How can i reduce the storage on my device

[Alan Bundy]

I'm getting error messages on my Lumia 640 XL that I am close to filling up the storage on my device and I should move some of it to my SD card, which has plenty of room. It recommends going to settings/system/storage to sort this out. I have done this, but cannot solve the problem that way.

Storage shows that I have used 7.01/7.23 GB of device storage, and only 6.17/28.9 GB of my SD card storage. However, all my options of where to store things are set to SD card, so I can't solve the problem with these options. If I go to files app it confusingly shows 6.17/22.8 GB used for both phone and SC card. If I look inside the phone folder, a trivial amount is shown as stored there.

I wonder where the phone stores One Drive documents. This has nearly 10GBs in it. Similarly, Dropbox, which is also very large. I can't see either on my device or SD card. Are they just accessed via the cloud or downloaded locally. If downloaded, then these could account for the overloading of my device storage.

If not these cloud services, then what could be taking up the space? I don't have a lot of apps - and I purged many of them the first time this warning message appeared. I can't see where they are stored, but I know they tend to be stored on the SC card unless they have to be on the device. While I was writing this I discovered the 'clear cache' option on Dropbox. This reduce the device storage to 6.99 GB, which helps, but not much. I can't find a similar clear cache option in One Drive.

How can I find out what is using all the space on the device and how can I move it to the SD card or reduce it?

 

[Alan Bundy]

I've now found out how to explore what is stored in my device memory. It seems that, of the 7.00/7.28 GB used, 5.69 is system & reserved and 1.03 GB is apps and games. All other folders are either just MBs or are empty. Since the apps and games stored are nearly all Microsoft products that I can't uninstall, it seems that nearly all the storage on the device is taken up with Microsoft s/w, i.e., they have filled my phone almost to its capacity. There seems to be no way to remove any of this. Updates will inevitably increase this storage - functionality is never reduced or stored more efficiently. It seems that, quite soon now, my phone storage will exceed its capacity and there's nothing I can do about it. Given that this is essentially a Microsoft phone, it seems they have given little regard to the effects of their actions.

 

[Alan Bundy]

My mail app is by far the most space consuming app stored on my phone's drive with 0.75 GB of data recorded as stored. This seem like the only element of storage on my drive that I had any control over. On the assumption that this data consisted of emails, I've archived a lot of my email to local folders on my desktop. Unfortunately, it has made hardly any difference. Suspecting that the data might be cached emails, I tried the reset button in the mail app, but this was grayed out and pressing it had no effect.

Instead, I tried the 'get help' button. This connected me to voicemail followed by a phone call from a call centre, which I assume was in the USA. The women I spoke to did not seem to understand my problem and I struggled to understand her accent. She recommended I try support.b2x.com, which I have just done. Unfortunately, this site just contains FAQs, none of which addressed my problem.

I'm disappointed that no one has responded to my request for help, which I first posted on 23rd Nov. Surely, I can't be the only one with this problem. Other Lumia 640s will only have 8GB of device store, most of which seems to be taken by Windows 10 OS and MS apps that I am unable to move to my SD card. I'm worried that my phone's memory will soon fill up and the phone will become unusable.

 

[Olumayowa Odebiyi]

Hello! This is a common problem with this phone. Can't talk about others as I've only used this sufficiently enough to make any statement about it.

This is also similar to the problem I also have and have been unable to find assistance to help correct the problem. Still don't have any answers yet too. However, I'm assuming this is just poor planning or negligence on the part of Microsoft, not to have fully tested products released to the market.

 

[Alan Bundy]

The problem has become acute as I am no longer able to install updates on my phone. There is insufficient memory left for the update process to complete.

I'm wondering whether the route of the problem is that I upgraded my phone from Win 8 mobile to Win 10. Does Win 10 use up more system memory than the phone can afford. Would I be better to revert back to Win 8 mobile? Is this is even possible? If so, how does one do it?

 

[Aravind Belagaje]

This problem normally happens when system update got crashed or phone got rebooted during the update.

As of my knowledge the only solution is hard reset. Goto settings->system->about->more -> reset

Note:this will erase all data in phone make sure to backup before reset.

 

[Alan Bundy]

This problem normally happens when system update got crashed or phone got rebooted during the update.

As of my knowledge the only solution is hard reset. Goto settings->system->about->more -> reset

Note:this will erase all data in phone make sure to backup before reset.

Unfortunately, I live in the UK and its seems that reset only works in the USA. I did try it already and 'reset' was greyed out. When I looked on the web I got this information that it did not work outside the USA.

 

[Olumayowa Odebiyi]

Hello! I use a Microsoft Lumia 640 xl. The hard reset was what I'd just done and it rather went successfully.

It created more than enough space on my phone, and correcting some other issues. Most importantly, it was the opportunity it gave to uninstall apps like wallet and Xbox that don't work here in Africa (Nigeria). This further added to the needed space on the device

Don't know if this helps anyone else. It sure worked for me.