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What is going on here? (please see attached screen shot).

This is a Galaxy S5 Mini. Totally stock rom, never rooted. I have recently restored it to factory settings in an effort to overcome a fast draining battery.

Apps are complaining about lack of space, but based on this I believe that to be false (also, I have put almost nothing on the phone).

Anyone have any ideas on the best way to fix this?

storage screenshot
Storage (click to enlarge)

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  • Install App Cache Cleaner and check what apps use the cache. It'll make analysing easier.
    – SarpSTA
    Commented Nov 19, 2015 at 8:25
  • @SarpSTA should be sufficient to boot into recovery mode and "wipe cache", no additional app needed for that. It's even possible to Clear Caches from ADB. But right, if you want to analyze before, that's a different thing. Though it will be hard to install an additional app with the storage already full ;)
    – Izzy
    Commented Nov 19, 2015 at 9:02
  • @Izzy I didn't suggest him to do that so he can wipe cache, I suggested it to figure out the app that generates that amount of cached data.
    – SarpSTA
    Commented Nov 19, 2015 at 9:09
  • 2
    @SarpSTA I just tried to figure how that can be done without an app (as obviously, OP hardly can install additional apps). And I found a solution. If the device is rooted, analysis can be done via ADB: adb shell su -c "for dir in /data/data/*/*cache; do du -sk $dir; done" would list the apps having cache with the cache size (in kB) and their package names.
    – Izzy
    Commented Nov 19, 2015 at 9:11
  • @Izzy seems useful! OP should give a go to it.
    – SarpSTA
    Commented Nov 19, 2015 at 9:14

1 Answer 1

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I fully agree the storage screen shows "incoherent data" (more cache used than there's storage available), so it must have miscalculated.

As your device is already complaining about "low storage", I assume installing additional apps is not an option. If your device were rooted (which it is not), you could figure which app(s) is/are responsible for "high cache consumption", utilizing ADB:

adb shell su -c "for dir in /data/data/*/*cache; do du -sk $dir; done"

This shows the directory (including the app's package name) and the size of cache used in kB. Snipped of example output (from one of my devices):

2224    /data/data/com.feedr/app_cache
32      /data/data/com.feedr/cache
32      /data/data/com.fsck.k9/app_sslcache
32      /data/data/com.fsck.k9/cache

Without root, there might be ways achieving similar results via tools like "package manager" (pm) – but I couldn't figure that yet. If the culprit was found with the above command, you can selectively free its cache running rm -rf against the specified cache directory (again as root), or just clear the cache altogether (see Clear Caches from ADB). Clearing the cache completely doesn't require root and is possible via most (stock and custom) recoveries, and also (stock, custom, root or not) via the fastboot erase cache command.

If the above is not possible for you, and you're still able to install apps (maybe after deleting another installed app), you could go the way SarpSTA recommended and install a cache manager to check. If that's not possible either, the "long way" would be going to Settings › Apps and walking the "All" tab – opening each app's page and see how much "cache" is printed for it, manually hitting the "clear cache" button for "heavy eaters".

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