Doing a clean uninstal of apps - Galaxy S I9000 General

Galaxy S is my first Android device, so please excuse my noob-question:
I just try alot of apps and most of them will be uninstalled by me a few days later. Does Android do a "clean" uninstall, or are there still bits and pieces in something like a registry (yes I am a windows-user ;-)). Or does that depend on the uninstall-method which is provided by the individual app-developer?
Due to the fact that there is no "General Android" - Forum I will post my question in this forum which at least corrsesponds to my current device.
Thanks for your insight.
quicky

This is funny because I also wonder everytime I delete if there are registry pieces missing lool. but I'm sure that doesn't matter.. There are however SOMETIMES folders IN the SD card or the external Drive of a phone (like the 8gb/16gb partition of the Galaxy).
All android phones are like that, sometimes they leave a folder with settings or sometimes empty folders, and sometimes no folders at all.
I think it's just to keep cache or settings.. you can simply delete those when you enter your sd card.

In Android, every app has his own "sandbox". This is like a exclusive folder for the app, where it stores everything and other apps can't access.
When you remove an app from the phone, android removes this "folder" so there is nothing left behind.
There is just one exception to this: the SD card. Some programs will store some information (for example heavy games store maps, voices,...) to a folder in the SD card. So when uninstalling just look if your SD card contains some folder with the app name and safely remove it too (unless you plan reinstalling the app later!).

Related

SD card primer, anyone?

Hello,
I just discovered I'm even more of a ignorant farmgirl than I thought... this time it's the MiniSD card I don't know anything about.
I mean: of course you plug it in and you browse to it to add/move/remove files... but it would seem that's not enough. So, can anyone point me to a SD-on-Wiz Faq, please?
A few things I'm looking into:
- How do you get the Wiz to automatically look among SD card-based files from an app? (i.e. "Open" from Word looks into the card first)
- How do you get the camera to save pictures directly onto the SD card, so as not to waste precious device-based memory?
- What are the actual differences between installing apps onto a SD card compared to the device memory? I noticed some apps seem to behave differently according to where they are placed.
- Is there any way to create a card-based auto-multi-installer to do all the dirty work of reinstalling apps automatically after a hard reset?
I'm sure I left out several other interesting and useful things...
Thanks in advance for your contributions!
there´s some reg tweaks you can do so the wizard will store stuff on the sd-card and not in main memorey (i. e. IE cache files, Camera pics, etc.)
just search the forum you´ll find some stuff there.
For the difference between SD-Card and main storage installation. i have no idea. haven´t noticed any change in my apps. maybe just in speed of loading apps. but that´s all i noticed.
for doing backup of your apps. a lot of programms you intall on your sd card don´t need to be reinstalled after a hard reset. just need to put the shortcuts and links back in the folders.
hope i could help.
greets Freez
Making the camera save pictures to the SD card can be done by changing the settings in the camera app under options.
There is no way to automatically have all apps look on the SD card first, every app needs a change in their settings or in the registry to accomplish that.
Installing apps on the SD card has pros and cons. The pros are of course that your storage space on the device (in the ROM) gets used up less, so you can install more apps on your device. It is however not necessary to leave it as empty as possible as it was in WM 2003 SE. In WM 2003 SE (on for instance the Magician) apps were installed in RAM and the more you installed on the device, the more RAM was used up and the less RAM there was available for running apps, resulting in a slow down of the device. Furthermore running out of battery power would result in the device turning off, emptying the RAM and lossing all data and installed apps. In WM5 this is different. Since ROM is used for storage and RAM for executing only, you can fill your ROM to the max without slowing down the device. Furthermore an empty battery will mean no data loss. Concluding, there is no necessity to install as much as possible to the SD card and leave your ROM space empty.
The cons of installing to your SD card are that some apps (e.g. today-plug-ins) don't like being installed on SD card. For today plug-ins this has to do with the start-up process of the Wizard. After turing the device on or waking it from sleep, the device will first load the apps and then initialize the SD card. The device will try to load the apps on the today screen (the plug-ins that is) that are stored on the SD before the SD slot is initialized and the apps cannot be found by the device, creating glitches and problems.
Another con for me is that I like to switch between my SD with TomTom navigation maps and my SD with my mp3/movie collection. If I install most apps to SD, this means that I will have to change my SD again if during a movie or MP3 I want to use one of these apps quickly.
However, if you use only one SD for installing and not much else, this problem does of course not exist.
If your storage in ROM is not full, there is no reason to install aps to SD.
Thak you for the info so far!
Koskie: paint me 'tard... I never even saw the camera Options menu until you mentioned it...
I am about to start getting some cards and here is what I was thinking...
1. a 512 or 128MB card for everyday use. Store IE cache, ringtones, pictures, and some programs (solitaire, puzzles, monopoly etc).
2. A series of 2GB cards for music, movies and TV content when I travel. I was planing on installing TCPMP on each one to avaoid putting that in my device memory.
As far as restoring after flashing or a hard reset, I currently keep a copy of all programs, ringtones, pim backups etc on my home computer. It is organized by file type, utils, games, rings etc. so when I flash I just go through again and reinstall one by one. I've found this is easier than figuring out where to download everything all over again.
@bubism: no problem, took me a while to figure it out too, that option is well-hidden!
@dcdivenut: Good plan. Those small size cards are really cheap. Why don't you install TCPMP on your device memory? It is not too big. Or have you crammed your mem so full that you have no more place for it.
I also have all apps I ever installed still on my desktop, including a list with all the reg edits I did and all apps I have currently installed with a short explanation for most apps and installation instructions when a standard install is not good enough (e.g. TomTom 5.21)
In case a hard reset is needed,I just grab the list and install all apps again, then do all the regedits. Still a lot of work, but quicker than having to search all apps and edits online. I recommend this approach to everyone.
Hey Koskie:
Can you post that list and what to do? I have a new 8125 and miniSD card and have no idea what to use the card for. I won't be putting music, pictures or videos on it since it is a work phone.
Ski
@ Skijackz: I use my SD card for music, TomTom 5.21 maps and video's only, all my apps are installed in main (=device) mem. I have approx. 16 MB free of Storage mem. If you have no use for your SD card and your storage mem is sufficient to store your apps, you can take it out and replace it with the plastic dummy that came with it. In that way your card slot is protected against dust and dirt, but the SD card will not use any power, thereby lengthening your uptime. If you use your device for navigation, you have to use the card to store the maps on it, since they are too big for your device mem.
The list I made is partly in Dutch, especially the notes, so it might not be very useful to you. Furthermore the list is a mess, since it works through my personal filing system (copy and paste wherever my cursor happens to rest). It is a mostly chronological list, I mostly added everything I found at the end. I'll attach it anyway, perhaps you'll find it useful. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask them here or through PM.
Thanks a lot for the tip on storing pics to the storage card!!! That's a real find! ....and much appreciated!!
This place is the BEST :!: :!:
Thanks Koskie!! This is a real help.

Storage Memory is Critically Low Popup Message

I am receiving the current message on my hd2 and would like to know how i can repair the problem as it keeps popping up on the screen all the time
'Storage memory is critically low. If the storage memory is not increased, other programs may not be able to start. Use File Explorer to delete files that are no longer needed or move some files to a storage card'
Any advice please?
Simple advice- you've got too much installed or saved to internal memory rather than the storage card.
Common culprits are browser caches for PIE and Opera, the HTC Album cache, media files like videos, music and pictures etc.
Use File Explorer to look in all the sub folders of My Documents as a starting point. Try moving all the big files over the the storage card.
Download Treeview from Microsoft Marketplace- it's free and can show you where all the storage memory is going.
should i do this through the phone direct or the pc?
khush10 said:
should i do this through the phone direct or the pc?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can do either- as long as you connect using ActiveSync rather than Disk Drive mode.
Using the PC is probably a slightly easier experience as Windows Explorer is more informative than the mobile version!
NeilM said:
Download Treeview from Microsoft Marketplace- it's free and can show you where all the storage memory is going.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
no such app
i cannot get marketplace to work, it says that theres no data connection detected, but its on and my wi-fi is on too?
So i keep on retrying but still no joy!
...Read the post
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=600578
...I use a program for clean memory: SKTOOLS and it works ok
...there are other programs like cleanram...but i haven´t experience with them
...good luck
to be honest, i did not think i will have to go through all this, i thought that the phone would have been more simple to use rather than the link suggested, install this and edit that, i would have thought that the phone would already be setup correctly, instead my phone has become another job itself!
khush10 said:
to be honest, i did not think i will have to go through all this, i thought that the phone would have been more simple to use rather than the link suggested, install this and edit that, i would have thought that the phone would already be setup correctly, instead my phone has become another job itself!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Welcome to the world of Windows Mobile
khush10 said:
to be honest, i did not think i will have to go through all this, i thought that the phone would have been more simple to use rather than the link suggested, install this and edit that, i would have thought that the phone would already be setup correctly, instead my phone has become another job itself!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You don't have to do all that. It works great out of the box as well. Those are just possibilities, to customize it and tweak it.
Uninstall everything you have installed on your phone and reinstall it to the storage card. Always install applications to the storage card. That should fix your 'problem'.
Additionally, open the File Explorer, go to \Windows and delete the folder YouTube. That gives you additional free space but the folder comes back when you watch YouTube videos, so you can do this from time to time.
can i drag and drop my applications folder into the storage card via the pc?
Yes, but then the links in the start menu won't work anymore. Think of what happens when you move the Program Files folder on your PC. It's the same here.
can someone give me a step by step guide for doing this task please.
Go to Settings, Manage Applications, Uninstall Applications. There, uninstall all the applications you have installed to teh main memory.
Then reinstall them, this time to the storage card.
And delete the YouTube cache from time to time.
When we're speaking of free storage memory, how much memory do you all have free?
Mine is around 20 mb, is it to small?
Beacuse when i watched a video on youtube i got the same message as in the first post.
freyberry said:
Go to Settings, Manage Applications, Uninstall Applications. There, uninstall all the applications you have installed to teh main memory.
Then reinstall them, this time to the storage card.
And delete the YouTube cache from time to time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
All i have in the remove programs section is 'MarketPlace' and no other applications?
khush10 said:
All i have in the remove programs section is 'MarketPlace' and no other applications?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As I suggested in the earlier post, this is nothing to do with installed programs- most of those are pretty small and are unlikely to be grabbing the majority of your memory.
It is most likely that you have allowed some large files to be stored in the main memory. By default the phone DOES store most big user files like photos and videos on a storage card, but perhaps that has been altered somewhere?
You need to use a file finding utility to sort this- if Treesize is not available in your locality via Marketplace (or you can't access Marketplace) then you can try Spacefinder, a tiny, free program that will sort your files and folders in order of size, giving a hint as to where the memory may have gone. You can also download Treesize Mobile direct from Jam Software
Stuff like CleanRAM, SKTools etc is OK for clearing RAM but has no effect on Storage Memory apart from clearing some caches, though this can help a lot.
One other tip- as has been suggested, try and install programs onto a storage card, but not if they are system programs like Today plug-ins or keyboards etc. These must go into device memory otherwise you may get some startup errors.
This baffles me. I have just got an HD2 to replace my HD - I started to put exactly the same programs onto the HD2 as I had previously installed on my HD (I install all programs on the device). I got the low memory warning long before I put all the programmes on - on a brand new device with no internet browsing/video/music on device itself.
My HD has more memory than my HD2 - how is that possible?
None of these explanations seem to explain how this happens on my HD2 but not my old HD. I have NEVER had a low memory warning on my HD despite having used it for over a year and having installed more on it than I have managed on the HD2.
I have recently found the pre-installed Google Maps created a cache folder in device memory and pumped it up to 25 Megs. Deleted it of course.
blackrat62 said:
This baffles me. I have just got an HD2 to replace my HD - I started to put exactly the same programs onto the HD2 as I had previously installed on my HD (I install all programs on the device). I got the low memory warning long before I put all the programmes on - on a brand new device with no internet browsing/video/music on device itself.
My HD has more memory than my HD2 - how is that possible?
None of these explanations seem to explain how this happens on my HD2 but not my old HD. I have NEVER had a low memory warning on my HD despite having used it for over a year and having installed more on it than I have managed on the HD2.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The HD2 has more memory (ROM) but a huge chunk (150MB) is taken up by all the HTC Sense gubbins, leaving a relatively smaller amount free to the user. Ultra light cooked ROMs give about 150MB more ROM, and light ROMs about 100MB more than the default ROM.
It also seems that a lot of caching is going on- Album, Googlemaps, Browsers etc eating up ROM.

Very little Device Memory HD2. (What? Already!!!)

I've had my HD2 for about a week now. I've installed maybe 3 or 4 apps directly to the device (not to SD Card). I'm now in the situation of not being able to d/l any videos etc. due to having insufficient memory! I can't believe it!!!
Device total storage stands at 200.40MB
Used storage= 189.02MB
Free storage= 11.38MB
However below this info my phone is showing ''Free program storage'' as being 178.38MB. While my SD card is showing Free Memory being at 1453.95MB.
Would the solution be to transfer everything to SD card and only install to the SD card in future?
Yep I would, saves the phones internal memory
I install any non-system apps to the card, anything that needs access to the system files goes on my phone
Found this article on a blog:
Just go on google and search "windows mobile marketplace:choose where to install"
Click the 3rd one down-DarkBlog
(Apologies for not placing a direct link, I'm a new member, so It won't allow me to put outside links right now, sorry for the inconvenience)
It might help you a little?
Gonna have a look at that, looks good
LINK:
http://blog.idlezone.org/post/2010/01/11/Windows-Mobile-MarketPlace-:-choose-where-to-install
GadgetTechPlus said:
Found this article on a blog:
Just go on google and search "windows mobile marketplace:choose where to install"
Click the 3rd one down-DarkBlog
(Apologies for not placing a direct link, I'm a new member, so It won't allow me to put outside links right now, sorry for the inconvenience)
It might help you a little?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you. That's really helpful.
These reports of low memory are really starting to bug me.
It would appear that there is something going on that is not fully understand because there is no way that you should run out of phone storage memory with only 4 apps installed!
A serious in depth investigation is needed to unearth the cause.
I have 27 apps installed and I have 152Mb of storage memory left.
Could you tell us what ROM you are running?
Did you go to the task manager and see what is running and try ending the tasks? If you don't kill programs in there they will eat up your system memory... Specially if you are downloading a bunch of porn... Opera is probably using up a bunch.
crisisinthecity said:
Did you go to the task manager and see what is running and try ending the tasks? If you don't kill programs in there they will eat up your system memory... Specially if you are downloading a bunch of porn... Opera is probably using up a bunch.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thats not the memory the OP was talking about. Unless I've got it all wrong! Or you have!
I think you are referring to Program memory. The OP was talking about Storage memory and how something was using it up.
This is all very strange.
Things you should definitely look at
1. Where are your camera pictures and camcorder videos stored? ---> if you select device and not storage on the camera app or camcorder app settings, then u are my friend putting pictures and videos you've taken to the sdcard...
solutions: go to ur camera app settings and look at where u are storing the pictures...
or go to ur file explorer, go to ur device's memory and check if they are there...
if they are there, then copy and paste them to ur sd card...
2. set ur outlook, yahoo e-mail and stuff to be stored in sd card, not device's memory...
3. idk what else you have in there to have that very little memory left...
Oh I missed that... My phone has 686.12 Total Storage, 190.64 used, 495.48 free. I have installed all of the apps on the Storage card though. If his says that the total storage is 200 or whatever, that sounds like the problem... Should be like a gb of total device memory between storage and programs...
It seems that Opera 9 saves downloads to a folder on the phones 'device memory', but it doesn't always delete them when you tell opera to do so in the downloads menu tab.
It saves them too: \My Device\Windows\opera9\profile\download
When I deleated most of the files there it released over 110 MB of space in the device storage.
I wonder where other programs save similar files?
Sam.
Have a look here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=583638 for tips on freeing some space. The HTC Album cache is my biggest storage hog. Even then, like you, I have just a few programs installed to my internal store and hardly any memory left. The UK version has less storage than the USA HD2 which makes matters worse.
maybe for the euro hd2, cleartemp could help. It can help find those caches and delete them regularly.
I have the tmous version and flash all the time so I don't have that problem.
Also look for the youtube cache. I've heard it can get pretty big if you look at a lot of youtube vids.
edit: go find cleartemp. There are loads of stuff it can clear for you.
I found 10mb under thumbs.db alone.
Not to mention a few mb for google maps and for opera cache each.
you can also add custom folders to be cleaned as well. I haven't looked too much into it, but maybe I should.
Just remember that caches help your phone run faster, so don't erase them unless you need the memory.
This thread has good suggestions. But most are usual recommendations that will help but perhaps not resolve the issue completely (well a couple of posts do mention temp issues). I had a similar experience recently.
A couple of facts:
1. I install all my apps into the main memory. Never had issues. Opera, IE cache, temps all there by default.
2. I download and save on SD. Music, films, pictures, documents, Android are all there.
3. Still I have plenty of room for storage.
And then I suddenly had that warning!
The cause was temp made by the default ZIP utility that used up almost all my storage space. That utility works fine until I wanted to uncompress 160 mb zip from SD into another SD folder. It started uncompressing, used all storage temp space, gave me error, and closed. It didn't clean the temp though!
I cleaned a bit manually and then installed SK tools that cleaned my device properly and everything is fine now. It is very simple issue and similar to running out of disk space on a PC.
Bottom line: it is unlikely that usual apps use so much storage. I bet on downloads and big user files left in storage and finally huge temp files as leftovers of unsuccessful uncompressing for example.

Uninstalling apps - anything left behind?

Hi,
I am about to buy my first Android device (HTC Desire), and being a programmer I will of course want to write apps for it.
In the beginning I will naturally test a lot of apps created by others, and I will probably uninstall a lot of them for various reasons (lack of space being one of them).
Now to the question: Will uninstalling an app remove it cleanly and leave no traces behind? I'm not thinking about files possibly generated by the application and stored on the memory card (since that will be manually deletable), but things like settings and possibly files created in inaccessible locations on the device itself.
There is a SQLITE database in the Android system that apps (content providers) can store stuff in. This database obviously takes up space, and the question is if misbehaving applications could store stuff there that would remain after uninstall, effectively leaving garbage behind.
I realize that a hard reset would work to clean everything, but that is a drastic measure.
Assuming no root access, what is the answer to these questions? Please bear with me if these questions are dumb or too basic...
Regards
-Øyvind
To my understanding, apps are spread throughout 4 locations in filesystem.
/data/app - folder for storing apk's
/data/app-private - folder for storing protected apk's
/data/data/{appname} - app storage, settings, db's and so on
/data/dalvik-cache - folder for storing dalvik cache file for an app
From my experience, uninstalling removes all traces of an app from these locations in addition to market link from Market app db. Also with rooted phones manual uninstalling of an app is possible by removing associated content from those 4 locations. Link can also be removed, but that requires a little bit of knowledge of SQL.
If there's something to add to all of this, or if something is wrong, please someone correct me.

[Q] removing app content from SD on uninstall

So I've been searching and searching ... but haven't found anything regarding this.
I've got a considerable amount of content on the SD card ... let's call these "shared pictures" ... storing these on the device memory is a real douchy move because it'll take up a lot of space that the user would want for their apps.
This data is currently stored on the SDCard, but here's the problem: What do I do with this data when the app gets uninstalled?
None of it is protected and it doesn't really matter if it's left on the SD, but why leave clutter behind?
I've been searching for either:
- an uninstall hook: Andy tells me when my app is being uninstalled and I delete my junk
- I register my folder with Andy and when Andy is uninstalling my app, it also deletes the folder.
Is there a standard way to accomplish this on Android?
Thanks.
I am not sure if I understand what you are trying to do. I assume the following:
You have an installed application with it's data in your phone.
You uninstall the app.
Then you are reinstall it and you want your data back.
If this is the situation then you can see this and with little further research you will accomplish it!
Edit: I was incorrect, it depends on the SDK/API level and where you store the data.
See SimonVT's link below
removed
I assume you are NOT refering to the App2SD feature. I haven't found anything that deletes the cached files off the SD card when an app is uninstalled (or even prompts you to for that matter).
But, I know what you mean. I had tried a couple podcast apps and they left HUGE files on my SD without asking me if I wanted to remove them.
I found out because they kept popping up in my Gallery app.
Sent from my EVO using XDApremium. (Support XDA)
removed
To clear things up, I'm writing an app and am mainly wondering if there's a way to know when my app is being uninstalled so I can clean up my app's files.
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App

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