Database Develop

Backing up apps

I am coming from Samsung. Had Galaxys since day one. Obviously, they have external sd slots and this does not. My question is, is there a program like titanium backup or Helium to backup straight to computer?
When we flash new ROMs, all of that info is erased in full wipe, correct? Is there a way to save only the TB or Helium data? I used the external sd to store that data until full wipe and flashing of new ROM was complete.
Thanks for any input.

You don't need a external SD slot. Similar to your galaxy, there is internal storage on your phone.
No, wiping does not wipe your internal storage unless you tell it to. By default it does not wipe the internal storage.
All files and whatnot will not be removed or moved.
Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

zephiK said:
You don't need a external SD slot. Similar to your galaxy, there is internal storage on your phone.
No, wiping does not wipe your internal storage unless you tell it to. By default it does not wipe the internal storage.
All files and whatnot will not be removed or moved.
Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk
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Perfect. Thanks so much!

Also to answer your second question since I forgot to,
My question is, is there a program like titanium backup or Helium to backup straight to computer?
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Not to my knowledge but I know you can use Titanium Backup and sync your backups to the cloud (Google Drive, Dropbox) or manually sync your backups with your desktop.

zephiK said:
Also to answer your second question since I forgot to,
Not to my knowledge but I know you can use Titanium Backup and sync your backups to the cloud (Google Drive, Dropbox) or manually sync your backups with your desktop.
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You need pro version to use cloud storage services

jasonftfw said:
You need pro version to use cloud storage services
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If you plan on using Titanium Backup, Pro is recommended for batch 1 click anyways

[Question] How to free up as much space as possible?

Hey All!
I'm taking a trip soon and I want as much space as possible on my device for pictures and such. I'm currently using 25 GBs of my storage on my 32 GB Nexus 6. The issue is, under storage, it doesn't show anywhere near 25 GBs being use. I think out of all my pictures and apps and videos it equals something like 11 GBs.
My question is: Why am I using 25 GBs of storage when my apps and such only take up 11GBs? And how do I fix it so that I have more free storage on my phone? I know I can wipe internal storage in TWRP but recently I did that on an HTC One and it royally screwed up the phone to the point where I had to reinstall windows drivers and all kinds of other stuff.
Thanks for the help.

EasyTiger6x13 said:
Hey All!
I'm taking a trip soon and I want as much space as possible on my device for pictures and such. I'm currently using 25 GBs of my storage on my 32 GB Nexus 6. The issue is, under storage, it doesn't show anywhere near 25 GBs being use. I think out of all my pictures and apps and videos it equals something like 11 GBs.
My question is: Why am I using 25 GBs of storage when my apps and such only take up 11GBs? And how do I fix it so that I have more free storage on my phone? I know I can wipe internal storage in TWRP but recently I did that on an HTC One and it royally screwed up the phone to the point where I had to reinstall windows drivers and all kinds of other stuff.
Thanks for the help.
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32GB Nexus 6 only has ~25.9gb of total usable space which is due to the full 32gb being split up for other partitions including the OS, cahce, recovery, etc. If you want to free up space then you need to delete things you're storing on the phone, so uninstall apps you don't need, delete pictures/videos after backing them up somewhere whether it be the cloud or a PC, clear cached data I would recommend going into the apps list to do this rather than the storage list as the storage list will just wipe all cache and some apps will just download the missing files back the first time you use them. If you use google music then going into the app and clearing its cache in its settings is a cleaner solution since it stores its cache as "app data". Uninstall updates and disable system apps you aren't using (preventing their updates from taking up storage space).
Now if you don't care about anything that's currently on your phone then a factory reset will clear basically everything from your phone including google accounts (there's a security feature requiring you to sign in after resetting), apps, files, everything that is possible to remove without heavy modification. After doing this, again disable preinstalled apps in settings that you won't use so that they don't download updates which take up internal storage.

StykerB said:
32GB Nexus 6 only has ~25.9gb of total usable space which is due to the full 32gb being split up for other partitions including the OS, cahce, recovery, etc. If you want to free up space then you need to delete things you're storing on the phone, so uninstall apps you don't need, delete pictures/videos after backing them up somewhere whether it be the cloud or a PC, clear cached data I would recommend going into the apps list to do this rather than the storage list as the storage list will just wipe all cache and some apps will just download the missing files back the first time you use them. If you use google music then going into the app and clearing its cache in its settings is a cleaner solution since it stores its cache as "app data". Uninstall updates and disable system apps you aren't using (preventing their updates from taking up storage space).
Now if you don't care about anything that's currently on your phone then a factory reset will clear basically everything from your phone including google accounts (there's a security feature requiring you to sign in after resetting), apps, files, everything that is possible to remove without heavy modification. After doing this, again disable preinstalled apps in settings that you won't use so that they don't download updates which take up internal storage.
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Would you say it's safe to wipe internal storage in TWRP? I don't mind having to reinstall my apps and such again I just basically want a blank slate and as much storage as possible.

EasyTiger6x13 said:
Would you say it's safe to wipe internal storage in TWRP? I don't mind having to reinstall my apps and such again I just basically want a blank slate and as much storage as possible.
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Well just wiping internal storage in TWRP will just wipe the section where you store your music/docs/photos...if you want to completely wipe the phone and start from "out of the box new", you'll need to wipe the device and reload the factory images.

wiping internal storage wont wipe your apps. It will wipe your userdata, the stuff that is on your "sd card". Apps are under /data
You can wipe internal storage.

Changing internal SD to portable storage for root

I want to flash Xposed Framework and some other things to my phone, but I figured out that TWRP cannot find my zips in the internal SD card. I think I need to change my internal SD card back to portable storage in order to flash things. I backed up my data (Nandroid) so when I do change my SD card to portable, I can recover everything. Will changing my SD card affect SuperSU or anything on my phone?

fairnightzz said:
I want to flash Xposed Framework and some other things to my phone, but I figured out that TWRP cannot find my zips in the internal SD card. I think I need to change my internal SD card back to portable storage in order to flash things. I backed up my data (Nandroid) so when I do change my SD card to portable, I can recover everything. Will changing my SD card affect SuperSU or anything on my phone?
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I did that few days ago, I rooted 7 days ago , and find out that in MM you can format sd card as internal memory. Wasn't with android for the last 2 years and i am learning every day about new features that i missed.
I formatted sdcard to internal and coudn't flash enything, however if you copy that zip to /data folder you can see it. Huge problem is that nandroid cannot be performed, I usually have 2 backups always and with 5GB of availabole memory, and 2-3 gigs are already taken it is impossible to backup my system which takes around 3 GB of data, even more .
I was thinking about getting USB OTG cable and external flash for nandroid and dflashing things, but still I am looking for some news about TWRP support for internal memory in some new editions.
When I switched back to normal mode ( sdcard as portable storage ) I didn't lost anything, only thing that you want to take care of is that when you are ready to switch back your sdcard as a portable, to perform migrate option and leave phone to do it ( 5 minutes ), to free sdcard and move back data to internal ( if there is a space enoough on internal so that is one more problem to care about.
I also asked this question and got no answers, but I really do like to know how other members manage their free space with this MM stuff, which is good but very limiting so far.

dejson said:
I did that few days ago, I rooted 7 days ago , and find out that in MM you can format sd card as internal memory. Wasn't with android for the last 2 years and i am learning every day about new features that i missed.
I formatted sdcard to internal and coudn't flash enything, however if you copy that zip to /data folder you can see it. Huge problem is that nandroid cannot be performed, I usually have 2 backups always and with 5GB of availabole memory, and 2-3 gigs are already taken it is impossible to backup my system which takes around 3 GB of data, even more .
I was thinking about getting USB OTG cable and external flash for nandroid and dflashing things, but still I am looking for some news about TWRP support for internal memory in some new editions.
When I switched back to normal mode ( sdcard as portable storage ) I didn't lost anything, only thing that you want to take care of is that when you are ready to switch back your sdcard as a portable, to perform migrate option and leave phone to do it ( 5 minutes ), to free sdcard and move back data to internal ( if there is a space enoough on internal so that is one more problem to care about.
I also asked this question and got no answers, but I really do like to know how other members manage their free space with this MM stuff, which is good but very limiting so far.
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So if I move the zip to the data folder, I can flash? If so, could you show me step by step, because I tried but it wouldn't let me copy or paste anything. If not, I could just backup my photos (all other data not important), redownload the apps from the playstore, then just use link2sd to move the apps to portable SD card.

fairnightzz said:
So if I move the zip to the data folder, I can flash? If so, could you show me step by step, because I tried but it wouldn't let me copy or paste anything. If not, I could just backup my photos (all other data not important), redownload the apps from the playstore, then just use link2sd to move the apps to portable SD card.
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Wll actually i found that here post #6, you have to use root explorer or similar app.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/htc-one-m8/help/internal-storage-twrp-external-sd-card-t3242540
You can save apks with titanium backup and restore it with update.zip option ( to save a lot of time of redownloading apps.
link2sd doesn't work with MM, requires that micro sd is formatted as internal.
There is workaround and I will maybe test this tonight and will let you know if it works.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=65411424&postcount=19

Thanks, dejson! I figured out that I wasn't using a root explorer, so I downloaded Solid Explorer and moved the zip to data/media and it worked! Thanks a lot for helping me!

fairnightzz said:
Thanks, dejson! I figured out that I wasn't using a root explorer, so I downloaded Solid Explorer and moved the zip to data/media and it worked! Thanks a lot for helping me!
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Uhm, there is a thank you button also available .
Glad you did it mate, I tested everything with sdcard formatted as internal, but losing option to perform nandroid is not the compromise that I am able to consider.
I was very tired last night and accidentally deleted a lot of things from sdcard which was formatted as internal, I forgot to migrate data, but luckily fresh nandroid backup was taken just before testing and saved to laptop.
I can confirm that after installing apps2sd from playstore, and after that I installed link2sd and boom, the app is working good. This kernel supposedly doesn't have init.d enabled [decypher] so I need to test even more because even when it was working every few minutes i was receiving message from system that sdcard is corrupted and some minor errors.
This idea about first installing apps2sd is something that I found somewhere, and it is not my invention. So I think that after some more testing I week find a way to finally utilize my big sdcard.

Nandroid only pictures/music

Hi guys, I'm thinking about flashing Resurrection Remix on my OP3T.
Since I have about 6gb of music & pictures, I'd like to make a Nandroid backup of them, then flash RR, GApps and then the pictures and music.
So my question: Is it possible to take a nandroid backup (or similar backups using TWRP) of only selected folders, since copying to my PC takes much longer.
Thanks!

Pictures and music are typically saved on the internal storage, which doesn't get backed up by a nandroid. The internal storage is untouched during a ROM flash, and the pictures and music should remain. Internal storage would only be affected, if you specifically go into the TWRP "Advanced" Wipe options, and select to wipe internal storage. So just make sure you don't do that (the default wipe is normally all that is needed - cache, Dalvik and user data). Remember that TWRP backups are also saved on the internal storage, so it would be crazy for storage to be wiped as default during a ROM flash (you wouldn't have a way to retain any nandroids).
I would still suggest backing up your pics and music to your PC (just connect the phone, and copy and paste the files) before flashing a ROM; as things don't always go as they should, and it's always good to backup anything important to you, to an "off phone" location. Some folks may think this is a bit paranoid, but better safe than sorry, and IMO it's worth taking the extra few minutes.

redpoint73 said:
Pictures and music are typically saved on the internal storage, which doesn't get backed up by a nandroid. The internal storage is untouched during a ROM flash, and the pictures and music should remain. Internal storage would only be affected, if you specifically go into the TWRP "Advanced" Wipe options, and select to wipe internal storage. So just make sure you don't do that (the default wipe is normally all that is needed - cache, Dalvik and user data). Remember that TWRP backups are also saved on the internal storage, so it would be crazy for storage to be wiped as default during a ROM flash (you wouldn't have a way to retain any nandroids).
I would still suggest backing up your pics and music to your PC (just connect the phone, and copy and paste the files) before flashing a ROM; as things don't always go as they should, and it's always good to backup anything important to you, to an "off phone" location. Some folks may think this is a bit paranoid, but better safe than sorry, and IMO it's worth taking the extra few minutes.
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Ok thank you very much! Sometimes thinking over problems solves them really fast *facepalm*

t-to4st said:
Ok thank you very much! Sometimes thinking over problems solves them really fast *facepalm*
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No worries. It's confusing to think about. I once saw a person post that nandroids include internal storage, and since that is where nandroids are saved, you actually get nandroids within nandroids. I had to respond that it doesn't work that way!

TWRP Quickie

I've been wanting to ask this question forever, but havent and just dealt with it. Never experimented either.
When using TWRP to flash a new rom do i have to wipe my internal storage? Does that really ruin the flash? Again, never tried it id just rather ask. Its annoying to transfer my music and large files. Every time i flash a new rom i wipe everything and have to move the 12 gigs of files i enjoy using on my phone pretty often. So if i dont have to wipe them out every time that would be awesome to know.

Nope.

OcazPrime said:
I've been wanting to ask this question forever, but havent and just dealt with it. Never experimented either.
When using TWRP to flash a new rom do i have to wipe my internal storage? Does that really ruin the flash? Again, never tried it id just rather ask. Its annoying to transfer my music and large files. Every time i flash a new rom i wipe everything and have to move the 12 gigs of files i enjoy using on my phone pretty often. So if i dont have to wipe them out every time that would be awesome to know.
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I've never wiped my internal storage when flashing a new rom

sakumaxp said:
I've never wiped my internal storage when flashing a new rom
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+1 never wiped my internal storage

It's definitely not needed to wipe internal storage, nor do I recommend so; at least not every time. Some folks like to wipe it once in a while, to get rid of extraneous folders and files created by some custom ROMs, old (no longer used) apps, etc. Some folks might even do it frequently, but that is just their obsessiveness. But it's definitely not a requirement to do so.
I've flashed dozens and dozens (maybe hundreds) of ROMs on various Android devices over the years. I've never once wiped internal storage when doing so, that I can recall.
Think about it, on this device the internal storage is the only place TWRP can create a backup (since there is no removable SD slot). So if you made a backup before flashing a ROM (which I highly recommend), then wiped internal storage (to flash the ROM) you would be wiping out the backup you just made. Sure, you can copy a TWRP backup to your computer, than move it back to the phone after you wipe. But that is just a lot of hoops to jump through for little reason, and really not how the TWRP backup/restore feature is intended to be used.
If you look at the TWRP wipe screen, the default wipe just consists of user data (apps and settings ... /media is not touched), cache and Dalvik. And it says right there on the screen that most of the time, this is the only wipe you will need. It says that for a reason. Some folks may choose to go above and beyond, but that is just their choice (again, not a requirement).
On the other hand, it is good to routinely backup any files on your internal storage (that are important to you) to an off-phone location like your computer or cloud. Just in case something gets wipe unintentionally. But you can for the most part, save yourself the steps of wiping internal data and moving those files back to your phone every time you flash a ROM.