I do not use cell phones conventionally; I don't carry a phone, I don't normally even turn a phone on. I just now subscribed to this group to
ask a question, but I haven't read any recent msg threads here.
I have an old cellphone w/ Android 6 and no cell plan which I use for various purposes via wifi, camera, & music. I have a newer tablet phone which does have a plan which I use occasionally via wifi.
I am fairly ignorant of navigating my old cellphone's features, which is
why I'm here now.
Whenever I start the phone, I'm informed about how low the 8G internal storage is. I only recently changed the settings to use the 32G SD card
by default instead of internal.
My problem is that I can't find a way to 'get rid of' any data in
internal storage that is causing my low storage condition.
The online advice I've found hasn't been helpful to me.
I tested Adoptable Storage a long time ago, but gave up on it.
Mike Easter <MikeE@ster.invalid> wrote:
I do not use cell phones conventionally; I don't carry a phone, I don't
normally even turn a phone on. I just now subscribed to this group to
ask a question, but I haven't read any recent msg threads here.
I have an old cellphone w/ Android 6 and no cell plan which I use for
various purposes via wifi, camera, & music. I have a newer tablet phone
which does have a plan which I use occasionally via wifi.
I am fairly ignorant of navigating my old cellphone's features, which is
why I'm here now.
Whenever I start the phone, I'm informed about how low the 8G internal
storage is. I only recently changed the settings to use the 32G SD card
by default instead of internal.
My problem is that I can't find a way to 'get rid of' any data in
internal storage that is causing my low storage condition.
The online advice I've found hasn't been helpful to me.
My guess is you are asking about the Adoptive Storage feature. Once you >adopt the SD card to augment your phone's internal storage, everything
on the SD card is erased, and it gets encrypted to lock that SD card to
that phone. If you ever want to use the SD card elsewhere, you will
have to un-adopt the SD card which formats it. Adoption is destructive
when you want to enable it, and when you want to release it.
https://source.android.com/docs/core/storage/adoptable >https://www.androidcentral.com/adoptable-storage--- Synchronet 3.22a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
Adoption still has app first using internal storage, especially if you
have not enabled Adoptable Storage in the app settings, and then uses
adopted memory. To clear out your internal storage means uninstalling
apps, moving data files elsewhere, or checking if Adoptable Storage is a >feature you can use *and* some apps will also use. Move the data files
to removable storage (i.e., user data, not app data), if possible. Then
go check each app to see if it was coded to support Adoptable Storage.
Some apps have an option to use adopted memory, but you have to enable
it. Under settings -> Apps -> choose an app, and check if there is an
option to enable Adoptable Storage in that app. However, even before
that, some apps let you chose where to store data files, like offline
maps, but then you won't have a choice if you used the SD card as
Adoptable Storage. Not all apps can be [partially] relocated to adopted >memory. Often the core program remains in internal storage, and its >ancilliary files and data files can move to adopted memory. Not all
apps have the option to use adopted memory. Some of the core app must
be in internal storage, but how much can be split out to Adoptable
Storage are decisions made by the app author. The app author decides
whether or not adoptive memory is supporte, how it gets used, how to
split up the core app, or may decide not use adopted memory at all since
it requires more code and support by them.
After adopting the SD card to augment internal storage, you'll have to
visit each app to see if it supports Adoptable Storage. If not, the app >stays in internal storage; however, sometimes you can choose to save
data files elsewhere (but elsewhere won't exist if you converted the SD
card to Adoptable Storage). If no apps support Adoptable Storage, you
can't move anything from internal storage (but may have a choice to
store data files elswhere), and you have the same "out of space" issue
as before.
If any part of the core app, or its ancilliary files, can be moved to
adopted memory, make sure you get a really really fast SD card, and be
sure to check the write specs, too. And realize all those writes are >destructive to flash drives, so the SD card will get slower over time
with lots of use. The core app files probably only change with new
versions of the apps, but without the SD card to elect to move the app's
data files to there they could be in Adoptable Storage which stresses
more that flash drive.
I tested Adoptable Storage a long time ago, but gave up on it. Split
apps got slower, in general. Instead there were enough apps where I
could tell them to store their data files on the SD card, like map apps
that can store their offline maps on the SD card. I also reviewed the >installed apps to see which I installed for curiosity, or one-time or >rare-time use, and uninstalled them. Stop, clear cache, clear data,
then uninstall. Per some other users, the APK is left behind after >uninstall, so blindly installing apps to test them leaves crap behind >occuping internal storage after uninstalling them. That's why I don't >install apps just to see what they do, and if they fit my needs, because
I end up with some remnant lost storage after an uninstall. I'm sure
there are ways to clean up the orphaned APK repositories, but easier not
to shit on the phone in the first place rather than have to clean it
later.
My guess is you are asking about the Adoptive Storage feature. Once you >>adopt the SD card to augment your phone's internal storage, everything
Are SD cards always adopted like this, or acn they be used without
encryption and locking?
Whenever I start the phone, I'm informed about how low the 8G internal storage is. I only recently changed the settings to use the 32G SD card
by default instead of internal.
My problem is that I can't find a way to 'get rid of' any data in
internal storage that is causing my low storage condition.
My guess is you are asking about the Adoptive Storage feature. Once you >>>adopt the SD card to augment your phone's internal storage, everything
Are SD cards always adopted like this, or acn they be used without >>encryption and locking?
Maria's post and a little googling answered this. I'm assuming mine was adopted since I can't read or copy** it in the computer, but I don't
remember doing anything to adopt it, and this was a new Xiaomi phone.
**Hmmm. Shouldn't I be able to at least copy encrypted files?
Mike Easter wrote:
Whenever I start the phone, I'm informed about how low the 8G
internal storage is. I only recently changed the settings to use the
32G SD card by default instead of internal.
My problem is that I can't find a way to 'get rid of' any data in
internal storage that is causing my low storage condition.
I've improved my situation. My problem before was that 'everywhere I
looked' I could not find any stored data to delete. So I decided to
uninstall apps which I had no use for, particularly those which were
in Mb instead of kb. A number which had Mb usage which could NOT be uninstalled I learned should/could be disabled instead of uninstalled
and recover internal.
Doing all that managed to free up more than a gig, which turns out to
be very helpful in an 8G device that was using almost all that to just
boot.
I have 2 8G desktops (both principally running linux/es or occsly W7)
which don't need to use anywhere near their 8G; I don't see why the
android needs to 'use' 8G before it even does anything.
I also have an old RPi 3B running Raspbian which only has 1G and I can
do 'all I want to do' with it, being 'respectful' of not engaging in ram-eating behaviors.
In comp.mobile.android, on Fri, 14 Aug 2026 20:33:21 -0500, VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> wrote:
Mike Easter <MikeE@ster.invalid> wrote:
I do not use cell phones conventionally; I don't carry a phone, I don't >>> normally even turn a phone on. I just now subscribed to this group to
ask a question, but I haven't read any recent msg threads here.
I have an old cellphone w/ Android 6 and no cell plan which I use for
various purposes via wifi, camera, & music. I have a newer tablet phone >>> which does have a plan which I use occasionally via wifi.
I am fairly ignorant of navigating my old cellphone's features, which is >>> why I'm here now.
Whenever I start the phone, I'm informed about how low the 8G internal
storage is. I only recently changed the settings to use the 32G SD card >>> by default instead of internal.
My problem is that I can't find a way to 'get rid of' any data in
internal storage that is causing my low storage condition.
The online advice I've found hasn't been helpful to me.
My guess is you are asking about the Adoptive Storage feature. Once you >>adopt the SD card to augment your phone's internal storage, everything
Are SD cards always adopted like this, or acn they be used without
encryption and locking?
on the SD card is erased, and it gets encrypted to lock that SD card to >>that phone. If you ever want to use the SD card elsewhere, you will
have to un-adopt the SD card which formats it. Adoption is destructive >>when you want to enable it, and when you want to release it.
When I have time, I reed every post in the android group, and the
windows and firefox groups.
But I never have eough time anymore to do that and I just red this
thread because it was next, and by golly, it relates to a question I was working on.
I have other copies of the pictures but I still wanted to copy the ones
on the SD card from my BROKEN phone (in case by some miracle they
weren't the same as the ones from the same dates that I already have). I couldn't open the few I tried to oprn and when I tried to copy all 9
gigs in win10, it did 4% and stopped with no message. I was going to
work on it some more later. But now I know why.
For the record and assuming I didn't have 3 other copies, is there a way
to unencrypt the files so I can still see my photos?
If it's time-consuming or impossible, I'll just reformat the 64GB SD
card to exFAT, right? Is quick-format good enough?
All of this, and especially if the files are irrecoverable, lowers the
value of an SD card, not completely but somewhat, of course, for those
in the previous thread who say it's of no value. I had thought
otherwise, that it would be like the harddrive in a computer, easily available after the computer failed***.
I should also mention that, though the phone created a data subdirectory
for every app, all 220, and some of them had multiple subdirectories, it
took me a long time to check but none except for the photo/video
directory had more than 2 files, both under 100 bytes. So only the
photos were saved there and only after I set some setting to save to the
SD card, for fear internal storage would fill up.
Of course the external storage is no worse than the internal storage
here, because it will be hard and probably impossible to get anything
out of internal storage now that the phone is broken. It's not like a computer , is it, where you can open it up and take out the storage, or
is it?
***Why *do* they encrypt the SD card and lock it to the phone? If they didn't, it would be more useful after the phone failed.
I have 2 8G desktops (both principally running linux/es or occsly W7)
which don't need to use anywhere near their 8G; I don't see why the
android needs to 'use' 8G before it even does anything.
I also have an old RPi 3B running Raspbian which only has 1G and I can
do 'all I want to do' with it, being 'respectful' of not engaging in ram-eating behaviors.
On 2026-08-15, micky wrote:
In comp.mobile.android, on Fri, 14 Aug 2026 20:33:21 -0500, VanguardLH
<V@nguard.LH> wrote:
Mike Easter <MikeE@ster.invalid> wrote:
I do not use cell phones conventionally; I don't carry a phone, I don't >>>> normally even turn a phone on. I just now subscribed to this group to >>>> ask a question, but I haven't read any recent msg threads here.
I have an old cellphone w/ Android 6 and no cell plan which I use for >>>> various purposes via wifi, camera, & music. I have a newer tablet phone >>>> which does have a plan which I use occasionally via wifi.
I am fairly ignorant of navigating my old cellphone's features, which is >>>> why I'm here now.
Whenever I start the phone, I'm informed about how low the 8G internal >>>> storage is. I only recently changed the settings to use the 32G SD card >>>> by default instead of internal.
My problem is that I can't find a way to 'get rid of' any data in
internal storage that is causing my low storage condition.
The online advice I've found hasn't been helpful to me.
My guess is you are asking about the Adoptive Storage feature. Once you >>>adopt the SD card to augment your phone's internal storage, everything
Are SD cards always adopted like this, or acn they be used without
encryption and locking?
Storage cards can definitely be used without encryption, and, at least
on Android 4.2, can also be used to store installed apps without >filesystem-wide encryption (if there is some encryption, it's localized
to the relevant files).
on the SD card is erased, and it gets encrypted to lock that SD card to >>>that phone. If you ever want to use the SD card elsewhere, you will
have to un-adopt the SD card which formats it. Adoption is destructive >>>when you want to enable it, and when you want to release it.
--- Synchronet 3.22a-Linux NewsLink 1.2When I have time, I reed every post in the android group, and the
windows and firefox groups.
But I never have eough time anymore to do that and I just red this
thread because it was next, and by golly, it relates to a question I was
working on.
I have other copies of the pictures but I still wanted to copy the ones
on the SD card from my BROKEN phone (in case by some miracle they
weren't the same as the ones from the same dates that I already have). I
couldn't open the few I tried to oprn and when I tried to copy all 9
gigs in win10, it did 4% and stopped with no message. I was going to
work on it some more later. But now I know why.
Are you certain that the card itself is OK hardware-wise and has no
errors in the filesystem? If not, you may be better off copying with >something like ddrescue. (No idea what's available for Windows NT.)
For the record and assuming I didn't have 3 other copies, is there a way
to unencrypt the files so I can still see my photos?
If it's time-consuming or impossible, I'll just reformat the 64GB SD
card to exFAT, right? Is quick-format good enough?
My two cents would be: don't do that unless you're entirely sure it
can't be recoveded.
All of this, and especially if the files are irrecoverable, lowers the
value of an SD card, not completely but somewhat, of course, for those
in the previous thread who say it's of no value. I had thought
otherwise, that it would be like the harddrive in a computer, easily
available after the computer failed***.
Hard drives can be encrypted too. Although I think that's mainly used
with user-supplied passphrases, I'd not be surprised if the DRM in TPM
and "Secure computing" allowed for a similar thing.
I should also mention that, though the phone created a data subdirectory
for every app, all 220, and some of them had multiple subdirectories, it
took me a long time to check but none except for the photo/video
directory had more than 2 files, both under 100 bytes. So only the
photos were saved there and only after I set some setting to save to the
SD card, for fear internal storage would fill up.
Of course the external storage is no worse than the internal storage
here, because it will be hard and probably impossible to get anything
out of internal storage now that the phone is broken. It's not like a
computer , is it, where you can open it up and take out the storage, or
is it?
***Why *do* they encrypt the SD card and lock it to the phone? If they
didn't, it would be more useful after the phone failed.
So that data cannot be extracted without permission? And perhaps to
enforce non-rooted Android limitations too... (so this one would
definitely be DRM too).
... wait, are we talking*non-volatile* data*storage* or RAM?
Booted, now the phone has 250 meg ram free and 1.5G internal storage available, and almost all of the SD card's.
In comp.mobile.android, on Sat, 15 Aug 2026 09:34:36 +0100, Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> wrote:
Properties has all along said the SD card has no errors, but when I try
to repair it anyhow, it says it can't.
Now, I can display the top level directory items, but when using an after-market file manager, PowerDEsk, I try to open any of the
directories one level down, the file manager repositions at "PC" or some
high place unrelated to the SD card. When I use the MS file manager,
this doesn't happen unless I try to open DCIM, which is where the photos
are, but it happens that way when I try to open DCIM. (Inside that is
Camera, and that has the photos. It used to open but now doesn't even
though I never tried to write to it. I only read, and it copied 38+4%
of the files.)
I will look into ddrescue that you mention, but I'm not optimistic.
My problem is that I can't find a way to 'get rid of' any data in
internal storage that is causing my low storage condition.
Mike Easter wrote:
Booted, now the phone has 250 meg ram free and 1.5G internal storage
available, and almost all of the SD card's.
Below is astoundingly excellent advice, which, oh, I'd wager only one in a million (or maybe one in ten million) people can even understand why.
Mike Easter wrote:
My problem is that I can't find a way to 'get rid of' any data in
internal storage that is causing my low storage condition.
Can you see 'Storage' somewhere in the menu? It's possible your OS is
using most of it. I've seen this before on older smartphones.
What phone are we talking about?
On 2026-08-15 16:23, micky wrote:
In comp.mobile.android, on Sat, 15 Aug 2026 09:34:36 +0100, Nuno Silva
<nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> wrote:
Properties has all along said the SD card has no errors, but when I try
to repair it anyhow, it says it can't.
Now, I can display the top level directory items, but when using an
after-market file manager, PowerDEsk, I try to open any of the
directories one level down, the file manager repositions at "PC" or some
high place unrelated to the SD card. When I use the MS file manager,
this doesn't happen unless I try to open DCIM, which is where the photos
are, but it happens that way when I try to open DCIM. (Inside that is
Camera, and that has the photos. It used to open but now doesn't even
though I never tried to write to it. I only read, and it copied 38+4%
of the files.)
I will look into ddrescue that you mention, but I'm not optimistic.
ddrescue does no repair. It simply copies a disk or partition to
another place, even if it finds errors when reading it.
For instance, the other day I tried to recover deleted photos on a
card. First I cloned the card with 'dd', then I recovered the photos
with PhotoRec (Linux), working on the image, instead of the card.
From my notes:--
SystemRescueCd http://www.system-rescue-cd.org/
PhotoRec recovers files from deleted memory cards (from cameras). 12 April 2009
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec
f3 http://oss.digirati.com.br/f3/ recovers/analyses USB sticks.
On 2026-08-15, Carlos E. R. wrote:
On 2026-08-15 16:23, micky wrote:
In comp.mobile.android, on Sat, 15 Aug 2026 09:34:36 +0100, Nuno Silva
<nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> wrote:
Properties has all along said the SD card has no errors, but when I try
to repair it anyhow, it says it can't.
Now, I can display the top level directory items, but when using an
after-market file manager, PowerDEsk, I try to open any of the
directories one level down, the file manager repositions at "PC" or some >>> high place unrelated to the SD card. When I use the MS file manager,
this doesn't happen unless I try to open DCIM, which is where the photos >>> are, but it happens that way when I try to open DCIM. (Inside that is
Camera, and that has the photos. It used to open but now doesn't even
though I never tried to write to it. I only read, and it copied 38+4%
of the files.)
I will look into ddrescue that you mention, but I'm not optimistic.
ddrescue does no repair. It simply copies a disk or partition to
another place, even if it finds errors when reading it.
Yes, but it is tailored for media with errors or reading difficulties,
and will let you know if there *are* errors.
On 2026-08-15, Carlos E. R. wrote:
On 2026-08-15 16:23, micky wrote:
In comp.mobile.android, on Sat, 15 Aug 2026 09:34:36 +0100, Nuno Silva
<nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> wrote:
Properties has all along said the SD card has no errors, but when I try
to repair it anyhow, it says it can't.
Now, I can display the top level directory items, but when using an
after-market file manager, PowerDEsk, I try to open any of the
directories one level down, the file manager repositions at "PC" or some >>> high place unrelated to the SD card. When I use the MS file manager,
this doesn't happen unless I try to open DCIM, which is where the photos >>> are, but it happens that way when I try to open DCIM. (Inside that is
Camera, and that has the photos. It used to open but now doesn't even
though I never tried to write to it. I only read, and it copied 38+4%
of the files.)
I will look into ddrescue that you mention, but I'm not optimistic.
ddrescue does no repair. It simply copies a disk or partition to
another place, even if it finds errors when reading it.
Yes, but it is tailored for media with errors or reading difficulties,
and will let you know if there *are* errors.
For instance, the other day I tried to recover deleted photos on a
card. First I cloned the card with 'dd', then I recovered the photos
with PhotoRec (Linux), working on the image, instead of the card.
Yeah, just for undeletion in a healthy medium, ddrescue isn't necessary, >although one might feel tempted just to get its progress display.
From my notes:
SystemRescueCd http://www.system-rescue-cd.org/
PhotoRec recovers files from deleted memory cards (from cameras). 12 April 2009
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec
f3 http://oss.digirati.com.br/f3/ recovers/analyses USB sticks.
But I think I'd be a fool to rely on this SD card, right? I know
formating is supposed to find all the bad spots, and list their
locations so they are not used, but would you guys use this SD card for anything important?
On Sun, 8/16/2026 11:52 AM, micky wrote:
But I think I'd be a fool to rely on this SD card, right? I know
formating is supposed to find all the bad spots, and list their
locations so they are not used, but would you guys use this SD card for
anything important?
You have to know how a device works under the hood, to be
using trash-bunny techniques on it. Is it direct mapped, and
you can burn spots into it, or, is it "wear leveled static&dynamic".
https://www.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/comments/ex7dvo/quick_reminder_that_sd_cards_with_wearleveling/
A lot of trash-bunny techniques, result in writes to a device.
It it is already on its way out, and in a spiral-of-death,
the activities might actually be accelerating the end of
the device.
As for the article, we've been baited before by all this talk
of wear leveling, and the game continues. It's hard to say
whether any quality TLC flash devices exist, as that's what
these pieces of shit will be made of. I looked at my computer
store listing, and you can't buy an 8GB MLC based one any more,
they're going to all be TLC or QLC. And they won't
actually tell you what kind of flash is in an SD.
"Buying new is not necessarily buying better"
Some of the older SD cards, are going to last longer.
Just because of the flash type.
This makes a good hobby though, and is slightly ahead of
stamp collecting. And as that Reddit thread shows, it has the
same amount of drama, for sure (the "talking with engineering" schtick
the tech support carried out). Companies and their tech support,
it's highly likely they don't even make the product themselves,
and it arrives in big burlap bags and they put their brand
sticker on it.
Summary: If you device isn't healthy... don't use it.
Paul--- Synchronet 3.22a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
In comp.mobile.android, on Sun, 16 Aug 2026 13:13:58 -0400, Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:
On Sun, 8/16/2026 11:52 AM, micky wrote:
But I think I'd be a fool to rely on this SD card, right? I know
formating is supposed to find all the bad spots, and list their
locations so they are not used, but would you guys use this SD card for
anything important?
https://www.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/comments/ex7dvo/quick_reminder_that_sd_cards_with_wearleveling/>>
Summary: If you device isn't healthy... don't use it.
I didn't understand most of what you wrote, but I bought a new SD card.
4x as big, too.
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