Root Will a custom rom free up internal space?

[Vance]

I am frustrated with constantly having only 13% or so left in internal ROM and getting the "low on space" warnings. I am rooted, but pretty happy with the stock rom with Launcher Pro, but if a custom will help free up space, it might be worth making the change. Will it make a big difference?

 

[skilaufen]

I am frustrated with constantly having only 13% or so left in internal ROM and getting the "low on space" warnings. I am rooted, but pretty happy with the stock rom with Launcher Pro, but if a custom will help free up space, it might be worth making the change. Will it make a big difference?

If you like the stock ROM feel and look try Pete's Bugless Beast .6.2.1. He has kept it stock for the most part but optimized it for performance. You can save alot of internal storage space because the ROM like most all custom ROMs will allow you to save all of your apps to the SD card.

Most Custom ROMs in my experience use less space because of the ability to save apps to SD. Though if you have widgets that you use you shouldn't save those to the SD card or they will have problems refreshing.

You can get the Bugless Beast ROMs from either ROM manager or Pete's website: Peter Alfonso

 

[Vance]

Thanks! A friend of mine recommends that ROM as well. I have moved over as many apps that I can with App2SD and Titanium, but if a custom ROM could also let me move Maps, Gmail, the Market, Voice Search, Beautiful Widgets and a few others, that would be great.

What I am really hoping for is to be able clear away some of the system, non-app stuff. Right now, the remaining apps only make up a minority of the internal space being used, the rest is OS and other stuff I can't figure out. Would a custom ROM help get rid of some of that as well?

 

[kratos]

I like Ultimate Droid 2.5 as there is a setting that allows you to be able to move any and all apps to the SD card.

You can also use Titanium Backup to do this. I think you can do this with the free version of TiBU, but I donated a few days after getting it and so am not 100% on this.

Just be careful to not move any apps that are widgets (Fancy widget) or any apps that have widgets you use (Facebook, GVoice, etc). Also, I do not recommend moving system apps (I don;t think you can as I haven't tried, but I still don't recommend it) or any apps that are usually running all the time, such as text messaging replacement apps (handcent, chomp, etc).

However, using these methods, you can move some very large apps such as Adobe Flash, Adobe Reader, Amazon Kindle, etc that will free up a lot of space. Flash is something like 15MB and will normally free up as much as 7-9MB when on your SD card. So, you can see how much a difference that would make.

If you have problems doing this or just have questions on these methods, let us know. We are here to help.

Kratos

 

[Vance]

Kratos, I have had a hard time with Titanium Backup (paid version) moving some of the apps, even those without widgets I am using. It won't give me the option to move GMail, Goggles, etc, the button to move is just greyed out. I have moved all that it will let me. Any thoughts on how to free up some more space?

 

[skilaufen]

Kratos, I have had a hard time with Titanium Backup (paid version) moving some of the apps, even those without widgets I am using. It won't give me the option to move GMail, Goggles, etc, the button to move is just greyed out. I have moved all that it will let me. Any thoughts on how to free up some more space?

Gmail has to stay in the phone's memory or it won't sync your contacts and such correctly. As Kratos said it is not a good idea to move some of the system apps to the sd card. How many apps do you have? How much memory is available right now after moving everything else over? These answer may help identify solutions.

Also running a cache cleaner may help depending on ther size of your apps cache. I think one of the ones I have heard being recommended is Cachemate, but I would check in the market to see what is available.

 

[Vance]

I have Cachemate and that does help clear out a mb here and there. There are 20 apps taking up about 50 mb that I can't move (according to both TB and App2SD pro). Gmail, Google Maps, the Market, Voice Search, Goggles, Visual Voice Mail, etc) I only have about 34 mb free. What is taking up the other 175 or so mb? Is there any of that which is "fat" that I can trim off?

That makes sense regarding GMail, and I am sure the other non-movable apps have their reasons as well. But I have never seen a "computer" which uses up 2/3 of the available space for OS and system files.

 

[markc2]

Probably not related, but I was seeing a lot of my available space being eaten up and finally realized it was my RSS Newsfeed.

I have Cachemate and that does help clear out a mb here and there. There are 20 apps taking up about 50 mb that I can't move (according to both TB and App2SD pro). Gmail, Google Maps, the Market, Voice Search, Goggles, Visual Voice Mail, etc) I only have about 34 mb free. What is taking up the other 175 or so mb? Is there any of that which is "fat" that I can trim off?

That makes sense regarding GMail, and I am sure the other non-movable apps have their reasons as well. But I have never seen a "computer" which uses up 2/3 of the available space for OS and system files.

 

[Vance]

Probably not related, but I was seeing a lot of my available space being eaten up and finally realized it was my RSS Newsfeed.

Ah, I have been keeping my texts cleaned out, but the RSS feeds could be an issue. I use Beyond Pod for podcasts and it also will download news that are included in those same feeds, and those build up. Good call, thanks!