Cleaning up the phone storage? - Droid Incredible Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Has anyone totally cleaned out their phone storages, sd card and emmc? If so, what is the best way to do this without messing up any nandroid backups, or restores? My folders seem to be getting out of control and I'm not sure what is needed anymore. I've been a crack flasher lately, and I just think some of my problemshave to do with remnants and such left over from other ROMs. Thanks for any help.
Sent from my ADR6300

countryfolk07 said:
Has anyone totally cleaned out their phone storages, sd card and emmc? If so, what is the best way to do this without messing up any nandroid backups, or restores? My folders seem to be getting out of control and I'm not sure what is needed anymore. I've been a crack flasher lately, and I just think some of my problemshave to do with remnants and such left over from other ROMs. Thanks for any help.
Sent from my ADR6300
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can wipe them thru recovery. But if you do you wilk wipe out nandroids, photos, etc. Your best bet would be to use a file explorer and manually delete files and folders you dont want or need.

Related

[Q] How big is your Nandroid /blobs folder?

Hi! I am new to making Nadroid backups. Yesterday, I could've swore my /blobs folder was about 3GB. Today, when I made another Nandroid and it was at 6GB.
I'm on the dedup method, so my /blobs folder shouldn't be increasing. I also tried "free unused backup data" and still at 6GB.
Here's my storage usage, attached. Am I in the right ballpark or is something odd here?
P.S. If anyone has a Nandroid backup management system, let me know! I keep jumping between CWM Recovery to make them and then to Android to fix all the things CWM Recovery does wrong (like the date-for-the-file-name; it's not 1970 and the month/day/time are all incorrect) and can't do (like viewing the backups, renaming the backups, uploading the backups to cloud storage).
My blobs folder at one point was at 4gig. I deleted all my backups except for two. Went into cwm and selected free space under backup/restore and brought it down to 1.01gig.
Mind you the only backup I care about (rooted, stock with TW) is 1.8gig but I have that on external and on my computer just in case.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda app-developers app
KorGuy123 said:
My blobs folder at one point was at 4gig. I deleted all my backups except for two. Went into cwm and selected free space under backup/restore and brought it down to 1.01gig.
Mind you the only backup I care about (rooted, stock with TW) is 1.8gig but I have that on external and on my computer just in case.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmmm...that may be it: this new backup required new blobs for whatever reason. Let me figure out a way to restore SystemUI and SecSettings to stock and then maybe delete those early backups...
How much space have you used,by chance, on the internal SD card?
~Ibrahim~
the blobs folder continues to grow with each backup. the only time it would decrease is you delete a backup then clear unused data after booting to recovery.
this blobs folder will drive your media scanner CRAZY.
my suggestion is to boot into recovery, set the backup type to .tar rather than the default .dup. This unfortunately will cause each backup to take up approx 1.5g, but that is an incredible reduction in indvidual files for the media scanner to scan. but, thats what ext sd cards are for
after making this change, if you have .dup backups you want to convert to .tar, you will have to restore each then backup again.
ikjadoon said:
Hmmm...that may be it: this new backup required new blobs for whatever reason. Let me figure out a way to restore SystemUI and SecSettings to stock and then maybe delete those early backups...
How much space have you used,by chance, on the internal SD card?
~Ibrahim~
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I formatted internal when I went to PAC-Man I've done one back since so my internal is fairly empty. (I switched to TWRP recovery and the backups are around 750mbps)
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda app-developers app
Russ77 said:
the blobs folder continues to grow with each backup. the only time it would decrease is you delete a backup then clear unused data after booting to recovery.
this blobs folder will drive your media scanner CRAZY.
my suggestion is to boot into recovery, set the backup type to .tar rather than the default .dup. This unfortunately will cause each backup to take up approx 1.5g, but that is an incredible reduction in indvidual files for the media scanner to scan. but, thats what ext sd cards are for
after making this change, if you have .dup backups you want to convert to .tar, you will have to restore each then backup again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
YES. YES. THAT'S THE OTHER ISSUE! These things are all related! My Media scanner, out of *nowhere*, exploded to 50% battery usage.
Going to *.tar, then. Thank you hugely.
@KorGuy
I may transition to TWRP. CWM is a fine recovery, but it's backup solution isn't up to par. Appreciate the help!
0... I don't make nandroids... use the external sd...
Quasimodem said:
0... I don't make nandroids... use the external sd...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wait, so how do you backup? I make Nandroids onto the external SD.
ikjadoon said:
Wait, so how do you backup? I make Nandroids onto the external SD.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't make backups or use tibu...
Not sent from your phone...
Quasimodem said:
I don't make backups or use tibu...
Not sent from your phone...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're brave. But probably more experienced. I bootloop'd my GS3 after just trying to modify the framework-res.apk and my Nandroid saved me! But, I'm on TWRP now and it looks much better.
ikjadoon said:
You're brave. But probably more experienced. I bootloop'd my GS3 after just trying to modify the framework-res.apk and my Nandroid saved me! But, I'm on TWRP now and it looks much better.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've got everything I need on the SD to fix whatever... not really worried about it...
Not sent from your phone...
To be honest the huge blobs folder you are stuck with using cwm is exactly why I switched to twrp recovery and I was a long time user and big fan of cwm for a long time. But the blobs really screwed that up for me anyway. Twrp works great and is better in my opinion ...
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk 2
I'm using cwm 6.0.2.2 touch recovery and it doesn't have none of that blob folder crap
sent from the dark side of the universe....
thatsupnow said:
I'm using cwm 6.0.2.2 touch recovery and it doesn't have none of that blob folder crap
sent from the dark side of the universe....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just updated cwm and noticed that the default is now .tar
Good call from Koush, then. They're a good idea, but executed poorly.
But, CWM has problems for me beyond blobs: it mislabels backups without a way to rename in CWM, somehow mismatched the MD5 of my backups (until I renamed them to "backup" ), and doesn't seem to compress backups = all fixed in TWRP.
Battery life is fixed!

need help with flashing a 4.2.2 rom from tw..

basically whats happening is im currently on fre3 rom and i want to try out liquid, but when i flash liquid my internal sd is wiped? everything from downloaded items, backups from titanium, to my twrp backups and anything in the internal sd is gone
now i suspect it has something to do with the way 4.2.2 roms deal with the users and that whole 0 folder thing, but my question is, is there any way to keep the contents of my sd card so liquid will see it?
because when i pop it into my pc, theyre gone gone, its not like they were overlooked (happened when i tried another rom)
any ideas?
therenegadenail said:
basically whats happening is im currently on fre3 rom and i want to try out liquid, but when i flash liquid my internal sd is wiped? everything from downloaded items, backups from titanium, to my twrp backups and anything in the internal sd is gone
now i suspect it has something to do with the way 4.2.2 roms deal with the users and that whole 0 folder thing, but my question is, is there any way to keep the contents of my sd card so liquid will see it?
because when i pop it into my pc, theyre gone gone, its not like they were overlooked (happened when i tried another rom)
any ideas?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No matter what, when you wipe your phone, it wipes internal memory....... At least I'm pretty sure..
Joe0113 said:
No matter what, when you wipe your phone, it wipes internal memory....... At least I'm pretty sure..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yea but to an extent no? i mean i always am able to restore things from titanium with no issue, also it erases twrp backups? thats never happened before
also i cannot delete that 0 folder at all, in phone or plug to computer, theres a folder in it, anbech? and in that theres a backup file? an sh file? it wont let me delete it at all
therenegadenail said:
yea but to an extent no? i mean i always am able to restore things from titanium with no issue, also it erases twrp backups? thats never happened before
also i cannot delete that 0 folder at all, in phone or plug to computer, theres a folder in it, anbech? and in that theres a backup file? an sh file? it wont let me delete it at all
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Download ES File Explorer and you can delete it. Just make sure you don't delete important folders/files.
Joe0113 said:
Download ES File Explorer and you can delete it. Just make sure you don't delete important folders/files.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i have es file explorer, and it still wont let me
if i restore back to my tw rom which is 4.1.2 the 0 folder is there, and its the only folder in there, and every time i try, it says i cant
Joe0113 said:
No matter what, when you wipe your phone, it wipes internal memory....... At least I'm pretty sure..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is not true. I've been installing custom ROMs for a long time and I've never had this. If you're restoring a 4.1.2 ROM (like FRE) and all your files are gone then you may have accidentally wiped your internal memory somehow. You are correct in saying that when you flash a 4.2.2 ROM, a new directory gets created called "0" but when flashing back to a 4.1.1 your old files should reappear, only with a new directory called "0.". The best way to avoid this problem all together is, whenever flashing from a 4.1.2 to a 4.2.2 ROM, before doing so copy all the contents of your internal SD card to your desktop (or external storage if you have the space), then when doing your wipes (just b4 flashing your new ROM), wipe your internal memory. Once you're all booted into your new ROM, go back to where ever you copied your internal SD card and copy them back to your internal SD directory. Again you only need to do this when going from a 4.1.x ROM to a 4.2.x ROM (or vice versa).
Good luck!
Hello my name is George and I'm a flashoholic.
EDIT: BTW, for future reference you should put your twrp backups on external.
External sd card doesnt get wiped when the upgrade from 4.1.1 to 4.2.2 as i have my backups stored on internal but should move them to external sd .
Sent from my SPH-L710 using xda app-developers app

How do you clean your phone up?

My phone is pretty much maxed on space internally and externally.
I delete things I dont want anymore and replace with the new.
I was thinking to myself... "what would happen if I deleted everything off the internal card?"
My first guess is the phone wouldnt boot because it needs files to load the os.
Is there a program or a special way to delete everything that is NOT needed to start fresh?
I think it will be tedious and time consuming going through each folder and deleting things you dont need.
What should stay? What should go?
Anybody have any insight to this? I would appreciate it.
Thanks!!!
Formatting the SD card doesn't delete your partitions silly
I've done it before
Laughing at you while eating Jellybeans
Nice! So I made a backup of the whole drive. When I format, will I be able to replace certain folders to get apps to work again or just restore what I want from titanium backup and that should do the trick? Whats the best way to format? Through recovery or straight from computer?
Sent from my SPH-D710 using XDA
Ahhh I could go under storage and format that way too... that the way to go?
Sent from my SPH-D710 using XDA
Yea, you can restore whatever you want from titanium and formating the SD card through recovery is the best way to do it
Just make sure that your titanium backup is somewhere else
Laughing at you while eating Jellybeans
deviouskind said:
My phone is pretty much maxed on space internally and externally.
I delete things I dont want anymore and replace with the new.
I was thinking to myself... "what would happen if I deleted everything off the internal card?"
My first guess is the phone wouldnt boot because it needs files to load the os.
Is there a program or a special way to delete everything that is NOT needed to start fresh?
I think it will be tedious and time consuming going through each folder and deleting things you dont need.
What should stay? What should go?
Anybody have any insight to this? I would appreciate it.
Thanks!!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
While the post above mine is true, let me give you a fair warning. Formatting will delete EVERYTHING, pics, music, etc... Make sure you have anything you want to keep backed up prior to formatting, same for external sd card. Also, if you're looking to get back to a "fresh" phone, you can always run a One Click Restore file linked in the stickied threads in development or at www.rwilco12.com
Just be sure to follow the links to get the appropriate file for this device, and read any and all instructions for anything you flash, now and in the future.
Edit- Ninja'd by the both of you
Got it! Thanks! I have all files internal and external on computer. I will format, copy over TB files and restore some things. I will format through recovery.

Files in Sdcard/0 won't delete

I know there is a ton on sdcard/0 problems or questions, but I can't find anything on my problem. When i try to delete anything on sdcard/0/whatever it says delete failed. I will try to delete a mp3 and it won't delete . Also not sure if this is normal,but my twrp and superuser are in the /0 folder too. I know it's for multiusers, but I should be able to delete certain files out of it. I can out of twrp but not anything else. Any ideas?
dabink said:
I know there is a ton on sdcard/0 problems or questions, but I can't find anything on my problem. When i try to delete anything on sdcard/0/whatever it says delete failed. I will try to delete a mp3 and it won't delete . Also not sure if this is normal,but my twrp and superuser are in the /0 folder too. I know it's for multiusers, but I should be able to delete certain files out of it. I can out of twrp but not anything else. Any ideas?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
same thing happened to me, and i couldnt get it to work until i formatted my sd card/internal mem and started fresh :-\
hapticxchaos said:
same thing happened to me, and i couldnt get it to work until i formatted my sd card/internal mem and started fresh :-\
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Damn, when you did that did you go back to stock ? Then have to re root? My recovery and super user would then get deleted
Well, if you have a nandroid of a tw Rom, you can restore that, then wipe your internal sd. And, if you restore a nandroid instead of flashing stock it shouldn't bork your gps. Just make sure to pull everything off your internal sd that you want to keep.
mrhaley30705 said:
Well, if you have a nandroid of a tw Rom, you can restore that, then wipe your internal sd. And, if you restore a nandroid instead of flashing stock it shouldn't bork your gps. Just make sure to pull everything off your internal sd that you want to keep.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
K thanks, I don't have a nandroid of stock. So I might have to flash one of the stock PDAs . Or maybe I'll live with it and just go buy a 32 gb ext sd lol

NOOB Q About Memory

Hi All,
Hopefully this should be a very quick question. I'm loading CM onto my phone, and this is the first ROM I've ever used. I've loaded CWM, made a backup, and I'm about ready to go and load CW on. I've noticed though that out of the 5 or so gig the phone comes with for internal memory, about 4gb is used up. Is this just the system and the back up and apps?? It seems quite a lot. Will CM fill this up further? Will I encounter any issues?
I hope thats all clear, but excuse me for being a beginner.
EDIT: This is now even more relevant now CM is flashed. I've just looked in the file viewer, and there's still all the folders etc from the old samsung, and amazonmp3 etc etc. I thought the "wipe data/factory reset" in CWM would have cleared all this.....
Many thanks for looking.
floateruk said:
Hi All,
Hopefully this should be a very quick question. I'm loading CM onto my phone, and this is the first ROM I've ever used. I've loaded CWM, made a backup, and I'm about ready to go and load CW on. I've noticed though that out of the 5 or so gig the phone comes with for internal memory, about 4gb is used up. Is this just the system and the back up and apps?? It seems quite a lot. Will CM fill this up further? Will I encounter any issues?
I hope thats all clear, but excuse me for being a beginner.
EDIT: This is now even more relevant now CM is flashed. I've just looked in the file viewer, and there's still all the folders etc from the old samsung, and amazonmp3 etc etc. I thought the "wipe data/factory reset" in CWM would have cleared all this.....
Many thanks for looking.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Factory reset only wipes the data partition. For the first time installing a custom ROM, and especially going from stock to cm for the first time, you should wipe the system partition which can be done from cwm.
Sent from the dark side of the moon.
Want to know how to boost your devices performance and battery life? See my thread here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2495269
iKlutz said:
Factory reset only wipes the data partition. For the first time installing a custom ROM, and especially going from stock to cm for the first time, you should wipe the system partition which can be done from cwm.
Sent from the dark side of the moon.
Want to know how to boost your devices performance and battery life? See my thread here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2495269
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi again.
So I finally got round to trying to get this sorted.... and I'm failing. I've booted into CWM, rerun the "wipe/data factory reset", rerun the "wipe cache" then went into "mounts and storage" and did a format of the system partition, but it still hasn't cleared any of the data.
Am I doing something incorrectly? I didn't want to play around with it too much, in case i bork it all. Any help would be massively appreciated.
Also, I'm a bit concerned about what formatting the system partition will do. Does it just clear the rom already on there, and I can then flash Cyanogenmod back on from my sd card?
Thanks
floateruk said:
Hi again.
So I finally got round to trying to get this sorted.... and I'm failing. I've booted into CWM, rerun the "wipe/data factory reset", rerun the "wipe cache" then went into "mounts and storage" and did a format of the system partition, but it still hasn't cleared any of the data.
Am I doing something incorrectly? I didn't want to play around with it too much, in case i bork it all. Any help would be massively appreciated.
Also, I'm a bit concerned about what formatting the system partition will do. Does it just clear the rom already on there, and I can then flash Cyanogenmod back on from my sd card?
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Formatting system partition wipes the currently installed rom / system apps.
How do you know that it is not wiping the data? If you do a system format and your rom still boots then it isn't working properly.
It could be a problem with the version of recovery (cwm / twrp) that you're using. It can't hurt to update it, which could be the case here.
Good luck. Let me know how it goes.
Sent from the dark side of the moon.
iKlutz said:
Formatting system partition wipes the currently installed rom / system apps.
How do you know that it is not wiping the data? If you do a system format and your rom still boots then it isn't working properly.
It could be a problem with the version of recovery (cwm / twrp) that you're using. It can't hurt to update it, which could be the case here.
Good luck. Let me know how it goes.
Sent from the dark side of the moon.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for coming back so quickly!
So if you see the attached, this is what I'm looking at. The phone has 5.5gb internal memory, of which, looking at the below, I'm using about 1.5gb, BUT I only have 1gb left to use, and I get warnings about lack of memory.... So there's 3gb being used for.... I don't know.
When I first put cyanogen on, I noticed that the file structure from stock was still there (i.e. all the folder my old apps made). I expected when I put CM on that it would wipe everything, including all of those folders.
You can try an app called es file explorer, it has a feature that fully scans the contents of the internal SD card.
It should show a list of all the folders from the old stock data folders. You can multi select and delete what you want.
Another option which is more efficient, is to make a full backup of all the internal data in your PC. Then fully format the internal SD card via cwm and transfer which contents you need back from the PC such as photos and music. Asides from photos, music and other media items, most of those internal SD contents aren't needed as Android uses these folders for app data etc.
Always make back ups.
Your welcome.
Sent from the dark side of the moon.
iKlutz said:
You can try an app called es file explorer, it has a feature that fully scans the contents of the internal SD card.
It should show a list of all the folders from the old stock data folders. You can multi select and delete what you want.
Another option which is more efficient, is to make a full backup of all the internal data in your PC. Then fully format the internal SD card via cwm and transfer which contents you need back from the PC such as photos and music. Asides from photos, music and other media items, most of those internal SD contents aren't needed as Android uses these folders for app data etc.
Always make back ups.
Your welcome.
Sent from the dark side of the moon.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I have got ES File explorer. I couldn't find a "scan" but I've gone through all the folder on my device and I can see the following:
/storage - 3.83gb
/mnt - 2.11gb
/sdcard - 893mb
A lot of this seems to be duplicated though.... The stuff on mnt seems to be a shortcut to whats in sdcard, and all that in storage seems to be in the other two. I don't technically think it's all duplicated, but different ways to get to the same stuff, which makes me very nervous about deleting any of it....
Just got a liitle program to give a break down. See attached.
Surely my system data shouldn't be that big?
I recommend you make a full back up in your PC and format the SD card and transfer the contents of your current SD folder back. I've done it before on different devices, I do it on first root / cm install coming from stock because of all the old obsolete data. Apps like clean master won't removing it because it's marked as important for stock users. It shouldn't be a problem.
Note:
Having different links to the data partition is normal. It's purpose is compatibility.
Sent from the dark side of the moon.
---------- Post added at 12:01 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:54 AM ----------
It's possible that's reserved for the system. Mine is similar. You can still use it if you convert user apps into system ones.
Sent from the dark side of the moon.
iKlutz said:
I recommend you make a full back up in your PC and format the SD card and transfer the contents of your current SD folder back. I've done it before on different devices, I do it on first root / cm install coming from stock because of all the old obsolete data. Apps like clean master won't removing it because it's marked as important for stock users. It shouldn't be a problem.
Note:
Having different links to the data partition is normal. It's purpose is compatibility.
Sent from the dark side of the moon.
---------- Post added at 12:01 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:54 AM ----------
It's possible that's reserved for the system. Mine is similar. You can still use it if you convert user apps into system ones.
Sent from the dark side of the moon.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just found this: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2083107
It's something to do with backups. I'm gonna read through that thread and see if I can find out what I can/can't delete without bricking the phone.
Massively appreciate your time and repsonses on this iKlutz. Just out of interest, did you do a backup when you installed a rom? Have you found that the backup is this big??
Use ES file explorer or other file manager with root explorer capabilities.
Go to /data/media
You should see:
0
clockworkmod
legacy
obb
In clockworkmod folder I've found a backup (2.0GB) that was made by mistake to internal sotrage, since I allways do backup in CWM Recovery to external SD.
Deleted and 2.0GB were gained.
luisbraz said:
Use ES file explorer or other file manager with root explorer capabilities.
Go to /data/media
You should see:
0
clockworkmod
legacy
obb
In clockworkmod folder I've found a backup (2.0GB) that was made by mistake to internal sotrage, since I allways do backup in CWM Recovery to external SD.
Deleted and 2.0GB were gained.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmmm. Data/Media is empty.... I might delete the back up from CWM. If the worst happens, I can always flash from the external SD card can't i? Do I "need" that back up of the device when it was stock?
floateruk said:
Hmmm. Data/Media is empty.... I might delete the back up from CWM. If the worst happens, I can always flash from the external SD card can't i? Do I "need" that back up of the device when it was stock?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do not delete.
Copy the folder(s) that you have in the "backup" to the external SD card to the "backup" folder in the "clockworkmod" folder.
Then, you can delete the backup folder located in "data/media/clockworkmod/".
I allways save the backup of the stock ROM's.
To restore in CWM recovery, simply choose "restore from external SD card". And to backup, choose "backup to external SD card", or it will backup to the internal memory.
floateruk said:
Hmmm. Data/Media is empty.... I might delete the back up from CWM. If the worst happens, I can always flash from the external SD card can't i? Do I "need" that back up of the device when it was stock?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you solve the issue?
luisbraz said:
Did you solve the issue?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No.... I don't really know what to do with it.
I've got an s3 mini with Cyanogen and CWM and the system data portion is only 54mb.
I might go into CWM and start deleting things. If I delete the backup I made of my stock phone when I first rooted and added CWM, I can't see too many issues.... I can always flash a stock ROM again can't I?
floateruk said:
No.... I don't really know what to do with it.
I've got an s3 mini with Cyanogen and CWM and the system data portion is only 54mb.
I might go into CWM and start deleting things. If I delete the backup I made of my stock phone when I first rooted and added CWM, I can't see too many issues.... I can always flash a stock ROM again can't I?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, using Odin you can flash stock ROM again.
Next time do the backups in CWM to the external SD card!

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