freeing up RAM on Droid Eris

[darrenmthornton]

I recently installed "Android System Info" and I see that when all of my apps are closed, I typically have > 10% of RAM available. I was wondering if there's any way to free up some of the other 90% of the RAM. I use Advanced Task Killer diligently, and I only have either wifi or mobile network turned on, never both (though I doubt wifi/mobile network affect RAM anyway). Any ideas to keep Eris running as smoothly as possible?

By the way, I should say that my Eris does run smoothly usually, but sometimes is sluggish if I have a few programs running. I guess I'd like to increase the RAM just to be able to run more programs without experiencing that sluggishness...

Thanks in advance!

 

[condog]

im no expert but i think root would be necessary to do anything like that with the ram. but hey u never no.

 

[OfTheDamned]

Clearing the cache on your apps can free up a lot of memory.

Setting > Applications > Manage Applications and then sort by size (menu button). Go through your apps, the largest first, and clear the cache.

 

[darrenmthornton]

That definitely helps a little - my RAM is now varying between 10-20%. Still, I think there must be a way to free up way more.

If nothing else, there is serious demand for a performance optimization app (that would incorporate clearing all caches, killing all tasks, etc etc...of course I don't know what those etc's would be, but someone does).

 

[yasikwidit]

are there any negative effects to clear cache on all the apps? i know it's ok to clear the cache for browser. but what about other apps?

do you guys just clear cache for certain apps? or everything?

 

[joshminton]

so i cleared the cache on my browser and **** did that help. i was beginning to get worried cos nothing i did seemed to help speed my phone up.

 

[OfTheDamned]

are there any negative effects to clear cache on all the apps? i know it's ok to clear the cache for browser. but what about other apps?

do you guys just clear cache for certain apps? or everything?

I clear it for the big ones. The browser, youtube, albums, etc. Many apps don't store cache at all and some, like FeedR, give you the option to store cache on the SD card. The best method I have found is to simply sort all the apps by size and start at the top. You will get pretty familiar with the apps that are caching a lot based on your personal usage and know which ones you need to take care of.

I have also noticed that some apps do not use cache at all and instead store info as data. Slacker is really bad about this. I noticed one day that that little 1.73 Mb app had suddenly grown to 9.5 Mb because of its data storage. The only way to clear that out is to uninstall and reinstall the app. I have done this 3 times now for that particular app. I also contacted Slacker support to let them know about the problem. Some apps will actually double in size

Memory management is all about familiarity. You have to become familiar with your own usage habits and try to keep in mind what apps are at originally, size wise. Once you can keep track of that, it is a lot easier to monitor and identify problems.

 

[Frisco]

Memory management is all about familiarity. You have to become familiar with your own usage habits and try to keep in mind what apps are at originally, size wise. Once you can keep track of that, it is a lot easier to monitor and identify problems.

Excellent piece of advice (along with the menu/settings/applications/manage applications tip); getting it all in order of usage is a little snapshot of one's device usage.

Thank you for that.

 

[ludist210]

Just avoid clearing the cache in People. I know it's rather big, but if you clear it, your dates with your contacts will get all messed up. That's happened to me twice while trying to free up some memory.

 

[Frisco]

Just avoid clearing the cache in People. I know it's rather big, but if you clear it, your dates with your contacts will get all messed up. That's happened to me twice while trying to free up some memory.

Twice?

 

[OfTheDamned]

Just avoid clearing the cache in People. I know it's rather big, but if you clear it, your dates with your contacts will get all messed up. That's happened to me twice while trying to free up some memory.

Interesting. Are you talking about birth dates? I have not noticed this happening with mine and would expect stuff like that to be kept in data, not cache. I will have to keep an eye on that one.

 

[Caddyman]

i accidentally cleared data on the album app once, so you all know, it does not delete your pictures or albums...lol

 

[ludist210]

Interesting. Are you talking about birth dates? I have not noticed this happening with mine and would expect stuff like that to be kept in data, not cache. I will have to keep an eye on that one.

Yeah, birth dates. Is that data or cache? I know I'd cleared both in the past, but now I don't want to touch either.

 

[OfTheDamned]

Yeah, birth dates. Is that data or cache? I know I'd cleared both in the past, but now I don't want to touch either.

I would expect that kind of information to be data. Of course this is speculation on my part, but the cache should really be for facebook updates as well as facebook and flickr albums more than anything else.

Data should be more for the "permanent" info like contact information. For example, clearing the data for the browser will delete all your bookmarks and the cache will just wipe things like your search history and the pages/images you have recently loaded. That is not to say that it will clear the history. You have to do that from within the app itself.

 

[ludist210]

I would expect that kind of information to be data. Of course this is speculation on my part, but the cache should really be for facebook updates as well as facebook and flickr albums more than anything else.

Data should be more for the "permanent" info like contact information. For example, clearing the data for the browser will delete all your bookmarks and the cache will just wipe things like your search history and the pages you have recently loaded. That is not to say that it will clear the history. You have to do that from within the app itself.

I just cleared the cache, and my upcoming birthdays stayed the same. So maybe it was when I was deleting app data. I'll avoid that in the future and just clear caches (something I should have done from the beginning). I'll keep an eye on it, though.

 

[darrenmthornton]

I've discovered that facebook-stored info takes up a lot of RAM (around 25 mbs for me, though this likely varies depending on the size of your facebook contacts list and updates...)

This isn't about the facebook app, but rather about how our address book links facebook info to contact info (photos and birthday info...obviously, photos are using up most of that RAM). Is there a way to have the facebook photos stored on the SD card, rather than on RAM? Any other ideas if that's not feasible?

 

[smacky]

I can top all your delete stories. I went "cache-clearing crazy" this morning and did everything. No one was spared. Not even the browser..or Sense...or their data.. So I reboot and....all my icons were gone, and it was set to factory defaults. Bookmarks? Gone. I actually laughed and shrugged it off as a lesson learned. Don't go trigger-happy clearing your cache and data. Your albums will be fine, so will facebook and what not. Do not do Sense. You won't be laughing like I was, unless you didn't have many icons to begin with.

 

[OfTheDamned]

I've discovered that facebook-stored info takes up a lot of RAM (around 25 mbs for me, though this likely varies depending on the size of your facebook contacts list and updates...)

This isn't about the facebook app, but rather about how our address book links facebook info to contact info (photos and birthday info...obviously, photos are using up most of that RAM). Is there a way to have the facebook photos stored on the SD card, rather than on RAM? Any other ideas if that's not feasible?

The people (contacts) app should only be caching images when you are opening up that contact and viewing their albums. You may want to try only viewing people's facebook albums via the albums app and see if the amount of cache taken up is equal to what you were getting with the people app. If it is, then you will probably need to clear the cache more often after viewing photos. As far as I know, there is no way to make that app store cache on the SD card.

 

[OfTheDamned]

I can top all your delete stories. I went "cache-clearing crazy" this morning and did everything. No one was spared. Not even the browser..or Sense...or their data.. So I reboot and....all my icons were gone, and it was set to factory defaults. Bookmarks? Gone. I actually laughed and shrugged it off as a lesson learned. Don't go trigger-happy clearing your cache and data. Your albums will be fine, so will facebook and what not. Do not do Sense. You won't be laughing like I was, unless you didn't have many icons to begin with.

I don't typically touch the data on apps. Causes too many problems.

 

[darrenmthornton]

Do we have consensus though that a all-cache-clearing app would be a good thing, much like advanced task killer?

Are there any real drawbacks? (Note that I'm not talking about an app that clears all data, just the cache.)

 

[darrenmthornton]

by the way - smacky the frog - awesome name. RIP Mitch.

 

[Caddyman]

there are cache clearing app but you need root to use them

 

[OfTheDamned]

Do we have consensus though that a all-cache-clearing app would be a good thing, much like advanced task killer?

Are there any real drawbacks? (Note that I'm not talking about an app that clears all data, just the cache.)

I don't really think a kill or clear all anything is a good idea. Too many variables that nobody knows about at this point. It would be nice to have an app that lets you chose which apps you would like to clear cache on though. I think that would be a top selling/downloaded app.

Right now, however I think this function is only available to those with root access to the phone.

 

[vdubbin]

I go trigger happy on app cache's at least once a week, anything that can be cached is! I usually reboot and it always works wonders for the speed/response of the phone and apps. I use advanced task killer, so when I notice my available memory is dropping off even after a "kill all", I clear all the cache on every item in the app manager. I have never experienced any problems afterward either, but I will say, the first time I went through trigger happy, I cleared data intentionally and unintentionally, which had a major effect and I had to do a factory reset, in fact I've factory reset my device twice because of that. I did learn my lesson and have never had another issue clearing all cache's. Needless to say I'm fearless with clearing everything and don't think there's any variables that come into play for my setup, could be different for others, but I would really like a clear all cache app! Quick and easy, manually going through takes some time!

 

[Bswartz95]

Every few weeks I uninstall the Facebook for Android app and reinstall it. As someone posted earlier, the size of the program keeps growing! I wish there was an sd card option or a way to clear it when you exit (i.e. Dolphin Browser).