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.
Related
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.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I777 using XDA App
Exactly what I was looking for. Thanks gr8hairy1
No, thank you for giving me something to do while my wife shopped.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I777 using XDA App
Hello all, I'm trying to locate the folder where android stores all the installed apps from the market on my GF's Galaxy S2, but for the life of me cannot find it. It seems samsung has things set up vastly different than my Droid Incredible where apps are stored in the data/data folder. I understand that bigger apps install to the internal SD card somewhere, but I can't seem to find that either. I'm using ES File Explorer to do the searching (set the home directory to "/") and am having no luck.
Any pointers would be greatly helpful
Sent from my Droid Incredible using the XDA app.
Try Data/App.
If not try System/App.
jcracken said:
Try Data/App.
If not try System/App.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah, see the data folder shows up blank... Its an unrooted device, so I guess that's what makes it appear blank.
The real argument is how much app data space she has in her data/data partition. On the Dinc we only get 170MB unless we mod it. I thought this was what all android devices had access to. She says she has 2GB of internal app space, but I want to know the size of the data/data to know for sure..
Sent from my Droid Incredible using the XDA app.
Its 2gb of storage of course you can move certain apps to external card.
Settings > Applications > Manage Applications
That will show you the available space and what each app uses.
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
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium
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
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium
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
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium
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.
When I uninstall apps (normally via Titanium Backup, but also via Android System), the .apk gets deleted, but there is still a lot of Data / Files / Folders on the sdcard.
Is there anyway to automatically remove all these when uninstalling the Apps? Possibly through a third party uninstaller app?
Cheers
Stewart
You could try SD maid, it's really useful and it had helped me with that
Sent from my amazing Nexus 7 using xda developer's app
Alexmessy said:
You could try SD maid, it's really useful and it had helped me with that
Sent from my amazing Nexus 7 using xda developer's app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have (and use) SDMaid, but I still had to go and manually delete loads of files and folders earlier on today!
Should I be uninstalling apps using SDMaid somehow?
delete before hand
You might just have to suck it up and do so manually or delete data before uninstall.
Some folders just can't be automaticly matched to installed/uninstalled apps.
We will have to delete those by hand.
I have the same problem, when I uninstall HD games I always have to delete manually the folder.
I don't take it as a big problem, but sometimes you don't know where is the folder.
Should I, or do any of you, format, wipe or just completely change out your sd card? Mine has all kinds of stuff on it from all of the roms I've tried but I'm afraid to delete anything off of it in case a program I'm running needs it.
P.S. It's not always apparent what folder is there for a given app.. For instance what is the Cauly folder for?
Thanks
I clean it up occasionally. As for what to delete, I delete things if I think I can our don't use a program anymore. But I keep a backup on my pc just in case.
I always clean out my pictures. I have them synced to dropbox so I always have them saved. I usually keep a sense ROM just in case I need it but now that AOSP has a working camera I don't really use it.
Sent from my PG86100 using xda app-developers app
Cleaning out the card is fairly easy, as most apps will create a folder with the app name on the card. Not using that app anymore? Delete the folder.
As far as formatting, sd cards do not need to be formatted like hard drives. Flash memory doesnt get fragmented.