Why is this empty Phone running out of Space?

Factual Questions
1

I’m using my Mom’s old 10GBb Android Phone to play music. Samsung Galaxy A01

We bought it for mom after 3G service was discontinued and her Flip phone didn’t work. It never had much installed. Solitaire and Amazon. It was primarily intended for phone calls.

Mom stopped using it a few months before she died.

I put a 120GB SD card in it and use the phone to play music. There’s 34GB used on the SD card.

I started getting Out of Storage messages a week ago. It was down to 500MB free on the internal drive. This phone is empty. Nothing in Downloads, Pictures or Music on the internal drive.

I resorted to deleting useless Apps like LinkedIn, Office, Amazon etc. that came pre-installed. The Samsung Apps won’t let me delete them.

I still have my File Manager app and DuckDuck Go browser. I already used App Manager to delete Cache and Data storage.

I have 900MB free. That won’t last long when Android tries updating. Removing DuckDuck Go would only gain 200MB.

My File Manager App lists any big files on the drive. There aren’t any on the Internal drive.

What’s eating up my Free Space?

I’m about ready to try a Phone reset and see how much storage Android uses.

Should I use a Clean drive App? But that requires space to install.

2

You can’t uninstall the built-in apps, but you should be able to remove all updates. On my phone, you do this by choosing “Disable” on the app information (uninstall is not available). It will then ask you if you want to remove all updates, and you can say Yes. Then, if you still need the app, you can reenable it.

That said, before you do that, you need to make sure automatic updates are not enabled. That’s usually handled in the Play Store settings

Honestly, just doing that may be enough. The OS itself is probably not updating if the phone is old, so software updates may be the only updates on it. Disable those, and you may not need any more free space. Heck, if you don’t need it, you can disable Google Play altogether. I had to on my old phone because it was crashing.

Here are instructions on how to disable apps:

And here are instructions on turning off Automatic Updates in Google Play:

3

I’ll give that a try, thanks!

It’s trying to download updates and there’s not enough space.

Really, this phone doesn’t have enough internal space for any serious use. It was fine for a Senior that didn’t use Apps.

I think it’s on Android 9. That’s the limit for supporting the A01.

Well, it was on 9 or 10. I checked and now it’s 12. That’s probably why my disk space disappeared a couple weeks ago. I should have killed auto updates before that happened.

I didn’t think a phone this old would get a update beyond Android 10.

I did turn off Auto Updates in the Play Store.

4

Follow up…

I restarted the phone and my reclaimed 900mb storage shrunk to 700mb.

I did a Factory Reset and restored my Apps and Data.

I have 6.4GB free out of 9.6GB.

Back to normal.

Android is using about 3GB. That’s not bad.

I will leave Auto Updates off. I don’t want this storage problem coming back. It’s an old phone and only used for playing music on my Bluetooth speaker.

5

In the future before doing a reset go into settings/apps and check for caches for individual apps.

6

Yeah, I was going to say OS creep, but you all got their first. If anything, it’s worse on iPhones, but it’ll kill you in the end if you don’t rollback and prevent OS updates. Just to be clear though, operating it online in anyway (wifi since no SIM service) is going to be a really bad idea, even if it’s to a presumably safe hotspot and target site. So don’t.

Yes, I know you’re not using it that way, but just a reminder for anyone who reads this and also decides to repurpose an old device. :slight_smile:

7

I was surprised a hard reset only took about 15 to 20 minutes.

I already knew that I needed my gmail password.

But the 2nd check almost screwed me. It was saying to press Accept use on new device on the pop up screen. But I was stuck inside the install. Fortunately I was able to direct it to my primary phone number. It texted a code there.

Thank goodness I set up that alternate number several years ago.

8

Why is that?

9

Done it for years without a scintilla of a trace of a glimmering of a problem.

How is what you are saying any way different from telling us to never use any Android device over WiFi? Because a cell phone without a SIM is just a small tablet.

10

Answering both you and @ThelmaLou - it’s not what you’re using it for, it’s what you’re protected against. Addressing the second line of the above first - you’re absolutely correct, any phone without a SIM may as well be a small tablet. For that matter, a cell-enabled tablet (I have one!) is a phone with a 10’ screen (in the case of mine again)!

But… when you’re using an out of date OS on -any- device to access the internet, you run risks you don’t on modern OS. IE years of known exploits and hacks that have accumulated, and been fixed are suddenly either gone (rollback) or were never applied (just plain old). For example, Android 9 (presumably what was on the phone in question originally and again) was released in 2018. If it has the original build that’s over 5 years of security updates to patch exploits that are gone. And that’s a relatively recent OS, where the final software/security update was only in 2022.

But there are a LOT older phones still in use out there, often as tablets being given to kids, who often have riskier browsing habits.

That’s the short version, but here’s a CNET article for more review if you like!

Now CNET is a tech site, and they’re going to err of the side of extreme safety - after all they, like your carrier, want you to get the newest and best and subscribe to them to know what that is. Honestly… IMHO, it’s PROBABLY safe, probably. But if you go to an unknown, or riskier site, or if you’re using public wifi or unknown wifi, the risks increase. Still PROBABLY fine if you stay to known sites and a secure network, but it’s a risk to avoid if you have the option.

ETA - if you wonder why I strongly suggested to NOT use it online earlier, and here I am saying its “probably” safe with a lot of qualifiers, is because I used to do Tech Support for a major US carrier. And I got to hear ALL the horror stories. So like CNET, I err on the side of caution. But I wanted to provide the reasons why after being asked, and to qualify it.

So I still don’t advise it. It’s a risk you can and should avoid. But, like eating raw / undercooked eggs, it’s probably safe… right up until it isn’t. And certain things can make it a LOT more risky.

11

I will update this old junker phone manually and watch the storage space more carefully.

I’ve been thinking about it. Previous updates may not have deleted their downloaded work files . That would explain why all my storage got used. I had used App manager to clear caches on my Apps. Nothing I did found that missing 5 to 6GB.

This could be a problem for other phones. But it’s not noticed because a new phone may have 64GB or 128GB internal storage.

It’s amazing how cheap storage has gotten. Amazon has Samsung phones with 128GB and 5G for under $300. It’s about time to upgrade my primary phone.

12

The OP plays music on this old phone. I fail to see how they are risking anything:

From the CNET article.

You can help protect your personal information by simply not giving too much away in the first place. Don’t do any banking on the phone, don’t sync your company email accounts and don’t send sexy pictures or have sexy video chats until you’re back on a protected device. (Even over a phone, it’s important to practice safe sex.) According to Hebeisen, if you don’t take such precautions, “this might enable an attacker to observe and manipulate almost everything happening on the device.” That’s a cold shower, right there.

No argument with the advice, just that for a phone with such limited use, it is a bit OTT.

13

Last year I bought a Motorola with 256 GB internal and a free 256 GB MicroSD card for $250.

14

Thus my comments from before I even shared said article:

:smile:

15

I’m glad some phones still support SD. That’s a requirement for me. I keep music and movies on my phones SD. It’s great having entertainment when I’m traveling.

16

My current phone doesn’t, but I don’t need it. Half a terabyte built in is plenty.

17

Out of the 512 GB on my phone (256+256) I’m at the moment using 414 GB.

18

Because many people are not very disciplined at only using a device offline. The phone only plays music, but you’re playing some music and want to look up the lyrics, so you open the browser on the phone, go to some lyrics site, and an ad there uses a drive-by exploit to load some software onto your phone. Now your phone is part of a bot network for click fraud, or something.

It might not directly harm you, not every exploit is trying to break into your bank account or steal your identity. Sometimes they just want a platform to do something.

I’ve seen it many times, “we need to run Windows XP on this computer because [reasons], but we never go online with it.” Later I’ll see the computer with a web browser open to some random site, and be told “I was doing [reasons], and wanted to check something online” or some other excuse. (Even worse: “we need to run Windows XP on this computer, but we never go online with it. Also, can you help us install a modern web browser on it?”)

19

“What happened to ‘never go online’?”

“That doesn’t count.”