I've noticed through the course of installing/uninstalling apps over time I have a lot of junk folders sitting around in my /mnt/sdcard/ directory.
Is it safe to delete folders specific to apps in that directory?
Example: I have a /mnt/sdcard/WebMD folder sitting out there even though I uninstalled it a week ago.
Another question is what folders should I not tamper with? (data, external_sd, LOST.DIR, tmp, etc)
Thanks all
Any folder named after an app you've uninstalled you can delete. As they will only contain either setting information about the app or things that have been downloaded by that app.
Every folder under mnt/sdcard can be deleted and the phone will still function fine. No system files are stored there.
Your pictures you've taken, documents, downloads, backups (titanium backup) would all be deleted. For the most part those will be in folders named obviously (titaniumbackup, dcim).
Majority of folders that are labeled with a period in front of them, for example ".example" would contain information specific to the app "example".
If in doubt rename the folder to anything else. If a program suddenly stops working right, rename it back. No issues, feel free to delete.
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Exactly what I was looking for. Thanks gr8hairy1
No, thank you for giving me something to do while my wife shopped.
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Related
I was looking through the file explorer we have with our phones and saw folders for old, old apps that i no longer have installed on my phone.
there's nothing but .bin files and .txt files and cache files in there it seems.
is it fine if i go ahead and delete those folders? just clicking, holding, and deleting.
or is there a better way to go about doing so?
thanks much.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
Yes, you can delete them unless you plan on using those apps again.
SD Maid is the only app I know, that really helps you with cleaning. But it´s a paid one.
Ok, Seeing as how the first 10 pages and search yielded no results, I think I might be one of those special kids mentioned in the terms and agreements video.
I need to know where Astro installs the apks, because obviously it's not under system/app nor data/app. I've browsed both twice while revealing hidden files but they have not yielded any results. I can find every app on the phone but the ones that I've installed through Astro... So if anyone can shed some light as to where I might find them, that would be great.
try here
dont know if its similar but i have same problem with ics not being able to find apps that were unremovable (they just kept reinstalling) but noticed some apps were also in /preload (dont know if this helps your case or not)
Maybe /mnt/sdcard?
Check peferences in astro for home directory?
Other apps also in /data/app
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mnzt42yd said:
dont know if its similar but i have same problem with ics not being able to find apps that were unremovable (they just kept reinstalling) but noticed some apps were also in /preload (dont know if this helps your case or not)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the reply but it's not an unremovable app, just a few apks that I nicked off the internet. They show up under settings > applications and can be removed, but I just can not for the life of me find them on the system folders
woebetide said:
Maybe /mnt/sdcard?
Check peferences in astro for home directory?
Other apps also in /data/app
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Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I've checked those, and all the home directories and usb directories and sd external directories, pretty much all of the directories listed in the preference for Astro with no success. Also, somehow, my /data/app folder only has the stock apps, nothing new that I've installed so far. Appreciate the reply though
Use your root file explorer to search your device, it will show up eventually.....
Edit: so no confusion, I mean the search function within the app
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krymore said:
Thanks for the reply but it's not an unremovable app, just a few apks that I nicked off the internet. They show up under settings > applications and can be removed, but I just can not for the life of me find them on the system folders
Yeah, I've checked those, and all the home directories and usb directories and sd external directories, pretty much all of the directories listed in the preference for Astro with no success. Also, somehow, my /data/app folder only has the stock apps, nothing new that I've installed so far. Appreciate the reply though
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you have your phone set to install apps to external memory, there should be a folder called "android.secure". This is where the phone puts apps that are installed to the SD. (by default) Now I am assuming you have not formatted you SD to include a EXT 2/4 partition, or else you would know to look there. I would investigate to see if you can find an android.secure folder.
Hello
I currently have a HTC EVO 3D, and on that phone I am able to create a folder named ".story" in my file manager app, and all the pictures i put in there will not be shown in the gallery app. Works very nicely and exactly how i want it to.
Now onto my issue.
I tried to do the same on my Prime, creating the folder, putting the exact same images in that folder (all from dropbox, syncing it to my comp, phone and tablet).
But the images still show up in the gallery app.
I also tried to put a file named ".nomedia" in the folder where i keep all my pictures, still didn't work.
I tried rebooting several times to see if i had to force a media rescan, but it seems like it didn't work.
I'm running .21 update, stock, with root.
Am i missing something, or doesn't this work on the prime? If so, any other way to do so? (I don't want to use a "vault" app to hide pictures and such)
- Moon
I had the same problem a few weeks ago. Try the app Hide it Pro. It's free on the Play Store and does pretty much what your asking for. It also works with videos, Docs and apps.
Sorry can't post links yet!
Edit: oops sorry, I didn't read the full post
it is annoying
You are not alone, naming the folder with a initial . and creating a .nomedia file does not work for me either, and I find it annoying. Clearing Gallery cache did not help either.
Works just fine, ".foldername" with a .nomedia file in it. Does for me at least, hides it from gallery and from the built in file manager. ES file explorer picks it up but it's at that point you're not hiding anything
EDIT: Try making a file on your computer, right click and New>File, name it .nomedia, then DropBox (that's a sign up link, you'd help me out as well as yourself by using it) it. Download it and copy/pasta to the folder. That's how I did it, because a guide I read said it worked better if from the PC instead of through Android.
If you're trying to hide a whole trove of things, make a folder and name it ".foldername" and then put your hidden folder in there and name it ".foldername2", then drop a .nomedia into .foldername and .foldername2 as well, doubling up on that.
I wouldn't recommend that with app picture caches though
If you are up for using a different Gallery app, you can whitelist and blacklist folders to be displayed in QuickPic
garbagedump481 said:
Works just fine, ".foldername" with a .nomedia file in it. Does for me at least, hides it from gallery and from the built in file manager. ES file explorer picks it up but it's at that point you're not hiding anything
EDIT: Try making a file on your computer, right click and New>File, name it .nomedia, then DropBox (that's a sign up link, you'd help me out as well as yourself by using it) it. Download it and copy/pasta to the folder. That's how I did it, because a guide I read said it worked better if from the PC instead of through Android.
If you're trying to hide a whole trove of things, make a folder and name it ".foldername" and then put your hidden folder in there and name it ".foldername2", then drop a .nomedia into .foldername and .foldername2 as well, doubling up on that.
I wouldn't recommend that with app picture caches though
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did as you suggested, and it friggin worked! AWESOME!, mucho love to you
Now my files on my tablet is in a folder named ".story", inside that is a folder named "story" with a ".nomedia" file in it, and inside the "story" folder are all my pictures. (I made the ".nomedia" file on Windows, dropboxed it over to my Android Tablet (I made a new .txt document, removed the .txt and just named it ".nomedia" if anyone is wondering)).
After you try it, be sure to reboot your tablet, as that forces a media rescan
I would like to go through and completely clean out my phones storage. By that I mean deleting all the old files that uninstalled apps created, empty folders, and other things that most ROMs don't bother to remove. I realize that it isn't really necessary, and why ROM makers don't really do it. I just feel compelled to do it.
For example;
At root there is the DATA folder but also a DATA_1, DATA_2, and DATA_3 folder that are just empty. Are these folders necessary? If I were to delete them and some system process needed them would they just be recreated? There are a ton of other empty folders throughout the file system that I would love to just delete.
Speaking of the DATA folder, it contains a DATA folder... It's great that all these ROMs remove the bloatware but within this secondary DATA folder sits old files related to these removed apps. Can't these be safely deleted?
The default wallpaper is easy enough to find and delete, but where are the other wallpapers that come preloaded? Seems to me like there may be a ton of little files out there that could be deleted to add up to a decent amount of space.
I supposed what I am really asking is what the best resources out there are for determining what's really necessary and what's deletable. Googling random file names only gets you so far. Heh. Maybe I should just flash a ROM and forget it, but I am just too OCD!
Delete what you will. Anything needed will be recreated. Some apps might store stuff there, but all core system data is stored on the data partition.
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/data/data is a valid partition. Also, you aren't gaining anything by deleting the stock wallpapers, etc except space that you cannot use- they lie on a reserved partition that is a set size.
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Hello,
I was browsing stuff in internal memory and I noticed a lot of folders. Excluding folders I created and apps created, wchich ones I MUST PRESERVE and cannot delete to get system running? Well, I asked because I like to keep it tidy and I guess less stuff in memory means faster phone. I use few apps that have "cleaning" options like RootAppDelete (it has Clean Junk option) and GoPowerMaster (system trash clean option). Does these clean all what is unnecessary or should I manually clean something from time to time?
Those folders could have been created by applications. If you deleted them, the folders stay there if the folders are empty and aren't system ones with a dot in front of them, you can delete them. In my opinion, the best way to clean the folders is manually
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