How do I get more space back?

[TheAlmightyloaf]

Hey so I just got a new Samsung Galaxy tab A 10.1 and after it had some updates and I got 1-2 apps (Uninstalled them all) and ported 2 micro SD cards in it (not at once) and moved around 600 mega bytes of data on my device (and ported 3 gbs of photos and video to lynx which shouldn't be a problem) the device says that 10 GBs is used (I got 16 GBs and have 4.8 left) but I never put more then 1 GBs on there at all, so what do I do to get more space back?

 

[Hadron]

You should look at the breakdown of usage.

For a start, that 16 GB includes your operating system and other system firmware, as well as all pre-installed apps. And all of that lives in separate partitions from your stuff, so what's available to you is 16 GB - total size of system partitions. So you probably have 10GB or so out of the box, not 16 (I can't give an exact figure because I don't have this device, and it depends on how much space Samsung allocated to the system partitions. Though an app called Storage Truth can tell you the total size of your /data partition, which is the size available to you).

There's nothing at all you can do about that.

Then it's a matter of how you are using the space you have. Any apps, any updates to system apps, and any data from all apps (your own or pre-installed) use your space. It's quite possible that your browsers or social networking apps have hundreds of MB of temporary files in their caches - you can clear those and reclaim some space, but it will fill up again when you use the apps. If there are system apps you don't use try disabling them: that will remove any updates and data stored by those apps. I find an app called DiskUsage handy for giving a detailed of what is actually using your space, because you can't know how much you can recover unless you know how the space is being used.

(One minor point to consider: your device says it has 16 GB of storage, but that's in decimal units. File sizes are calculated in binary, and "GB" doesn't mean the same in the two systems: a decimal G is 10^9, while a binary G is 2^30, which is 7% larger. So when something tells you how much space you have free or have used it's important to know what units are being used: in binary terms a "16GB" (decimal) device actually has a capacity of 14.9GB. Storage device manufacturers always use decimal because it makes the device look bigger (this is true of you usb key, your PC's hard drive, your friend's iPhone, whatever), but the thing that's telling you how much space you have free might be using binary. It doesn't matter as long as you are consistent, but can cause confusion when different apps use different units).

 

[lvt]

You should accept the reality and buy a SD card with largest capacity supported by your device