The cache partition probably increased somewhat, maybe some apps were updated. Try deleting it. Check in the file manager to see what is taking up all the space. 2GB of free space is not really enough for updates to happen. It is important also to note that wiping the cache partition does not clear the cache on individual apps. Try going to the storage settings of the big cache users, such as social media, email, web browsers and google apps and clearing the cache of each app.
It did it again.. the other night it took all my free space. I did a reboot and got apx 600 mb . But that didn't get it back..I cleared a couple cashes, deleted system cache. I'm still up to only 1 gb
Is there any way to get this back and prevent these system functions?.(updating or whatever)
It's a peculiar phenomenon on computing devices that the closer you are to your maximum storage limit, the faster the free space fills up. The free space on your device is used as a swap file for apps to work, updates and backups to happen. It's not always a matter of cache filling up. The free space will fill and empty depending on what processes are going on at any given time. If you are that close to your storage maximum, you might want to consider removing some apps that you rarely or no longer use, moving your photos and/or music onto a flash drive or other external device and clearing out any downloaded documents you no longer need by deleting or moving them to a flash drive. Don't forget to empty your trash.
You don't have to care about backups or updates. This is the way the space is used. It's not just OS updates, it's also app updates and it's the opening of apps and space for open apps to function. Your phone (any computing device) needs to have a minimum amount of free space in order to function properly. The fact of matter is, as I said, the closer you are to your maximum capacity the faster the free space fills up. It will soon come to the point where some or most of your apps will cease to function. You will have to either upgrade your phone to one with larger storage or uninstall some unneeded/unused apps and offload documents, downloads, photos. Those are your only options. Your phone is functioning normally. There is not something wrong with it.
Something happened that's different than the normal daily pattern that took it at once during night when nothing I was doing could cause it so I was asleep ..I noticed it happened apx 2 weeks ago. So maybe something that it does every 2 weeks?
If it's updates I don't want that.my capacity is 256g plus a 1 tb memory card.
Are you saying that when it gets less the os takes space at a faster rate? Why?
Even when I remove stuff ( I cleared about a gig of caches. It still didn't bring me back again to the 2.3 gig plus the 300 mb file I deleted .
I'm still at only 1 gig free
To have this game so that I'm constantly deleting stuff so the operating system can balloon it i dont like.
How much free space do I need to leave so it will stop taking what's not cache?
I do not want any updates or backups taking my space, if that's what it is
I am saying that there needs to be a certain amount of free space on the device because apps take up space when they open and function, updates and backups need swap space (you may not want the updates and backups, but they are not optional anymore). Just like on computers. Since the PC hard drive was invented, you needed to keep at least 10% of the drive space free on a windows computer (don't know about MAC) to allow for expansion of the operating system after updates and, of course, for adding programs. This was in addition to the swap file which was needed for programs to function. On a phone, the cache space acts as the swap file for the operating system. It does not have a set size, but expands and (presumably) contracts. This is a separate space from where apps land when they download and install. I don't know what happened to the space you cleared, but I do know that the less space you have left, the faster it seems to fill up. Most programs can no longer be run off of an SD card, but certain ones may still be able to be moved there. If you check an app's storage settings, if there's an icon that says "change", you can move it to the SD card. It may affect performance of the app, though. The SD card expansion is really supposed to be used for storage of other things like music, photos, documents and downloads. You can check which apps you may be able to move to regain more space.
