this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2024
40 points (97.6% liked)

Android

27551 readers
234 users here now

DROID DOES

Welcome to the droidymcdroidface-iest, Lemmyest (Lemmiest), test, bestest, phoniest, pluckiest, snarkiest, and spiciest Android community on Lemmy (Do not respond)! Here you can participate in amazing discussions and events relating to all things Android.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules


1. All posts must be relevant to Android devices/operating system.


2. Posts cannot be illegal or NSFW material.


3. No spam, self promotion, or upvote farming. Sources engaging in these behavior will be added to the Blacklist.


4. Non-whitelisted bots will be banned.


5. Engage respectfully: Harassment, flamebaiting, bad faith engagement, or agenda posting will result in your posts being removed. Excessive violations will result in temporary or permanent ban, depending on severity.


6. Memes are not allowed to be posts, but are allowed in the comments.


7. Posts from clickbait sources are heavily discouraged. Please de-clickbait titles if it needs to be submitted.


8. Submission statements of any length composed of your own thoughts inside the post text field are mandatory for any microblog posts, and are optional but recommended for article/image/video posts.


Community Resources:


We are Android girls*,

In our Lemmy.world.

The back is plastic,

It's fantastic.

*Well, not just girls: people of all gender identities are welcomed here.


Our Partner Communities:

!android@lemmy.ml


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Greeting all, I've only ever been an android user, but I don't think I've ever heard anyone talk about this. My Galaxy S21 is starting to have performance issues and I'm curious if a clean install would breath new life into it?

Does this help with android devices like a fresh install on a PC, or do android devices just get bogged down with updates? Would it be worth the trouble to back things up and do a factory reset?

Thanks!

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Uninstall enough apps and you'll see the crap left around.

And yes, MSI is mature compared to Android, by a country mile (as much as it sucks. I've done app packaging since the mid-90's, before MSI, and what a massive difference it made). Even with it's challenges that are largely a result of having a no-rules OS at first, just like Android, it very rarely has issues today, and then usually just for trying to do things that are work-around for apps that don't want to follow guidelines (very few of them anymore, 99% of the time I can just run through setup and let it build the difference file). Most apps today take a matter of hours, including full testing, when they used to take days.

In theory Android has a cleaner app install/uninstall process (it's really good, and getting better), but it still leaves stuff around sometimes. I've seen it plenty. I'm not sure why it happens, I just know what I see. App data folders left behind, downloaded files left behind (even with scope, because the download folder is still used).

Just because the latest versions of Android have scoped storage doesn't mean that there isn't crap spread around. Having reset many phones I've seen the difference between just uninstalling all your apps and wiping the partition.

I have folders all over the place that no uninstall will touch. My download folder is currently 8gb, and no app uninstall will clean that.

I have a half dozen folders from apps that are no longer on my phone. One has a file in it dating from over a year ago...I remember testing the app then, and uninstalling it.

Just yesterday I reinstalled an app and expected to have to create a new user account for it, but it found it's old data folder from when I uninstalled it in August.

[–] Atemu@lemmy.ml 1 points 8 months ago

it still leaves stuff around sometimes. I’ve seen it plenty.

You still haven't declared what this "stuff" is and, more importantly, where it leaves it.

App data folders left behind

What kind of "app data folders"? In /data/data/? I doubt it.

downloaded files left behind

Duh. If the user downloaded files through the app and explicitly told the app to put those in downloads, those should remain. It's user data at that point, not app data.

Downloads are also just inane user files. They won't slow anything down (again, excluding excessive storage use; causing free space issues).