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Help 30gb system/user data storage?

KorrinF

Lurker
Oct 17, 2018
3
1
Hey everyone, this is really bugging me and I cant figure it out. Hope someone has some answers.

My phone storage is only about 32gb capacity but for some reason 30gb is taken up by system/user data.

As you can see by my screenshots, if they have uploaded correctly, is that about 10gb is accounted for in user data. So thats 20gb of mysterious files taking up all the space on my phone.

I tried to get more information by downloading an app called 'storage truth', and have uploaded a screen shot of the results from that as well. It mentions Knox on some of the storage paths which is weird, I don’t even have that installed.

Anyways I really don’t want to factory reset my phone so I hope someone has some answers but I cant find anything in the standard file searching apps and my phone is not rooted.

There is one possibility I was thinking of, I often connect my computer to my phone and transfer files via usb. I have a mac and I have noticed that when deleting files off a usb stick from my mac, the files disappear but the storage space is never restored, eventually I have to just format the usb stick. So I am thinking maybe something similar has happened with my phone when I have deleted files off my phone using my mac, what do you think?

Screenshot_20181018-012653.png


Screenshot_20181018-012710.png
 
Hey everyone, this is really bugging me and I cant figure it out. Hope someone has some answers.

My phone storage is only about 32gb capacity but for some reason 30gb is taken up by system/user data.

As you can see by my screenshots, if they have uploaded correctly, is that about 10gb is accounted for in user data. So thats 20gb of mysterious files taking up all the space on my phone.

I tried to get more information by downloading an app called 'storage truth', and have uploaded a screen shot of the results from that as well. It mentions Knox on some of the storage paths which is weird, I don’t even have that installed.

Anyways I really don’t want to factory reset my phone so I hope someone has some answers but I cant find anything in the standard file searching apps and my phone is not rooted.

There is one possibility I was thinking of, I often connect my computer to my phone and transfer files via usb. I have a mac and I have noticed that when deleting files off a usb stick from my mac, the files disappear but the storage space is never restored, eventually I have to just format the usb stick. So I am thinking maybe something similar has happened with my phone when I have deleted files off my phone using my mac, what do you think?

View attachment 136718

View attachment 136719

Knox is part of Android Os on all Samsung phones. So from the look of it most of your space is taken by the System. You can try to clear all of your caches to get some space back.
 
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Actually it doesn't look like system usage to me. Storage Truth tells us that you've 25.5 GB total for /data, and that is mostly full. /data is user space: your apps, updates to system apps, app data (all apps), app caches, media, and anything else you have stored on the device that doesn't fit those categories. Basically everything except the rom, firmware, kernel, recovery and system cache.

Android uses virtual volumes which occupy the same space, which is why you see other knox volumes with the same size as /data. So you can ignore those: as far as we're concerned those are just different names for the same space.

What none of the screenshots tell us is what is using your internal storage (/data). That's not what storage truth does, and that System screenshot just tells us that most of it doesn't fall into those few categories we can see (and we don't know how exactly those are defined). You might have 10 browsers all caching a GB of data, or large binary blobs from games that the system menu doesn't know how to count, or many other possibilities, and the screenshots won't distinguish. Literally all we know is that it doesn't fit in a few limited categories.

There's another little app called DiskUsage which gives a hierarchical graphical view of storage use. That might help identify what is using your space.
 
Upvote 0
Actually it doesn't look like system usage to me. Storage Truth tells us that you've 25.5 GB total for /data, and that is mostly full. /data is user space: your apps, updates to system apps, app data (all apps), app caches, media, and anything else you have stored on the device that doesn't fit those categories. Basically everything except the rom, firmware, kernel, recovery and system cache.

Android uses virtual volumes which occupy the same space, which is why you see other knox volumes with the same size as /data. So you can ignore those: as far as we're concerned those are just different names for the same space.

What none of the screenshots tell us is what is using your internal storage (/data). That's not what storage truth does, and that System screenshot just tells us that most of it doesn't fall into those few categories we can see (and we don't know how exactly those are defined). You might have 10 browsers all caching a GB of data, or large binary blobs from games that the system menu doesn't know how to count, or many other possibilities, and the screenshots won't distinguish. Literally all we know is that it doesn't fit in a few limited categories.

There's another little app called DiskUsage which gives a hierarchical graphical view of storage use. That might help identify what is using your space.

Excellent thanks for your help I will download that and see what it says. I am looking for anything that will give me more information! Ill let you know what I find.
 
Upvote 0
@Hadron Ok I have downloaded and checkout DiskUsage and I cant thank you enough! Its pretty fantastic and I wish I had know about this months ago, finally an app that can show me exactly whats happening with my phone storage and not only that but take me directly to the folders in question. All without rooting my phone fantastic! Ive tried so many I gave up but this is great and I can see where the issues are specifically now and am in the process of sorting it out. Thanks again!
 
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