The One Show

[Guest chris9181]

Hi

I watched a feature on smartphones recently as they were talking about security if you lose it. One other thing they said was that when you delete something, it doesn't really delete it.

This made me come up with the following questions if you can help please:

1) I checked my internal phone storage and the free memory was 99mb. I then unistalled an app through 'manage applications' in setting which was 5mb, but when I went back to check available memory in settings it had only risen to 101mb?! If this happens a lot we are wasting alot of memory.

2) Is there something that we can do to sort this problem and ensure the phone gets cleaned up of stuff we thought we had deleted. I presume over time it also slows the phone up?

Cheers

Chris

[Guest StevenHarperUK]

Hi

I watched a feature on smartphones recently as they were talking about security if you lose it. One other thing they said was that when you delete something, it doesn't really delete it.

This made me come up with the following questions if you can help please:

1) I checked my internal phone storage and the free memory was 99mb. I then unistalled an app through 'manage applications' in setting which was 5mb, but when I went back to check available memory in settings it had only risen to 101mb?! If this happens a lot we are wasting alot of memory.

2) Is there something that we can do to sort this problem and ensure the phone gets cleaned up of stuff we thought we had deleted. I presume over time it also slows the phone up?

Cheers

Chris

Most file systems work by having the first part of the disk store where all the files are located on the disk.

This is called the File Allocation Table in FAT32 and there are similar thing in other Filesystems.

When you delete a file on your computer (or phone) the Allocation Table is updated to not point at the bits on disk.

The Actual Data stored in the disk is not blanked (over written)

You can get File Shredders/Scrubbers to remove/overwrite the location on disk; a good one is http://www.fileshredder.org/

It can also wipe all the currently unused bits of disk.

However before you do that try running a tool to look on your disk and see what you (think you) have deleted http://www.piriform.com/recuva

Recuva will also let you scrub files you think you have already deleted.

However back to the point..

Android is not always truly accurate when it states how Big an App is - When it delete's it - it does actually delete the files from the Allocation table and the space is fee to use again

What you are seeing it probably very normal - some apps are not accurate on their size - don't worry. You are getting your space back.

Steve

Edited November 18, 2010 by StevenHarperUK