UKC

Having trouble with 'lost storage' on my Android 6 phone.

The Settings/Storage reckons that, of the 8GB, Android is taking 3GB, leaving 5GB free. It is reporting 4.22GB used, of which 2.25GB is for Apps. The other identified categories add up to about 100MB of media/other, and 200MB of cached data.

So, where is the other 1.7GB, and how do I get it back?

Worth checking if you have a 'recently deleted files' folder - I spent ages deleting files on my iPhone after problems due to lack of storage space, and whatever I did didn't seem to solve the problem. Then I found there was a 'Deleted Files' folder hidden somewhere not at all obvious. I realise it isn't an Android, but there might be something similar maybe?

Thanks. It appears Android doesn't have a recycle bin...

I thought I might have found it, using the recovery menu (power up holding volume down key, selecting recovery mode, and then pressing power/volume up), and then clearing the cache partition. Took a disturbingly long time to complete. But didn't change the memory usage...

https://motorola-global-portal.custhelp.com/app/answers/indevice_detail/a_i...

Don't really want to have to do a factory reset...

Much further googling, with improved google-foo finds this:

https://forums.androidcentral.com/moto-g/661004-whats-using-up-all-my-moto-...

Seems I'm not alone, and it may just be that Android 6 is a bit shit...

Took the plunge last night... Four hours later, the phone is pretty much back to the state it was in before, apps and settings wise. Did have to dig out an apk for a file manager app. Due to Android's stupid policy of date stamping anything copied with the current time (contrary to long-established policy elsewhere), all my files are now incorrectly timestamped. Some touching will be done to try to rectify that...

But the storage usage problem is just as bad. If not a little worse...

Bugger.

I keep mine in a hall cupboard...

Does the cupboard seem fuller than you would expect it to be...?

Do you take lots of pictures? There's athumbnail, cache somewhere IIRC that keeps a thumbnail pic (surprisingly) of any photo you've every taken, EVER!!

You can delete it, if you know how,

There is. It's in Device/DCIM/.thumbnails

It's about 68 MB. Already counted, and not the missing 1.7GB.

I'm pretty sure it's some dross left behind when installing apps, as I could watch the discrepancy rise as apps were installed. It looks like the installer isn't removing the downloaded app.

Playing around deleting apps whilst monitoring storage figures shows that each app is consuming between 1.5-3 times the size that it is reported to take.

Installing from apk, rather than the app store makes no difference.

I assume you've found this but worth a read

https://recoverit.wondershare.com/android-tips/empty-trash-android.html

Thanks, I have, but those are all things I do normally. This isn't any of those problems. The fact that I've just done a factory reset, and all I've done since then is reinstall my apps, but not yet use them, is a good clue that it's not normal operational data. That's also borne out by the current low values for cached data. It's some f*ck up either with the app installation, or the reporting of the size of installed apps (both under android, and on the Play Store).

128gb SD card might sort out all of your problems? 

I've got a 256GB card in there...

The problem is, Android 6 was the first release that supported a 'bound SD card', formatted as 'internal storage'. Sadly, if you do that, file managers cannot see the contents of the SD card. At least, the file managers I've tried cannot access an 'internal SD card'. I use the SD card in that way a lot, so, no, for Android 6, an expansion SD card isn't the answer.

Android 6 seems to have been a f*ck-up in so many ways. And it's the last version released for this old phone...