Help Storage clearing help!

[kerryp7]

Storage says all full. All my photos and files are on the SD card. I've done "Wipe Cache Partition". Trying to export Contacts to SD card. 2nd step of export isn't working!

 

[svim]

https://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_j7-7185.php
So wiping the system cache partition will have no affect in any way to those 'storage full' messages. Your phone's internal storage is divided into several partitions, most are dedicated solely to the Android operating system and one, a user data partition, that's just for the user (you). Those system partitions are isolated from your access to them, you have complete access to everything residing in that user data partition, you only have very little to no access to the system partitions.
So all that said, when you look at the Settings >> Storage menu in your phone that should give you a good, cursory view of what files and things are still taking up space in your internal storage. And again, ignore all data tied to the operating system. They're not readily accessible to you so no need to fixate on them. Are there apps you've previously installed but don't use any longer? You mentioned that you store your photos on your microSD card but what about things like videos and music files?

 

[kerryp7]

https://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_j7-7185.php
So wiping the system cache partition will have no affect in any way to those 'storage full' messages. Your phone's internal storage is divided into several partitions, most are dedicated solely to the Android operating system and one, a user data partition, that's just for the user (you). Those system partitions are isolated from your access to them, you have complete access to everything residing in that user data partition, you only have very little to no access to the system partitions.
So all that said, when you look at the Settings >> Storage menu in your phone that should give you a good, cursory view of what files and things are still taking up space in your internal storage. And again, ignore all data tied to the operating system. They're not readily accessible to you so no need to fixate on them. Are there apps you've previously installed but don't use any longer? You mentioned that you store your photos on your microSD card but what about things like videos and music files?

Thank you so much for responding. At&t have been little help! The weird thing is...I don't have any videos or music, files or downloads on the phone. Apps take up 7GB only. Unused apps have been deleted.

 

[kerryp7]

I tried to export my contacts to the SD card, so I could do a reset. But the export won't complete. So, now I seemed to be stuck.

 

[svim]

The 'SMS Backup & Restore' app is a good way to backup, and restore, your contacts and phone call log:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.riteshsahu.SMSBackupRestore&hl=en_US
Or if you're already syncing your contacts with your online mail account service, all your contacts should already be saved and accessible using the web interface to log into your account. This is a recommended way to have a full backup of your contacts list, don't rely on your mobile device as the only source.
Or there should be, depending on your carrier, an 'Export/import' option in the Contact app itself that will allow you to export your contacts list as a .vcf file that you can then later import back into the app if necessary. Save that .vcf file to your microSD card and more importantly, save it as attachment in an email to yourself.
Not knowing just how you're trying to export (backup) your contacts list, please state more details as to the problem you're having (i.e. how are you doing the export and what kind of error message are you seeing?).

 

[kerryp7]

Thank you. Yes, more details:
I'm trying to Export in the Contact app, a .vcf file, to the SD Card. I don't want to sync my phone contacts to an online Cloud or Drive - Just to the SD card with the intention of Importing them back to the phone as well.

On my phone, in the Contacts App, there's a 2 step process. The 2nd step, which appears to be the file moving over to SD card, simply doesn't complete. I've tried it many times. It acts like it's loading them onto the SD card. Then reverts back as if I never selected the action. It appears to be waiting for me to select "Export" all over again. No error message appears, so I have no clue what the problem is.

 

[svim]

Do you have any problems copying files in general to your microSD card, or is the problem just copying just this contacts export file?
If you're able to save it to your phone's internal storage, add the .vcf file as an attachment to an email message to yourself. At that point you can then use that to restore your contacts list if necessary, and you'll have a backup saved in your email. Again, it's not safe to rely on your phone as a sole source for your data. It you lose your phone, or it gets stolen or damaged you might not have access to that microSD card either.

 

[kerryp7]

I haven't had any trouble moving other files to the SD card at all. The contacts are already on my. phone. I can try to email them to myself. I'd like to avoid synching them with a Google account though. This whole endeavor is to try to free up storage space on the phone. As far as I know, everything but the contacts is on the SD card. So the crowded storage is the main frustration and mystery. If you have any insight about that at all, I'd greatly appreciate it! And thank you for your clear guidance so far!

 

[kerryp7]

Tried to email the file of Contacts and it won't attach. Presumably because there's not enough space on the phone.

 

[Hadron]

The contacts will use a very small amount of space, so while having a backup is highly recommended the problem here comes from something else.

You can probably regain some space temporarily by clearing app caches (not the same as a cache partition). Start with browsers, as you'd be amazed how much they will cache. Social media apps can be bad for this too. You can probably get your settings to show your apps sorted by size (I don't have a recent Samsung so can't be sure what options they have). Just clear the app's cache, not all of its data.

But that's just temporary relief, as caches will refill. To identify the cause we'll need more information. Can you post your storage statistics? Use a file browser to see what's actually in your internal storage?

(And just to be sure, when you say that you moved stuff to SD you mean the actual SD card and not /sdcard, which is actually internal storage emulating an SD card so that badly-written legacy apps will still run?)

 

[kerryp7]

Here's another part off the mystery for me. I clear the Caches of all the Apps at least once or twice a month. That's only ever cleared approximately 0.70 Mb. The Storage on the phone is 16GB. The app tells me that the Storage is at 15.82. When I clear the Caches of Apps that I use a lot ( System Apps+ Downloaded) and Browsers and move new screenshots for example, over to the SD card, it'll go down to about 15.30 GB.

The Device Maintenance option in Settings tells me there's 300 MB free. Memory has 665 MB free. The Get More Space option says there are 0 Large Files, 0 Unused Files, 0 Duplicated Files, 0 Unnecessary files.

The Phone storage says 15.82 GB out of 16 GB. The SD card has 4.42 GB out of 14.83 GB.
Apps take up 7GB on the phone. So there's approximately 8 + GB of what, I don't know?

 

[svim]

That 8GB is most likely to be the Android operating system that your phone needs to be functional.
As for clearing system caches on a regular basis, do so if you feel you must but note that any app that has its cache deleted will simply rebuild it each time anyway. Essentially, you're saving an insignificant amount of storage space for just a temporary period of time, and while it's also not much of system resource hog it's also just making your phone work that little bit much more as each app needs to replace the cache it needs to work.

With 7GB of apps on your phone, that does appear to be a lot of apps, or if just a handful of apps they must be quite sizable. With a phone like a J7 with 1.5GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage it might be more prudent to upgrade to a newer model that has 1) more RAM so more things can run unfettered in memory and b) more storage space so you won't see those low storage messages popping up. At least with a phone with more system resources you can just use it as a daily usage phone and not have to mess with it just trying to get a open storage.

 

[kerryp7]

Lots to consider. I have 12 Apps. Deleted a banking App and it didn't affect the storage at all...

 

[kerryp7]

Now I've deleted 3 Apps in total and the storage says 15.68 GB out of 16 GB. This hasn't made much of a dent. Any thoughts?

 

[kerryp7]

Dig more digging, a few month ago I moved the largest app, over to the SD cArd along with 2 other apps. Now I have 7 apps total. 3 are on the SD card/ External Storage. And the storage still hovers at 15.55 GB.

 

[svim]

Taking into consideration apps are generally going to take up only a relatively moderate amount of disk space, perhaps instead of focusing so much on apps you look into what might actually be the problem.

 

[kerryp7]

All I want to do is find out how to clear storage space considering that I'm storing very little on this phone. ( see all my posts above) This is a process of elimination. I've taken every suggestion given to me here. With all due respect and appreciation for your input, Svim, you're the one who directed me to consider the Apps and how much space they might be taking up. So I did that. Have I missed something? I'm willing to address all suggestions. So far, nothing has solved the issue. But I'm willing to persevere. If you have any other constructive suggestions, (other than getting a new phone - this one is a year and a half old), please do share. .

 

[svim]

You initially gave no indication as to how many apps you've installed and after you did it was pretty obvious that you don't have that many so it's either a matter where one or more a significant space hogs (not likely given the amount of used storage) or there's something like a video (which can individually take up several GBs depending on resolution or length). So if you want to keep fixated on apps even after the details you eventually revealed, it just doesn't appear the source of problem.
Again, what does your Settings >> Storage menu indicate might be the problem?
Perhaps this DiskUsage app might help:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.diskusage&hl=en_US
It will show you a graphical mapping of what's stored in your internal storage memory.

 

[kerryp7]

Thank you. I downloaded the the Disk Usage app. It says: Storage Card 10.7 GiB, System data 10.2 GiB.
That's it.
There are no Videos stored on the phone, as I mentioned above.
The My Files app that came with the phone says: " Internal storage 15.61, SD Card 4.41.
What could be the next step?

 

[svim]

Well if you can't find just what files are taking up so much storage space, it might be time to either take it to a trusted service shop and have them look your phone over, or a more drastic measure and do a Factory Reset.
But with either option, be sure all your data is backed up first. Install Samsung's Smart Switch utility:
https://www.samsung.com/us/smart-switch/
It will allow you to do a full backup and make the restore process at least less of a hassle.