I continue receiving the notification that “storage space is running out”. I have already moved all apps to phone storage where that is possible, and uninstalled some apps I didn’t need much.
The strange thing is that the storage space seems to get less even though I did not install any updates to the system (or apps residing in internal storage) recently.
I know there is a repartition solution available. However, my phone’s hardware is nearing end-of-life anyway (more or less random glitches that are hard to track, and therefore probably not feasible to repair). So all I need is a phone that survives a few more months before I have a proper replacement in place (FP 2 is an option, but pretty expensive just 3 years after buying the FP 1).
Do you have any ideas what I could do to relieve the pressure on storage space without having to wipe and completely restore my phone?
I reported all issues to support. They never suggested trying a hard reset or storage upgrade based on my error description, so I never thought about it.
They offered to enter the buyback program. The catch is that you have to send in your FP1 first, then wait 2-3 months before you get the FP2. Since I don’t have a replacement phone, that’s not an option for me. I even offered to pay the full price up front, and only get a refund once the FP1 arrived, but it seems they cannot offer that.
If you have a lot of photo’s or videos, maybe you can synch them to some cloud service and remove them from your device. I do this with Google Photos. The photos and videos are backed up to Google and once in a while I remove them from my device, clearing up some valuable space.
Also, if you haven’t done so, configure your phone to store photos on the SD card by default.
I can only second (or rather “third”, given Lidwien also recommended it) Paul’s first suggestion. Don’t give up on your FP1 prematurely, the storage upgrade has worked little miracles with many FP1s before. Most likely, your internal storage is all crammed up, leaving almost no space for apps to work anymore.
Here are step-by-step instructions (click on the blue links):
The “phone storage” has plenty of room left. It is the “internal storage” that causes the problem. And where I can, I put my data on the SD card anyway.
The storage update puts the “Phone storage” and the “Internal storage” together. So after the storage update you will have no problem with the “Internal storage” anymore.
That is why it is so important to do the “Internal storage”.
I might try it. It’s just scary to have all the important contacts and calendar data ONLY in a backup, of which I cannot yet be 100 % sure it will properly restore after re partitioning. Previously, I could always see my data on the new phone before I wiped the old one.
And no, I don’t do cloud for personal data. At least not yet.
Personally I feel even more safe with a backup file of my contacts and calendar than with these data on the phone, particularly because you can also easily make additional backups e.g. on an external drive.
About Cloud storage: You can also host your own cloud solutions, like for example with owncloud. You don’t need to have the cloud on an online server, if it is just about regular and automatically backing up your data - or syncing them with your other computer devices. You can also have a cloud running, for example, at home on your PC; so whenever you are in your home network, your precious data is getting secured off your mobile device, and potentially synchronized with your other devices.
If you have an account with google and you have your contacts en calendar stored with google make sure to sync before you start.
Go to Settings
go to accounts
tab on google
tab on your accountname
and in the next screen make sure that the every item is green.
Go back to your accountname and tab on the symbol before your name to sync.
Just to be save use the app Back-up and make a back-up on your sd-card.
Of course I feel better if I also have a backup. But even having a up-to-date backup doesn’t guarantee the restore will work (although I admit it’s very likely it will).
I think we are all curious to learn if you notice any performance improvements now. Let us know once you have gained some experience with the unified partition, if you don’t mind!
I will let you know whether any of the original problems are improved. For reference, these were (1) ear speaker falling silent sometimes during calls, and (2) screen showing garbage sometimes when waking the phone.
But they occur only sometimes, so I will write in a week or so.
Effects I have noticed from the storage upgrade so far:
Android ID has changed. Wonder what effects this might have.
No longer able to reach the phone storage via USB mass storage mode. Have to use media transfer, which really sucks on Windows (slow & unreliable)
Some settings and applications could not be restored, despite backup & restore in two separate ways. It’s going to take me an hour or so to get everything back to normal (on top of the approx 1,5 h I spent on the upgrade so far).
The “checking for updates” bug is back again. I’ll have to re-search how to turn off the permanent “checking for updates” notification.
On the plus side, I do now have large internal storage. And that is what it was all about, right?
Yes, I get these options. But USB mass storage only mounts the SD card. I assume this is because the USB mass storage requires exclusive access…pretty tough when the OS is running on that partition.
As for the screen showing garbage…had that today. So it’s either really a hardware issue, or I restored the issue together with the data and apps (which sounds a bit unlikely to me).
