4

I'm working on Samsung Galaxy On7, Android 6.0.1-Marshmallow.

My internal memory is 8 GB, due to which I have disabled several inbuilt apps which I do not need at all.

The problem is that, these disabled apps are still taking up space, even though they are disabled and replaced by their factory versions.

Is there any way I can completely free up the space the Google apps are using up (like Facebook and its Manager, which are taking up almost no space):

(Click the image to enlarge it)

enter image description here enter image description here

Please note that I do not want to root my phone. I had previously rooted my other phone with kingo root, but could never unroot it.

Improve this question
4
  • Possible duplicate of How can I uninstall applications that are locked by phone vendor?
    – iBug
    Jul 23, 2017 at 15:31
  • 6
    Don't be too stubborn. You can never remove a system app without root. Also it doesn't occupy the space for your personal data so you don't have to free them up.
    – iBug
    Jul 23, 2017 at 15:33
  • "I had previously rooted my other phone with kingo root, but could never unroot it." But why would you want to unroot it anyway? As a power user I make a lot of use of root, and would never buy a phone that can't be rooted. The first time I ever got a smartphone, I rooted it within a week and never wanted anything else. It's like having a restricted user account in Windows corporate environments. Hell no, this is my device.
    – Luc
    Jul 24, 2017 at 6:54
  • I had read that rooting makes the phone more vulnerable to security threats, and that's why I tried to unroot it.
    – Wrichik Basu
    Jul 24, 2017 at 10:49

4 Answers 4

Reset to default
13

Unfortunately, that is just not possible. The apk of system apps resides within system partition. The privileges (access rights) required to make changes in system partition are not given to ordinary users. We can only gain such higher privilege through rooting.

That said, if you are dealing with space issues than you are looking at wrong front. System partition has nothing to do with those space issues since only a system wide update/upgrade makes changes in it. They are caused by data partition. It is possible that you may have updated some system apps, so now, they would be having an apk in system partition and another apk (the latest update) in the data partition (now that is one precious space). You can delete the ones in data partition by disabling that system app. When you attempt to do that you would get something like this:

enter image description here

OK, and the apk from the data partition would get deleted.

Improve this answer
5
  • Can't you use ADB to mess with that partition without rooting?
    – Mindwin Remember Monica
    Jul 23, 2017 at 19:35
  • I don't think so. AFAIK, the system partition is mounted as readonly. To mess with that partition would require adb remount which requires the root access.
    – andreroggeri
    Jul 24, 2017 at 0:14
  • I had one very cheap no-brand device where adb shell would give you a root shell, no actual rooting required. But I doubt it will do that on a Samsung device.
    – user253751
    Jul 24, 2017 at 1:41
  • @immibis That's only possible on eng builds - the maker of your cheap device must have been very careless to leave such a build on a production device.
    – Andy Yan
    Jul 24, 2017 at 2:15
  • 2
    @AndyYan Well it was extremely cheap for a reason! It also would overheat and crash if running anything CPU-intensive, and I burned out the included charger by trying to charge it while running something CPU-intensive.
    – user253751
    Jul 24, 2017 at 2:31
0

You could argue that this is like single-boot rooting, but you could boot into a recovery image that will allow you write access to the system partition. You'll need to have an unlocked bootloader (look up a guide for your system—note that this is different from rooting and carrier unlocking), and doing this will take some familiarity with adb and fastboot. If your concern is just space, I would stick with Firelord's advice, as doing this would be a lot of effort for very little space saving.

Improve this answer
1
  • Good point. With a recovery basically OP could just have the phone rooted easily, though, and that's what he didn't do, plainly out of the fear of failure to root.
    – Andy Yan
    Jul 24, 2017 at 2:16
0

Some apps like Ghost Commander off the Play Store can allow you to get Root Access within the Root Folder without having to Root your phone, but I don't exactly know if it could delete such files within the root folder, but it might be able to.

Improve this answer
1
  • You should be sure that your method works; at least you should have tested it somewhere. "but I don't exactly" - shows that you have done no testing. This would be better as a comment, not an answer.
    – Wrichik Basu
    Nov 19, 2019 at 16:14
-1

try sd maid, it will find large files, eg it found thumbnails from 'gallery ' . I also changed to camera360 app that dont leave thumbnails so large in size.

use osmonitor app, it will find the apps that at are using up ram , and you can remove them.

Finally use a firewall, i use 'no root firewall' and it disables access to the internet by app, you whitelist the apps you need to access internet. eg Gallery was pinging the net, and why? photos are local

Improve this answer
1
  • Hello. Can you please explain how SD Maid can find system apps' apk and delete them? The asker is looking to solve that. As for the last two paragraphs, though helpful in general, they are rather irrelevant with respect to the scope of the question.
    – Firelord ♦
    Jan 29, 2019 at 9:42

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .