In this guide, we will show you various methods to fix the issue of system storage size being too large on your Motorola device. Over the past few years, Motorola has been the awkward middle child that has been ignored by a major chunk of users. While they offer a near about clean stock UI experience, great value for money, and have more than decent camera, still, there’s the lack of a differentiating factor results in its inability to stand out from the crowds.
Then the fact that it gets bugged with some strange issues from time to time only makes the matter worse for this OEM. The latest example of the same is that numerous Motorola users have voiced their concern that their system storage size has reached an altogether new height, and not in a good way. In most of these cases, this size is roaming around the 88-90GB mark, which is quite astonishing, to say the least.
Some users have reported another weird phenomenon- if they delete a file from their device, then it ends up in their system partition instead of being removed from their device for good. If you are also facing any of these issues, then this guide will make you aware of a couple of nifty workarounds that should help you address this bug. So without further ado, let’s check them out.
Table of Contents
Verify Used System Storage via ADB
In some cases, the Settings menu might not be able to paint the correct or complete picture regarding the used storage size on your device. Therefore, it is recommended you take the help of ADB commands to get the correct data. Here’s how it can be done:
- Head over to Settings > About Phone > Tap on Build Number 7 times.
- This will enable Developer Options. Access it from Settings > System.
- Now enable USB Debugging from there and connect it to PC via USB.
- Then download and extract Android SDK Platform Tools on your PC.
- Open Command Prompt inside this folder and type in the command:
adb shell
- Type the below command and check the Used value of / [Mounted on]
df
- In the above screenshot, you can see that the value of / is 92.7124 GB.
- So this signifies that the system partition is indeed full with 92GB data.
With this, we have at least verified that the issue is not a false positive and the system partition is indeed taking quite a lot of unnecessary space. So let’s proceed ahead and try to implement a few workarounds that might help you rectify this issue. Follow along.
Fix Motorola System Storage Size Too Large
It is recommended that you try out each of the below-mentioned workarounds and then see which one spells out success. Moreover, before starting, please take a complete device backup. Droidwin and its members wouldn’t be held responsible in case of a thermonuclear war, your alarm doesn’t wake you up, or if anything happens to your device and data by performing the below steps.
FIX 1: Empty Trash
Some File Managers as well as Gallery apps [like Google Photos] send the file to Trash and keep it there instead of permanently deleting it [unless you manually change their settings and instruct them not to do so]. So it’s recommended that you access their Trash/Bin and delete the files from there as well.
Google Photos
- Launch the app and tap on the hamburger menu at the top left.
- Then select Trash, select all the files, and hit Delete.
- Finally, tap on Delete in the confirmation prompt that appears.
File Manager
- Launch the File Manager app of your choice.
- Then tap on the hamburger menu at the top left.
- Now select Trash, select all the files, and hit Delete.
- Finally, hit Delete in the confirmation prompt.
Restart your device once all the files across numerous apps have been deleted from the Trash. Now check if the system storage size too large issue is fixed on your Motorola device or not.
FIX 2: Delete System App Data
In some cases, one or two system apps might accrue quite a lot of unwanted data. In my case, the Software Update app was one such culprit that was still holding the 6GB update file even after it had been installed. So to rectify this issue, you’ll have to go through each of the system app’s data and then delete the one that you find redundant.
However, do note that deleting the data of an important system app might have an adverse impact on the OS. Therefore, exercise caution and make sure that you are fully aware of the app whose data you are deleting. All in all, exercise caution and proceed ahead at your own risk.
- First off, head over to Settings > Apps > All Apps.
- Tap on the overflow icon and select Show System.
- Go through the list of all the system apps present.
- After that, have a look at their data usage statistic.
- Now delete the data from the apps aren’t required.
- Finally, restart the device and check out the result.
FIX 3: Format Data
If none of the aforementioned methods worked out in your favor, then your last course of action should be to factory reset your device. If there are any hidden non-accessible and corrupt data then it will delete all of them and might give you your space back. However, it will also delete all the data on your device, so make sure to take a backup of the important data before proceeding ahead.
- Head over to the Settings > System > Reset Options.
- Select Erase All Data [Format Data] > Erase All Data.
- Now follow the on-screen instructions to do the reset.
- Restart your device, set it up, and check out the result.
That’s it. These were the various methods that should help you fix the issue of system storage size being too large on your Motorola device. As far as the official acknowledgment is concerned, the developers had acknowledged this issue and had rolled out a fix, which at that point in time did rectify this issue, however, the issue has since re-surfaced and this time around, there’s no fix in sight, at least at the time of writing. As and when there’s any further development surrounding this, we will update this post accordingly. So stay tuned.
