Develop Bugs

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] where are market downloads stored?

gents,
I wonder in which folder the downloaded market apps go before the get installed.
Additionally the question rises if one can delete those files or do they get deleted automatically after installation??

HorNet505 said:
gents,
I wonder in which folder the downloaded market apps go before the get installed.
Additionally the question rises if one can delete those files or do they get deleted automatically after installation??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They are run from the location they are downloaded to on the phone. So when you download a file from the App Market it will be stored in the folder, installed and run from said APK. If you move it to SD it moves the file from internal to external. If you uninstall the file if it sits on the phones memory it will automatically delete the file.

Not quite. They are stored on the cache partition. They are not always deleted, but they do not take up app space as the partition size is fixed. And when the space is needed on the cache partition, eventually they are deleted.

Is the cache folder visible to me? What's it called.
I got the problem that, despite all my apps are moved to my SD card, the updates fill up my internal memory. I understood that the updated apps are as well moved to the SD card. This is my default setting as well i

Downloaded apks are gets stored in /data/app. You need ROOT access to locate them. Root Explorer will let you access these files.

ip2op01 said:
Downloaded apks are gets stored in /data/app. You need ROOT access to locate them. Root Explorer will let you access these files.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Let me make a correction here: installed apps are stored in /data/app (requiring root for write permissions). System apps are stored in /system/app (requiring S-OFF or Recovery mode for write permissions). Downloaded apks are stored in /cache/download, which is why in partition tables, where the cache partition is >5 MB, you should symlink the download folder to a folder in the sdcard, to be able to download apps larger than 5 MB. Otherwise the market will return the error "Insufficient storage available." or something like that.
Not that all of that really matters, seeing as this is a year old thread...

Please use the Q&A Forum for questions Thanks
Moving to Q&A

accessing the internal memory on pc

hi,
i recently got the xperia play for christmas and i want to play my psone games on it. so i got the PSXperia tool but requires to get a .apk and .zpak files, which are in the internal memory, which i cannot access through windows explorer. is there a tool that allows me to access this? its an unrooted phone, on 2.3.4
thank you

AFAIK none of the instructions @ https://github.com/yifanlu/PSXperia/wiki require you to access the internal memory.

Urrr...not on the website...on the actual application though
"You need to extract some files from the Crash bandicoot apk that came with your Xperia Play
The APK is either com.sony.playstationblahblahblah.apk or com.sony.playstation.blahblahblah.apk in the system/app folder of your android phone's INTERNAL MEMORY"
So I can get the ZPAK from the SD card, however I cannot get the APK. Help?

You should be able to use adb pull to get it
(Do a temp root with zergRush if you have to).

Sorry Im a noob could you explain what those are and how you do it?

Jasestyle said:
Sorry Im a noob could you explain what those are and how you do it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
no.
this is what wrong with the Internet. people expect to be told everything.
many threads in Xda on how to do it or perhaps Google how to use adb to pull files
rant over.. this wasn't personal
Sent from my R800i using Tapatalk

Download Astro File Manager from the Android Market. Launch the app and find the directory where the APK file is located, which is in "/system/app".
Press down on the APK file and tap on "copy". Then go back to your SD card and paste it there.
^^ This was the fastest way I was able to get that APK file.

Saving or Storing .apk's

I'm about to start buying a few different apps, and want to save them on my PC so I can have them for either future use or if I am gonna be wiping my phone, returning it, getting another phone, etc... Anybody save them straight to their computer from amazon.com, or can I pull them off my phone thru Kies after dowloading from the market? Then I guess I'll also need to know how would I get the apk running once I put it on my SD Card? Sorry in advance if this is a dummy question- it's my first run at this and there are tons of different opinions and people pitching their softwares on google search and youtube that span back to 2009, so I'd like to see what someone who knows how and has a T989, Thanks!

Download astro file manager (free) from the market and u can back up your apk's. Save them to ur sd card and transfer it to ur pc.
Sent from my SGH-T989 using XDA

zero86ea said:
Download astro file manager (free) from the market and u can back up your apk's. Save them to ur sd card and transfer it to ur pc.
Sent from my SGH-T989 using XDA
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1
Sent from my SGH-T989 using XDA

You can also use JRUMMY6 apps - Ultimate app manager pro or ROM Toolbox Pro. This will save the apk as well as the settings for that app.

CincoDeDrinko said:
I'm about to start buying a few different apps, and want to save them on my PC so I can have them for either future use or if I am gonna be wiping my phone, returning it, getting another phone, etc... Anybody save them straight to their computer from amazon.com, or can I pull them off my phone thru Kies after dowloading from the market? Then I guess I'll also need to know how would I get the apk running once I put it on my SD Card? Sorry in advance if this is a dummy question- it's my first run at this and there are tons of different opinions and people pitching their softwares on google search and youtube that span back to 2009, so I'd like to see what someone who knows how and has a T989, Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here's a quick guide:
1) Download and install a file explorer application that can write to the system partition. You can use ROOT explorer or ES file explorer. I'm not sure if astro has system writing capabilities.
2) Go into the application and enable root access and the ability to write to system. For ES, you go into settings then scroll down and check "Up to Root" and "Root Explorer" and "Mount File System"
3) Navigate to the apk files that you want to save. For user apps, it's under /data/apps and for system apps (memo, contacts, etc.) it's under /system/apps. Now you probably default to /sdcard so you'll have to go up one more level to reach the root directory (it'll just be "/") to access system or data. Save those apks.
4) If you want to restore these apks to a future phone/ROM, it's the same idea, except you just have to copy paste the files to the directory that you found them in. But you have to watch out for odexed/deodexed apps because they're not compatible. So if you go into /system/apps or /data/apps and you see a .odex file after each respective .apk file, you won't be able to install those apps to a ROM that is deodexed. If you go into those directories and you only see .apk files, you won't be able to install those apps on a stock ROM (almost all custom ROMs are deodexed).
5) All you have to do is copy the files into the directories and reboot, you don't have to install them or anything. Some will say that you should change the permissions to (rw- r-- r--) but I've tried both ways anecdotally and I don't think it makes a difference whether you do or not.
Although I'm not sure why you want to go about it this way, if you have titanium backup it'll do all your backing up and restoring for you. The only thing that I use this method for is for the memo.apk which I use but isn't included on all ROMs. TB doesn't back this up because it's a system app. So this process is really only necessary for system apps.

yoft1 said:
Here's a quick guide:
1) Download and install a file explorer application that can write to the system partition. You can use ROOT explorer or ES file explorer. I'm not sure if astro has system writing capabilities.
2) Go into the application and enable root access and the ability to write to system. For ES, you go into settings then scroll down and check "Up to Root" and "Root Explorer" and "Mount File System"
3) Navigate to the apk files that you want to save. For user apps, it's under /data/apps and for system apps (memo, contacts, etc.) it's under /system/apps. Now you probably default to /sdcard so you'll have to go up one more level to reach the root directory (it'll just be "/") to access system or data. Save those apks.
4) If you want to restore these apks to a future phone/ROM, it's the same idea, except you just have to copy paste the files to the directory that you found them in. But you have to watch out for odexed/deodexed apps because they're not compatible. So if you go into /system/apps or /data/apps and you see a .odex file after each respective .apk file, you won't be able to install those apps to a ROM that is deodexed. If you go into those directories and you only see .apk files, you won't be able to install those apps on a stock ROM (almost all custom ROMs are deodexed).
5) All you have to do is copy the files into the directories and reboot, you don't have to install them or anything. Some will say that you should change the permissions to (rw- r-- r--) but I've tried both ways anecdotally and I don't think it makes a difference whether you do or not.
Although I'm not sure why you want to go about it this way, if you have titanium backup it'll do all your backing up and restoring for you. The only thing that I use this method for is for the memo.apk which I use but isn't included on all ROMs. TB doesn't back this up because it's a system app. So this process is really only necessary for system apps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
TI backup also just requires the pro license key to be stored in the same location as the backup directory. this way you can change roms and get Ti pro back without needing to re purchase.
Sent from my SGH-T989

try using root explorer
then goto the data/app directory copy your apps and move to whatever folder that you like. then if you want you could sign up for minus and upload all your apks (they have a 2gb upload limit so it works great). Or just connect hercules to computer and pull files from folder you copied to to your computer.

rom tool box pro backs up ALL your installed apks on your sd. manual install and market installed.