and select properties) and calculate how much storage it use...then do the same things with systems folder...then combined data storage + system storage + internal storage used and you will get almost the same amount like in settings/storages show you...
Sent Using My Xiaomi Redmi Note 4G
When I say Internal storage I simply mean that which is not the external SD card. I don't know what the difference between phone storage and internal storage is though, as far as I'm aware there's just 8GB internal storage.
Checking the properties for /data shows it as 6.21GB (6.31GB Used), so I suppose with 1.08GB available that totals 7.39GB which could be close enough to 8GB to be correct. /system is 1.17GB. Still doesn't make any sense that Settings - Storage and Link2SD shows Total 5.51GB, 1.01GB Available but Apps as 6.06GB. Nor does it make any sense that the Homepage in ES File Explorer shows 4.28GB used on 0 but tapping that, which takes me to emulated/0 and selecting everything, Properties only shows 700MB used.
Doing directory analyse on /data shows the majority in Others 3.70GB, then Apps 1.95GB. It's a pain there's no way to see how much storage is used by each folder without checking Properties for each one individually but if I untick all the folders starting with a then the total is 4.06GB (4.15GB used), so there's about 2.15GB in those folders. Unticking all the folders starting with b through d drops it down to 2.07GB (2.12GB Used) so they account for another 2GB. Digging deeper I can see that /data/app uses 1.73GB, /data/app-lib uses 432.15MB, /data/data uses 1.25GB, data/dalvik-cache uses 717.77MB, /data/media/ uses 554.41MB, /data/sdext2 uses 272.20MB, /data/user uses 1.25GB and everything else is inconsequential. Adding those up comes to roughly 6.2GB, which exceeds the Total 5.51GB that Settings - Storage shows, even without adding the 1.17GB from /system.
None of this helps me understand what in those folders is using up all the space though, so does anyone know of an app that will show the space used by folder, like Treesize for Windows?
Can no-one help me make sense of this? The weirdest thing is that 0 (Internal storage) in ES File Explorer's Home screen shows 4.28GB but opening that folder and selecting all the folders gives a total of only 700MB, which doesn't make any sense.
I see that Titanium Backup can produce a list of apps sorted by space used, so I'll try adding those up manually and see what they total. I have linked a few large apps to the external SD with Link2SD though, so they shouldn't be using any internal storage and I'll have to subtract their amounts from the total.
Well I decided to wipe data and dalvik-cache (i.e. factory reset) from TWRP and start again, to try and get to the bottom of this.
TWRP showed about 370MB out of 5.51GB used after wiping. After booting, this was about 560MB (I guess due to the dalvik cache repopulating, currently 258.98MB) and by the time Google Play had finished updating the pre-installed apps, this had risen to 1.27GB.
The majority of this, 1.17GB, is in /Data. Settings - Storage shows 4.24GB out of 5.51GB available. ES File Explorer is a bit stupid, as it shows the same in the Homepage the same for 0 (i.e. 1.27GB used out of 5.51GB) but tapping that links to emulated/0 (which is just an alternative path to /storage/sdcard0), which only has a total of 4.32MB in it. What the Homepage shows is actually the used space from root (i.e. /) so it should show and link to that, not /storage/ emulated/0.
Another anomaly is that /data/data and /data/user are alternative paths to the same place, containing 230.99MB, which results in it getting counted twice, so really there's only a total of 965.51MB of files in /data, not 1.17GB. Obviously as /data/data grows, that's going to result in even more space being doubly allocated and thus unavailable, i.e. if I have 1GB in /data/data, it's going to reduce my free space by 2GB.
I also notice that /data/app contains all the apks for the apps that are installed. I thought apks were just install packages, like Windows msi or exe installs and that when installed they unpacked to somewhere, so isn't it just wasting space keeping all of the apks here? It's only 357.19MB at the moment but when I checked it before I factory reset it was 1+, maybe 2+ GB, so that's obviously a lot of space to waste out of 5.51GB.
Hopefully someone can help me clear up these questions, as I don't want to start reinstalling all my apps yet if I might need to wipe it all again to reset it. I've backed up everything with Titanium but it's still quite a hassle, as there doesn't seem to be a way to make a list of installed (as opposed to backed up but not installed, or frozen) apps before wiping and then restore just those afterwards, so I'll have to go through the list and try and remember what I didn't have installed before and de-select those.
I know in KitKat with Xposed Framework and XInternalSD it was possible, but in Lollipop it's not possible anymore since we do not have a stable version of Xposed for Android SDK 21 and above.
I tried Link2SD but it's only possible to move data saved under /data/app to the second ext partition in external microSD, for some applications such as OALD it's fine since it downloads and saves its databases inside its private folder, but some other apps that carries huge data files such as Navitel and others that continually grows like Whatsapp this is not possible, both creates separate folders under user folder inside internal sdcard that cannot be moved.
FolderMount won't work, and create syslinks either. Foldermount stops at an unknown error and systlinks can be created only under /data/media/0/ user folder. If you try to access the syslink under this path you can access the target folder at the ext partition, but it seems the applications reads only the fuse mount points at /storage, and android won't allow syslinks creation under this path.
Anyone has a better solution? I have very little apps installed, the problem is actually Navitel with the huge map files, OALD was also taking a lot of storage but could be moved with its data files.
I would like to know a better solution, too !