Help How do I get more space on my phone?

Why do you say there is nothing on your internal space? Clearly there is if there is only 400MB free.

Just to check, you do know that /sdcard is not the actual SD card, but the internal storage emulating an SD card? The actual SD card will have some other name, like /storage/extSdCard (what it's called on my tablet). It's damned confusing, but that stupid naming is the price we all pay for historical efforts by Google not to break old and badly-coded apps, I'm afraid. Apologies for wasting your time if you knew that already.

Sometimes even just one single item can run out your storage..and you won't be able to find it until you thoroughly look with a file manager..most of the times it hides in the most obscure place..

Good luck finding it.

With 16GB of internal storage and only about 400MB of free space there's clearly some things that have been overlooked. When you were looking in your Settings >> Storage >> Internal Storage, what else was listed there?

Try installing this 'DiskUsage' app from the Play Store. It'll give you a graphical representation of your phone's internal storage and hopefully will shed some light on what's what and where:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.diskusage&hl=en
I don't know of Huawei includes any kind of file manager app on their phones but to clean things out you'll need one. Take a look at 'File Expert', it has a really good feature set:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=xcxin.filexpert&hl=en

Well the phone telling you there is no storage is something different, and easier to explain than your only having 400 MB left when "there's nothing on it".

Android uses a lot of caches of temporary files, so needs to keep a certain amount of free storage so that the apps and OS can run. So to ensure this, the OS will refuse to install apps (and maybe a few other things will stop working) when the free storage drops below a pre-set threshold, and will also start warning you about the lack of space. What that threshold is depends on the model and software version, but 500MB has been a common value for many years (even higher in some cases). And only internal storage counts towards this - SD space is irrelevant here. So if you have 400MB internal free I'm not surprised that you are getting warnings about lack of storage. The puzzle is why your storage is that low if you think you have nothing on it?

One thought that occurs to me: when you say there is "nothing" on the internal storage, are you assuming that moving apps to SD means they don't use internal space? There are 2 ways of storing apps on SD (not supported by all phones). One is to format the SD card as "internal storage", aka "adopting" the card. The other is the old (Froyo/Gingerbread-style) "move to SD" option. And they are very different in what they allow you to move.

The older version actually only installs part of the app there (the apk itself and any shared object library, sometimes some auxillary data), with other components of the installed app remaining in internal storage (e.g. the dex files - Dalvik/ART cache). And not all apps will install to SD anyway (it needs developer support, and fewer support it than used to), plus updates to system apps use internal space (the originals are part of the ROM, so don't count towards /data usage), and apps' internal data remain in internal storage regardless of whether you move the app or not. So actually if you have a lot of apps it's quite possible to fill up the internal storage even with the apps "on SD". So if this is what you have done it might all make sense.

The newer version (formatting as internal) should let you move everything, but has drawbacks: SD cards are slower than internal storage and much less reliable, so there may be an effect on performance. And if you format the card as internal you can no longer pop it out and put it in another device, as it will be encrypted as well as having an ext filesystem (which not all computers can handle).

annebaars said:

it says
firmware > 6.55GB
cached data > 722MB
apps > 8.92GB (i cant seem to move any of these to my sd card?
images > 20MB
audio > 0 B
videos > 0 B
Other > 22.80MB
.....

Click to expand...

OK so this does shed some light on the matter. The firmware, your phone's Android operating system, is for the most part a complete non-issue as far as your free storage space problem. It has to be there, without an operating system your phone can't do anything at all. Plus, unless you root your phone you don't have access to it anyway.

As far as the cached data amount, 700+MB is a bit high but that's more of a subjective observation than anything. I typically don't recommend this as a regular maintenance task but in this particular instance if might apply. Go into your Settings >> Storage >> Internal storage and tap on 'Cached data' to wipe those app caches. Note this will be something of a temporary solution as your apps need their app caches to function so by deleting them, each time you initially use an app it has to rebuild its cache. But there could be a problem where there's a corrupted cache buried in one of those app caches that gets wiped when you manually wipe the app caches so the total might not creep back up into that 700MB range. Also note that some apps might take some time to rebuild their cache. Just as an example, Google Photos stores the thumbnails it uses when you open the app in its cache so when its cache gets wiped the app has to rebuild it. (... and just to reaffirm, your photos are untouched, the cache only affects those thumbnail images.)

With almost 9GB of apps, that's a focal point to address. Either you like to have a lot of apps or you like to dabble in installing/removing a lot of apps. One tip is whenever you're uninstalling an app, tap on the 'Force Stop' button, then tap on 'Storage' and tap on the 'Clear Data' button, and then go back and tap that 'Uninstall' button. If you just use 'Uninstall' by itself that does not necessarily mean everything related to the app gets removed.
But getting back to that 9GB, if you do have a large number of apps installed and if you want to keep them all, read through what @Hadron wrote out in detail. If you've been installing/removing a lot of apps you might be able to clean up some leftover data from previously uninstalled apps using a file manager app but that's going to be a bit of a project as it's easier to wipe old app data during the initial uninstall than doing so manually later. Whichever the situation though, 9GB is a lot of app data, if you go into your Play Store app, tap on the hamburger menu (three horizontal lines in the upper left), tap on 'My apps & games', and then tap on the 'Installed' column, how may apps do you have currently on your phone?

well I format my cell phone ... do not update anything ... but every time I see that it fills more and more, now it is 60%, when before with all the updates it was 30%
Besides, is it normal for the firmware to weigh more?
then there is no way to delete the firmware file (I thought it was like a file (.rar) and that it can be deleted and free space)

I am having the same problem here.
Already have Android 8.
I do have too many apps but the main problem is Google related apps consume to much space (Play Store 611 MB, Google 312 MB, Google Maps 289 MB, Chrome 225 MB, etc.) and thumbnail cache of photos, since the cache is in the internal memory and photos are in the SD card (162 + 238 MB). Tried to avoid this with .nomedia file, but of course with units I cannot see photos on Gallery.
Magazine unlock picture also take a lot of space.
Also WhatsApp is stored in internal memory (112MB).
So you have to manage all that.
See attached pictures.
Apps used:
Disk usage
ADirStat
Total Commander

If anyone knows how to reduce space of Google, please say so.
Thanks

Miguel S said:

I am having the same problem here.
Already have Android 8.
I do have too many apps but the main problem is Google related apps consume to much space (Play Store 611 MB, Google 312 MB, Google Maps 289 MB, Chrome 225 MB, etc.) and thumbnail cache of photos, since the cache is in the internal memory and photos are in the SD card (162 + 238 MB). Tried to avoid this with .nomedia file, but of course with units I cannot see photos on Gallery.
Magazine unlock picture also take a lot of space.
Also WhatsApp is stored in internal memory (112MB).
So you have to manage all that.
See attached pictures.
Apps used:
Disk usage
ADirStat
Total Commander

If anyone knows how to reduce space of Google, please say so.
Thanks

Click to expand...

Well I can say there is something wrong with Google and Play Store at least. They aren't supposed to reach that size. Clear their data.

That's not the Play Store that's 611 MB, but Google Play Services. That is a big app that stores a lot of data, but I don't recommend just clearing it as that can cause problems with things like GMail notifications for a while if you do. Clearing its cache should be fine though.

Hi,

I have very similar problem with my phone. My internal storage is 16 GB. Recently I was getting notifications that I have insufficient space on my phone ( I think it started when system update was trying to install itself). Whatever I will do and free some space "something" is eating it... Recently I started uninstalling all the apps I don't use and even the one I was using very rarely too but the space is "magically" disappearing. And that's not cache because I'm cleaning them. I was putting deep cleaning on a side till today and even that I keep all my photos and videos on my SD I found some leftovers in the internal storage, moved everything, went couple of times through everything on the phone and at the end it was showing me that I have first 2,5GB ( starting from 600MB of free space and I moved max 500MB) then it quickly changed to 1.9GB and after below 1 GB... When I'm whiting this post I have less that 500MB of free space and I did not install anything and cache are clean at the same time Memory&Storage is not showing me the right numbers
Firmware - 6.55GB
Apps - 4.90GB
Rest is adding up to round 120MB



How it can be that right now I apparently do not have space at all having just few apps on my phone but half a year ago I had at least 2GB of apps more and everything was ok...?

I'd appreciate answer if anyone knows what can cause that

Kariiska said:

...
I'd appreciate answer if anyone knows what can cause that

Click to expand...

Your phone's internal storage is divided into different partitions -- there are several system partitions plus one user data partition. Your phone's Storage menu is showing you numbers based on everything, but as far as you're concerned, it's only that data partition that matters. Free space in any of those system partitions is not readily available to you, it's only free storage space in that data partition that matters.
A common misconception when looking at the internal storage of an Android device is it's the same as looking at the hard drive in a Mac or Windows computer where you can view the drive in it's entirety. But that's just not the case with Android, from your perspective free space only pertains to what's available in that data partition.

Has anyone actually come up with an answer on why the Huawei p8 lite has a 16gb memory and only 11gb is used and the phone says it is full , because the wipe cache partition didnt work ?
Thanks

i have the same issue,factory reset solves this for a few months, but its doing it again now. 5 additional apps installed, i use 3 regularily. seems my storage manager cant count to 16gb!

free space 0.48
firmware 6.55
cached data 0.01
apps 7.61 (in apps menu it actually adds up to 5.42Gb? )
other 0.03

actual total 14.68 Gb ... wheres the missing 1.32gb gone?!

hope someone can come up with a soloution for this!

I also have the same problem.

I have installed 'Disk Space' and according to the graphical analysis the 'System Data' is the main culprit here taking a total of 8.79gb!! Meaning there's about 8gb left.

The firmware takes about 5gb, meaning there should be at least 2-3gb of storage to use.

Suddenly the 3gb that was left over to use just disappeared. Week after week my storage is getting lower, I tried moving files to my SD card, deleting apps, photos and music. My storage comes up to 0.9gb - 1gb and then the next day it's back at 400mb

I tried resetting my phone and I had the 3-4gb free storage I had earlier. It lasted a few weeks and then I found myself in the same situation. I only have 4 additional apps, I barely have images, I clean cache literally everyday. Yet my storage is still low

At some point if you're putting so much time and effort fighting with your phone to free up more storage space, for your own peace of mind it's time to buy a new replacement phone with more storage to begin with. This is not meant to be dismissive at all, but instead of getting frustrated every time you pick up your phone and something happens where you need to open up a few MBs of storage space here and there, invest in yourself and make your quality of life better by getting a phone that just works as is.