Ways to get more system storage for Android phones
There are a lot of ways to clean your storage so then to get more storage for new app installation.
If you search in market, you get a array of these kind of apps. Before we talk about cleaning storage. Lets talk about why we need to house keeping sometimes.
It is good to have extra system storage, not just for you to install more apps or place personal data.
In fact, by having more extra system storage will prevent running into hanging issue for your Android phone.
The reason being that some apps will generate temporary files when it performs some tasks in the phone, depending on how good is the developer of the app. If they do not do a proper exception handling in their code, if the phone run into cases that the system storage has run out, the app might cause the entire phone to hang.
So, it is important to ensure there are ample amount of system storage available in your Android phone.
OK, here goes the real topic of how to get more system storage for your phone.
My approach of doing the cleaning of storage is not those typical do one thing and all your issue will go away kind of approach. So, if you are looking for quick solution, this article might not suit you.
If you have done a simple search in Android - Google Play (market). You will get a list of available apps to help you to clean the unwanted leftover files in your Android phone. You should use that first to help to clean up the storage. However, please ensure you use the one with the most existing users and the one with most comments. Although others with little comments will work well too, but having a lot of comments give you the idea what are the side effects others have run into that you can refer on and trying to avoid. The other thing is that the storage cleaner is not a magical solution by the developer. It is a accumulated learning by experience (through complaints from users) from the developer when they craft out the ways to clean the memory. So, the more complaints or rather, tests been conducted on various model. The more reliable the solution will get. One thing many people always overlook when doing storage clean up is the side effect.
Anyone can come out with the storage clean up, but the side effect or rather aftermath is more important than your storage gets clean up often time.
Issues like missing data, missing precious contacts or personal stuff will creep up if you use a not so mature app to clean up stuff for you.
Ok, perhaps you have done some cleaning using some apps and yet the result is still undesirable. What should you do next?
In a phone, if your phone support external storage like MicroSD card slot. Your storage will be divided into 3 main zones.
- System storage
- USB storage
- SD card
The most precious one would be System Storage. Try to reserve more for system storage. Your android phone need this for most of the tasks in the system.
First thing, you should look for a software which could help to list out what are the area in your phone that took up the most storage. A place to start could be your Android storage info. (In Settings - Storage)
Android provide a good breakdown of what are the stuff that take up the most storage. From there, you can make a decision to remove unwanted data from your phone. However, before doing this, you should always backup your data. There are a lot of back up app out there to help you like Avast data backup and many more.
Once you have done that, next thing should be to remove unwanted apps that take up the storage in system side. Remove unwanted apps that take up the most System Storage. You can find this information using some App like AppMgr III or Move2SD and many more. If the app detected that your app is safe to move to SD slot, you should do it to save some storage. However, ensure by doing this would not cause your phone to be unstable. Some phones tend to be unstable when you have apps in SD slot. It could either the app developer issues or the phone hardware/software issues.
Next, once you have done all the above, try to reinstall again your again or by cleaning the data for your app.
The reason is that Android Market enable the instant upgrade of your app. Developer will dispatch upgrade fastest daily or weekly so you get the latest upgrade you want. However, the is a downside that most people do not realize.
First off, a proper software development circle require a full development and testing cycle from various aspect. Unless otherwise the app development that have a highly complete testing cycle. It is not possible to test on various kind of settings like
- You are upgrading from version 1 to version 7 (skipping 6 versions because may be you decided to do this after a long time)
- You have some unanticipated data in your app. When upgrading from one version to another, it might not get migrated correctly or the migration do not work well.
Stability of app aside since this article is about storage. Upgrading one version to another and many version accumulate will have tendency for you to accumulate rubbish in your phone.
You would need to clean the data. But make sure you have back up your data for your app before hand.
The other thing is that you uninstall and then install. (not upgrade, upgrage would not help)
A simple thing i tried is to clean up data for my Facebook app. After the cleaning of data. My phone instantly has excess of system storage. The Facebook has accumulated piles of unused files in Data of the app that is left occupying my system storage.
You can try to do this for other app. Preferrably those App with web site that store your personal data like Facebook, Twitter, Emailing apps like Hotmail, Gmail and etc.
These apps are having a centralized data in their server. Once you clean your data in your phone, it will synchronize back to your phone once you set up the account back in your phone.
Saw a tip to clear some more space by removing the log. This will also help to clear system storage further.
Try punching in *#9900# on keypad and choose option 2 (Delete dumpstate/logcat).
(Source: http://forums.androidcentral.com/samsung-galaxy-s-ii/266821-storage-space-running-low.html)
If you search in market, you get a array of these kind of apps. Before we talk about cleaning storage. Lets talk about why we need to house keeping sometimes.
It is good to have extra system storage, not just for you to install more apps or place personal data.
In fact, by having more extra system storage will prevent running into hanging issue for your Android phone.
The reason being that some apps will generate temporary files when it performs some tasks in the phone, depending on how good is the developer of the app. If they do not do a proper exception handling in their code, if the phone run into cases that the system storage has run out, the app might cause the entire phone to hang.
So, it is important to ensure there are ample amount of system storage available in your Android phone.
OK, here goes the real topic of how to get more system storage for your phone.
My approach of doing the cleaning of storage is not those typical do one thing and all your issue will go away kind of approach. So, if you are looking for quick solution, this article might not suit you.
If you have done a simple search in Android - Google Play (market). You will get a list of available apps to help you to clean the unwanted leftover files in your Android phone. You should use that first to help to clean up the storage. However, please ensure you use the one with the most existing users and the one with most comments. Although others with little comments will work well too, but having a lot of comments give you the idea what are the side effects others have run into that you can refer on and trying to avoid. The other thing is that the storage cleaner is not a magical solution by the developer. It is a accumulated learning by experience (through complaints from users) from the developer when they craft out the ways to clean the memory. So, the more complaints or rather, tests been conducted on various model. The more reliable the solution will get. One thing many people always overlook when doing storage clean up is the side effect.
Anyone can come out with the storage clean up, but the side effect or rather aftermath is more important than your storage gets clean up often time.
Issues like missing data, missing precious contacts or personal stuff will creep up if you use a not so mature app to clean up stuff for you.
Ok, perhaps you have done some cleaning using some apps and yet the result is still undesirable. What should you do next?
In a phone, if your phone support external storage like MicroSD card slot. Your storage will be divided into 3 main zones.
- System storage
- USB storage
- SD card
The most precious one would be System Storage. Try to reserve more for system storage. Your android phone need this for most of the tasks in the system.
First thing, you should look for a software which could help to list out what are the area in your phone that took up the most storage. A place to start could be your Android storage info. (In Settings - Storage)
Android provide a good breakdown of what are the stuff that take up the most storage. From there, you can make a decision to remove unwanted data from your phone. However, before doing this, you should always backup your data. There are a lot of back up app out there to help you like Avast data backup and many more.
Once you have done that, next thing should be to remove unwanted apps that take up the storage in system side. Remove unwanted apps that take up the most System Storage. You can find this information using some App like AppMgr III or Move2SD and many more. If the app detected that your app is safe to move to SD slot, you should do it to save some storage. However, ensure by doing this would not cause your phone to be unstable. Some phones tend to be unstable when you have apps in SD slot. It could either the app developer issues or the phone hardware/software issues.
Next, once you have done all the above, try to reinstall again your again or by cleaning the data for your app.
The reason is that Android Market enable the instant upgrade of your app. Developer will dispatch upgrade fastest daily or weekly so you get the latest upgrade you want. However, the is a downside that most people do not realize.
First off, a proper software development circle require a full development and testing cycle from various aspect. Unless otherwise the app development that have a highly complete testing cycle. It is not possible to test on various kind of settings like
- You are upgrading from version 1 to version 7 (skipping 6 versions because may be you decided to do this after a long time)
- You have some unanticipated data in your app. When upgrading from one version to another, it might not get migrated correctly or the migration do not work well.
Stability of app aside since this article is about storage. Upgrading one version to another and many version accumulate will have tendency for you to accumulate rubbish in your phone.
You would need to clean the data. But make sure you have back up your data for your app before hand.
The other thing is that you uninstall and then install. (not upgrade, upgrage would not help)
A simple thing i tried is to clean up data for my Facebook app. After the cleaning of data. My phone instantly has excess of system storage. The Facebook has accumulated piles of unused files in Data of the app that is left occupying my system storage.
You can try to do this for other app. Preferrably those App with web site that store your personal data like Facebook, Twitter, Emailing apps like Hotmail, Gmail and etc.
These apps are having a centralized data in their server. Once you clean your data in your phone, it will synchronize back to your phone once you set up the account back in your phone.
Saw a tip to clear some more space by removing the log. This will also help to clear system storage further.
Try punching in *#9900# on keypad and choose option 2 (Delete dumpstate/logcat).
(Source: http://forums.androidcentral.com/samsung-galaxy-s-ii/266821-storage-space-running-low.html)
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