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What files can be safely deleted in the HTC Desire Root folder?

I've been looking at the root folder using Astro and there are several files/folders. Can any be deleted, without causing any problem? I'm running out of space and am hoping some are just temporary files etc...
For example I've spotted the APK files are in \system\app. I never use the Peep or Teeter apps. Can I safely delete their APK files?
Thanks
p.s - I am using an unrooted HTC Desire.

bradavon said:
I've been looking at the root folder using Astro and there are several files/folders. Can any be deleted, without causing any problem? I'm running out of space and am hoping some are just temporary files etc...
For example I've spotted the APK files are in \system\app. I never use the Peep or Teeter apps. Can I safely delete their APK files?
Thanks
p.s - I am using an unrooted HTC Desire.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you cant delete them using astro, we only have write access to /system in recovery, use adb in recovery to delete them
edit, without root you cant delete anything lol

bradavon said:
For example I've spotted the APK files are in \system\app. I never use the Peep or Teeter apps. Can I safely delete their APK files?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In addition, deleting anything from /system won't actually gain you any more space for applications anyway due to the way that the filesystems are partitioned.
Regards,
Dave

Thanks guys. I take it you mean we've got write but not modify access to the \system folder? So we can write to existing files but not delete them.
I wasn't just asking about \system though but any files/folders in the Root folder. Are there any at all, that can be safely deleted? Or are you saying you cannot delete a thing without rooting?
Not that it sounds like it will make any difference, due to partitioning.
Thanks

Ok to put it as simple as possible:
- no you cant pretty much delete a thing apart from sd without root
- we cant do anything in the system partition while the system is booted due to the nand protection
- we can modify /system while in recovery (using adb)
- when you are running out of space it is on the /data partition, which have a fixed size so deleting from /system or anything else won't help
And at last my advice to you is to go root and install a2sd easy as pie and i've never had space problems since.

Thanks for the informative reply mortenmhp

I have just rooted my 2.1 Desire, trying to remove two of the mms.apk and one other mms file in the /system folder so I can install a different mms.apk, however when I try to do it, it says I dont have the proper permissions. Its rooted, I see the Super User icon in applications.
Any suggestions?

Please read a little before asking questions. It is commonly known, that we dont have full root access on the desire yet.
Due to the nand protection you cant edit the system partition while the system is bootet. You have to use a custom recovery image either via fakeflash or installed by unrevoked. Then you can edit the system partition by using adb commands.
Edit: which i also stated quite clearly 2 posts above yours several months ago

Is A2SD better than the Android 2.2 implementation? Which as far as I can tell just moves the APK (not apps/data) to the SD Card.
Thanks.

Well it is kinda off topic here but in my opinion yes it is better. I'm running a2sd+ atm. and you can make it move /data/data as well.
In froyo there have been some complications though when remountingSD after using it as mass storage. But you can read more about that elsewhere(i would provide a link but I'm writing from my phone)
So the conclusion must be that it is down to personal preferences

Thanks because the official implementation is something of a cop out. On WM you could run the entire App/Data etc... on an SD card.

[Q] Safe to remove APKs?

My Desire's ROM is full. I have rooted the phone and using root explorer to remove garbage from the ROM. There are many apps in /system/app. Each app has a .apk file and an .odex file. Is it safe to move the *.apk files to my sd card to save up space? Or are they needed to run the application?
Thanx

norad73 said:
My Desire's ROM is full. I have rooted the phone and using root explorer to remove garbage from the ROM. There are many apps in /system/app. Each app has a .apk file and an .odex file. Is it safe to move the *.apk files to my sd card to save up space? Or are they needed to run the application?
Thanx
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Think you may need to read a fair few of the posts in the forum if you are asking is it safe to remove apk's.
A fair answer is yes and no.
Some you can some you can't.
Removing the wrong ones will cause havoc with your phone.
Why not try flashing one of the custom Roms on here.

Thanx Raze.
I believe that the operating system either *needs* or *doesent need* an apk file in the system/app folder for the app to function correctly.
My question is: Does android 2.2 *need* or *not need* the .apk file of an app to exist in the /system/app folder in order for the app to function correctly? Isnt the odex file enough?
Since apk's are package files, my impression was that maybe they are not needed after the app is installed.

deleted .apk file = uninstalled app
deleted important.apk file = havoc on your phone

norad73 said:
My Desire's ROM is full. I have rooted the phone and using root explorer to remove garbage from the ROM. There are many apps in /system/app. Each app has a .apk file and an .odex file. Is it safe to move the *.apk files to my sd card to save up space? Or are they needed to run the application?
Thanx
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You won't get any advantage from that; freeing space on the system storage partition won't lead you to have more room for your apps on the internal storage of your device: those are two different partitions. If you want more space on the internal storage partition you should flash a custom, resized partition table (you need s-off, look on the related topic for the howto) and (if you didn't do that yet) partition your sd, so that you can use a2sd scripts to move your stuff there. That's the best you can do if you wanna have more room for your apps, everything else won't help much imo

norad73 said:
Thanx Raze.
I believe that the operating system either *needs* or *doesent need* an apk file in the system/app folder for the app to function correctly.
My question is: Does android 2.2 *need* or *not need* the .apk file of an app to exist in the /system/app folder in order for the app to function correctly? Isnt the odex file enough?
Since apk's are package files, my impression was that maybe they are not needed after the app is installed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My understanding (please correct me if i am wrong as i am so used to windows phone) is that the odex file is simply the integrity of the apk. lots of roms now are de-odexed so you can push or zip-flash a file into its place and it will still function. if the rom still has the odex files this is not possible as the phone will check the apk against the odex file and bootloop. The apk is the install package and the woking part of the file itself. Your best bet would be to flash a rom with A2SD installed in it. This accesses a fat3 partition on your sd card which the android os sees as extra internal space. I'm running LeeDroid 2.2d A2SD version. I have more apps installed now than when i was on a stock rom (motonav, psx4droid, angry birds, snesoid etc) and my phone still says i have 85mb or 52% of my space left

Thank you guys, now it is clear.
I keep getting a storage space low warning on my Desire, and I am trying to find out how to free up some space. My phone is rooted, my sd is partitioned, and most of my apps are installed on the SD with apps2sd.
Any apps still installed on the phone do not support installing on the SD. I have removed almost all apps and left only a very few that cannot be moved.
EDIT: Just realized that HTC Mail data was taking up 65mb of the phone memory.... deleted it and now my phone can breathe again

you are rooted? well if you use a2Ext you dont have to move your Apps to SD.

Moved to Q&A as not development.
Please do not post such questions in development.

Check those articles:
Safe to remove apks:
http://androidforums.com/droid-x-al...t-apps-apks-removable-non-removable-root.html
http://wiki.cyanogenmod.com/index.php?title=Barebones
Custom MTD Partitions (resize data, system, and cache):
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=806321

[Q] Change Save To Directory For All Apps

I've been looking all over and could only find information on changing the directory for the camera or for changing from the internal storage to an external SD card.
What I am trying to figure out is how to consolidate my downloads, specifically all of my images, into one nice folder. For example, anything downloaded from Chrome is saved to the folder "Download" while everything I save from Reddit is Fun is saved to "Pictures." This drives me nuts when I am trying to send somebody one of these pictures and my Gallery is so cluttered. It would be great if there were a app/procedure that allowed me to specify where each app downloaded it's content to.
I am on a rooted SGH-T889, 3.0.36 Perseus Kernel, running stock 4.1.2
Thanks!

Storage is... not in a 0 folder?

So after re-rooting after a month of being on stock TW I expected all my files to move to an emulated/0 folder or something along those lines. However, when I got into it using ES File Explorer it was empty. Looked around in other folders and can not find them still. Idc if they are lost, I care that about 8GB of my onboard storage is un locatable and I have like 2 gbs left I really don't know where they could have gone.
So I tried a different root explorer thinking that ES wasn't showing them, found them using Root Explorer by JRummy Apps. However, when I look inside them they are all empty and cannot be moved. I want to try to save them incase anything may actually be in there (photos, music etc.)
Any insight would be appreciated.
Edit: Phoneboot got stuck in bootloop, going to Odin back to stock.

As for the files, they are not deleted, they just aren't shown by default. To find them, go to /mtn/shell/emulated. That should be your stock storage and then you can move, delete, or whatever you want.

[q] how to delete a file?

Hello,
the title sounds silly, i know, but i really have trouble deleting some files.
Inside directory: /storage/sdcard0/dcim/.thumbnails there are several files for which if i look their properties i see that they are about 2gb in size.
Since my device has only 8 gb of memory, 2gb is way too much for image cache.
I try to delete theese files.
The problem is that whenever i delete those files they reappear, that is, my internal sdcard is still almost full, and those files despite that are not shown, but they are in the system somewhere, since my free space did not increased at all. Those files reappear in this same folder, after a few days and are still a couple of gb large.
How to really delete those files?