Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2021 October 8

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October 8

storage problem

My mother has Samsung J5 (2016). It has 8 GB storage. The storage was running out. I inserted a 8 GB SD card in it. Shifted some photos but found out that majority is occupied by apps. Now it has 3.35 GB system storage, 3.5 GB apps and rest is free. Is there any way I can make more space by transferring apps to SD card (or its files). In my files there is only 30 MB data. So is there no way to transfer apps to SD? Also many apps, although are not in use, I can not uninstall (as they are system apps). Which of them i can Uninstall updates ? I already did for samsung internet, S health etc. but can I also do for Google play service or Appcloud etc. ? -- Parnaval (talk) 16:27, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

@Parnaval: I don't really have any experience with this phone, however I have used a mobile device with tiny storage and unfortunately, as far as I know stuff like Google Play Service and Appcloud can't be moved to the SD card. It would help to know what apps are left on the main storage so I can determine what apps can be uninstalled or moved and what apps can't. ― Blaze The Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 18:45, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

Well, leave it. I checked the phone and only big apps were play services and appcloud. Other big apps are Word, whatsapp etc. which are useful so I won't uninstall them. Now I have another question. I previously cleaned up my files to 30 MB but now it is growing up again. I want to ask can I delete contents of subfolder of Whatsapp folder. The subfolders are .Shared, Databases, backup . Another question, I transferred photos from internal storage to SD card, now they are not visible in gallery. Why? I googled and it said I should remove .nomedia file from that folder, so I did delete that file. But still, not visible. -- Parnaval (talk) 10:23, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

You can delete the media in the WhatsApp folder. But it is better to delete using the WhatsApp internal cleanup. You can delete videos or large images. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:24, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I will delete media which I no longer need. But can I delete the contents of subfolders which I named in my previous comment ? -- Parnaval (talk) 06:48, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

Have you gone into the apps settings and cleared the cache and data? I think that would certainly be safer than deleting the files directly out of the folder. For example, if I go into Settings - Apps - Facebook and then tap on Storage it tells me space used, broken down by Application, Data, Cache, and Total, and also has buttons to clear the data and cache. In my particular case, the app is only 58.94 MB, the data is 596 MB, and the cache is 517 MB, for a total of 1.17 GB. Clearing my data and cache would free up more than a GB of space. In earlier phones, I think you had to literally delete the app and then reinstall again, but I'm no historian. Apologies if you're long past that stage, but it seemed worth a mention. Matt Deres (talk) 13:44, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

I keep deleting cache whenever it becomes too much. But I have never done clear data as I fear it may delete files which might be important for that app's working. -- Parnaval (talk) 11:50, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

@Parnaval: Don't worry, it won't (And can't) do that. It simply gets rid of any data like stored passwords or credit card info. ― Blaze The Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 13:06, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Yes, it's safe, but as my FB example suggests, there's clearly more in there than just passwords and credit card data. Only binary files like pictures and sounds and video could amount to that kind of MB. Matt Deres (talk) 14:09, 12 October 2021 (UTC)