Android Misc. storage space is huge after deleting spotify

[jonrs]

Hello everyone,

I have a spotify premium account. I use an LG L90 phone running android 5.0.2 which was running the spotify app (I don't remember what version it was, but it was a recent update)

This morning I got an error message when I opened spotify. It said that it could not download anymore because there was no space left on my device.

Then I went into my settings -> general -> storage space and saw that both my SD card and internal storage had less than 1 GB left. 

I saw in my Avast! Cleanup app that spotify was taking up nearly 4,4 GB of space. So I removed the spotify app to see what would happen. 

This was succesful. Afterwards I got a message from ES File Explorer app that a few GBs of storage from spotify could be removed, but I declined that.

But then I noticed that the Misc. category in internal storage space had grown from roughly 80 MB to 4,4 GB, while there is now nearly 5 GB free on my SD card.

I think that deleting spotify caused this growth in used internal storage space, that's why I'm posting here. Does anybody know if it is indeed spotify causing this problem? And does anybody know how to reduce that Misc. storage space? I looked all over the internet, but I couldn't find any answers.

Thank you in advance

Edit: I clicked on Misc. and it showed me that System Data was taking up a little over 4 GB, seems fair enough. But when I view my internal storage in my DiskUsage app, it tells me that System Data only takes up about 95 MB. So I'm confused if the 4GB usage in Misc. is my System Data or if Spotify (or some other hidden program) caused it

Edit 2: I know I'm talking to myself at this point, but I think I found something that works (at least for me)?

I followed the info in this thread: https://community.spotify.com/t5/Help-Android/Downloading-music-to-external-SD-card-another-one/m-p/...To empty my cache and re-install spotify.

Then when I downloaded a playlist of about 60 songs to test, the System Data and Misc. dropped from 4,44 to 4,08 GB. So I think it's not the system that's taking all the space, it has something to do with spotify. 

After a few tries of removing caches, re-installing and re-downloading playlists I found a way to reduce all that space that was being taken.

First I followed the info in the thread I just linked. Then I downloaded only one small playlist in extreme quality, then I did the rest in normal quality to save space. All of them were saved onto the external SD card, thus freeing up space in my Internal Storage. 

After downloading all the playlists I need and deleting rubbish files with Avast! Cleanup app, the Misc./System data dropped to 2.65 GB. Spotify now takes up only 2 GB of space. So now I have enough storage (both Internal Storage and SD card) to keep me going for now.

I realize I kind of solved my own problem here, but I hope this helps someone. Sorry if it sounds unclear!

[Adam_B]

Hey @jonrs!

This could be down to a cache issue on your phone.

Can you try removing all your offline devices here?

Please note: You'll then need to re-sync any offline tracks.

Then, try removing your SD card before reinstalling the app.

Let us know how your storage looks once you re-sync your offline tracks.

[Tch72]

Hi did you ever get to the bottom of this completely? I'm having a similar issue with an HTC One M8 - despite downloaded songs themselves going to the SD card, the app was running up tons of internal 'app' storage whenever I streamed a track so I tried deleting the cache/data, but all that did was move the internal chunk from 'app' storage to 'system' storage. Which was alarming.

Your fix with the re-downloading of playlists and stuff is gradually switching it back from 'system' to 'app', but the fact remains that it is still there and will eventually kill my internal storage. Any ideas how to get rid altogether?! Or solve another way?

[jonrs]

Hey @Adam_B and @Tch72, thank you for your replies! The method I posted about helped for a long time, so thats why it took me so long to go back to this forum. However, after some time, I started experiencing the problem again. Its pretty much exactly how you described it, @Tch72. So it turns out that my fix was only temporary.

I tried your fix, Adam, but unfortunately, it didn't help. It didn't have a significant impact on the size of misc. storage as far as I could tell. Thank you for the suggestion, though!

I have found something that might be helpful though, which is doing a clean reinstall (how to here: https://support.spotify.com/is/article/reinstallation-of-spotify/).

It seems like it could be effective, since I think this cleans every trace of spotify of the device. I haven't been able to do this yet though, since I can't find the com.spotify.music folder in my device. Let me know if it works for you!

So for now, I haven't been able to find a solution to this problem unfortunately. Until I find something, I'll keep my offline tracks in a seperate folder and only sync that. In my experience, this takes up a lot less memory that downloading all my saved songs

[Habdank]

Hi,

In my humble opinion all this statements about removing spotify and installing it again it really bad way of solving SW problems.

Such an app shall tidy up it self. I understand, when app like "camera" cannot delete own space, as it has no clue which photos may delete.

But spotify itself makes mess in the memory, so the problem shall be solved by Spotify and not by endless manual cashe cleanups or reinstalling app, which takes time (as all connection information shall be set again and again).

Best regards,

Seweryn.

P.S. @ Spotify team - is there anything on the roadmap to solve that issue, or users shall send bills for the SDs and reduce monthly payments to "solve" that issue?

[Tch72]

Hi @jonrs yeah my situation is the same... been getting by with it for a while (about a year, judging by the date of my last post!) but as the rest of my phone has filled up it has become a problem again.

Tried looking at it again today as I hadn't done so for a while, but having deleted cache/data in the Spotify app, from android app manager and uninstalling the Spotify app itself I ended up with 7gb or so just sitting in 'System' on my internal storage.

At this point, I can only assume there was some irreversible corruption or something with the original install. It doesn't look like a solution has been posted anywhere else so I guess a factory reset is the only remaining option!

Disappointing outcome...