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Currently, my internal storage is running low on space.

What can I do besides moving applications to the external memory, as to free up more space, but preserve my current applications and avoid uninstalling?

(Some of them won't be moved)

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5 Answers 5

Reset to default
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The only way to do this is linking apps to SD card.

First : Rooting.

Disclaimer : I'm NOT responsible to any damage you do to your phone ,Although it is very rare for someone to damage his phone while rooting (or a myth), and Rooting might void your warranty , some warranty policies void if rooted and some other void when unlocking bootloader (i.e installing custom mod) ,I did both actually.

Second : Partitioning SD card.

Linking apps to SD card requires a second partition on SD card.

Third : Activating Link2SD or S2E.

You can use one of these apps to link apps to SD card(I prefer Link2SD) :

If you use link2sd you must choose the type of your ext partition at the first open of the app ,then restart ,if you restart and the app tells you the same message see BONUS section of my answer.

Fourth : Linking apps to SD card.

This is using Link2SD (I didn't experience with S2E) :

After activating Second Partition of your SD card you should now link apps to SD card.

NOTE : an app must be on internal memory before it can be linked , if you try to link an app while it's on SD card it will be moved to internal then linked ,so make sure there is enough space to move it.

when you long press on an app ,a context menu appears ,press Create Link to link the app.

Bonus : Manually mounting second partition :

first you must install this app to mount it:

then open the terminal emulator(and make sure you give it root access),and type the following (each line standalone):

su
mount -t ext2 /dev/block/mmcblk0p2 /data/sdext2

now open link2SD and Menu > More > Quick Restart it will restart your android system (not your phone),However you must do these steps every time you restart the phone (not via Link2SD)

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  • Cant the restart that is mentioned in bonus section be avoided or automated by any means?
    – Narayanan
    Commented Sep 15, 2012 at 14:52
  • unfortunately not,but when I installed usb host mode zip (cm7.2) ,it does it by itself(without even writing anything).
    – Mohamed Essam
    Commented Sep 15, 2012 at 17:46
  • Works :-) Something else i should do?
    – Olav
    Commented Sep 18, 2012 at 9:48
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    I don't quite understand why you would manually mount? And why a reboot is a problem? (It should be only once?)
    – Olav
    Commented Sep 18, 2012 at 9:49
  • One useful additional technique is to backup and uninstall apps with Titanium (Then they can quickly be re-installed)
    – Olav
    Commented Dec 28, 2012 at 20:42
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Removing the contents of /data/log/ worked very nicely for me. It was around 1.5 GB.

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  • is there some way to make it automatic? or may be use su command to link that folder to sdcard (is it safe)? or tweak the logs to have a quota or just do not generate logs?
    – Aquarius Power
    Commented Jul 9, 2013 at 19:36
  • for me it was /data/log_other_mode for some reason
    – Cpt. Senkfuss
    Commented Mar 4, 2015 at 7:17
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If you have an Acer A-series tablet (like this Iconia A500 description), it may be the Acer GPS-log leak:

The bottom line is that when the GPS is used, the GPS driver for ICS 4.0.3 on the Acer a-series tablets apparently writes numerous gl-YYYY-MM-DD-HHMMSS.txt files into the /data/gps directory. The files are apparently not automatically deleted, and so over time will consume most of the internal storage space.

There is a patch to clear the GPS log data, which you download from the Acer drivers site.

You can download it and copy the Update.zip from it to an empty, FAT32 formatted microSD card. My card wasn't empty, and it still worked. Restart the tablet while holding the “Volume Down” key until an message (something like Erasing cache before SD update...) appears in the upper left corner of the screen. (I interpret this as: "erase and update", so it should cure the symptom and the cause.) It will continue to start up afterwards, and you will be good to go. (No root access needed.)

There is a nice .pdf in the download, describing the above steps in detail with screenshots. (It talks about an accompanying user_cleanGPSlog text file, but I didn't have it and did not seem to need it.)

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Many people have that kind of problem and I have the same one. I finally figured out and it works great. I have a Galaxy Tab 7 but many android devices will experience that. There are 2 important folders. The one called /data is actually not really just data but it is where Android install the application apk and some of the data related to it. If you force the apk to install on SD card, it will still use some of the /data space (small amount) for some data. Be aware that there is a confusing "sdcard" name usage. Most Android devices have a "sdcard" that is an internal flash configured like an SD card but the real external SD card is often name external_sd or something along those line.

the problem I discovered is in /data/tombstone, you will find 10 files named tombstone_0#. These are debugging info collected by android. These files build up over time. You don't need that for a normal user. Delete all of them. These 4 files were using 1.4GB of my 1.89GB internal tablet storage.

To do so, you will need to root your device. Yes, you must. And it won't explode don't worry, I've done it and many others too! Then get a program like "Root Explorer" to browse and delete the junk. It will request and be granted root privilege if you rooted your device before and you will be able to do whatever you want.

To root your device, just google "root android my device model" and you should find quickly how to root your device.

This problem is a design flaw. When there is a low internal storage, Android should start a background task to clean up that junk. (haven't seen such idiot unfriendly behavior on IOS devices yet, except may be the new maps ;-) )

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  • shouldn't it be better to use a memory cleaner app?
    – Olav
    Commented Dec 28, 2012 at 20:42
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Type *#9900# on your dial pad, then go to "dump logcat", which will be the third or second line in the list. Select this and your SD card will then clear and fix the SD card full problem.

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