Community

Daddino

Good day everyone.
After struggling for months looking for a solution online, i've tried all the fancy soluntions i found, but they didnt help at all...
so i've decided to make this "official" attempt...

my phone is a Xperia Z3 Compact of course and my android version is 6.0.1

my problem is the thumbnail files created automatically in DCIM folder in internal memory.

I've setted the phone to save photos on SD card of course, but the thumbnails are obviously always saved in the internal storage.

the problem is, that these thumbnail files are getting bigger everyday (now they are 2 and they are almost a GB each) and no matter if i delete all the photos and videos in the phone, they thumbnails remain and remain that huge. (and keep on getting bigger and bigger)

if i delete the thumbnails manually (using ES FILE EXPLORER, for example) they do disappear for a while, but is like they hide somewhere, because the space on the internal memory wont be free.. and after a while, the old fellows (thumbnails) will appear again, as huge as they were in the moment i've deleted them.

i did the phone reset twice, and it does work, the thumbnails disappear, and when they appear they are tiny tiny files... but they will grow fast and huge again...
but hard reset is a mess... need to set up the phone again, lose the conversations, the apps... is not an option doing it monthly...

so is there some way to avoid creating these tumor files? or most likely, is there a way to reset these thumbnails? so that even they are created again, even they will grow again, at least can have a breath, a fresh start for a while

THANK YOU SO MUUUUCH!

Hardy66

These .thumbdata3 --... files seem to be used by the gallery app to load the thumbnails of images quicker. I have the same files (with exactly the same names) but with "only" 300MB each (maybe I'm having less photos ...)

In another forum (http://androidforums.com/threads/dcim-thumbdata3-1967290299.801052/) I found the hint to delete the .thumbdata3--... files and replace them with empty folders with exavtly the same name to avoid them being recreated.

I've not tried this by myself yet, but hopefully that works for you!

Daddino

Thank you for your message!
Unfortunately, I've tried that before and the result is: deleting manually those files won't free the space in the internal memory, and creating the folder as they advice to do, the phone will get nuts... But the space will remain occupied by the ghost thumbnail files...

And as I said... Even I delete all the photos and videos in my phone... The thumbnail files will remain that huge.

Hardy66

After moving one of the two .thumbdata files to SDcard I can confirm that there is no internal memory set free by this. Copying back the .thumbdata file to internal memory resulted in 300MB (the size of the .thambdata file in my case) less free memory, but deleting it again freed up these 300MB again.

While searching the web I stumbled over this post http://androidforums.com/threads/huge-thumbdata4-file-in-dcim-folder.616164/page-2 , in particular post #28, stating these files could be sparse files, that show up in the OS with (much) more memory than they actually use. By the way, zipping that .thumbdata file reduced its size by a factor of 100.

This would at least explain:

- why in http://androidforums.com/threads/huge-thumbdata4-file-in-dcim-folder.616164/ post #11, first photo the sum of all memory used (applications, pictrures&videos, downloads etc.) is significantly higher than what is stated in "total space"

- why I only see some 50MB memory occupied in "pictures, videos", although there is still one 300MB .thumbdata in DCIM (probably Marshmellow reports sparse files correctly, the picture in the post above is definitely from an earlier version of Android as it is 3 years old ...)

Now that doesn't free up more valuable memory, but it could be an explanation at least...

Daddino

well, i think you may really be right with your research, intuition and assumption.

i'll have a few tests and will let you know my verdict! hehehe

thanks and see you later

Daddino

Thank you Hardy

after a few tests, seems that is exactly how you said.

the size of those files seems to be "fake". they really seem to be sparse files (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparse_file)

zipping both of them, they become 3 MB.. i guess it means they are really mostly empty

and calculating other apps, files and stuff... seems that these "fake huge" files are really ghosts.. they are there, they look huge but they almost dont occupy space.

so it's all about DISTRACTING.

thanks once more

Hardy66

Hey Daddino,

thanks for reporting your test results, so searching for the GB's appearently occupied by these files is like chasing ghosts ...

have a nice day!

thiago_chi

Hi there,

I've been facing the problem with the huge thumbnail file in my xperia z3 compact. I also tried all the alternatives like deleting or replacing with an empty file with same name then I found this forum and got to know about the sparce files. So you marked the case as solved, I'm wondering if you are just ignoring the huge files... What about the messages of full storage and the stop of updatings and impossibility of new installations or downloads? Have someone faced that as well?

Thank you for any advise!

Cheers

Daddino

what can i say, i've just checked again... and seems these huge files really occupy the space... but seems there is no solution anyway, at least i havent found any...

EXCEPT ONE, a creepy one...

backup your stuff and reset the phone, then install everything back and restore your stuff... you'll see the your space will be free... for a while!

tajfun

I did a search for the no-free-space issue and found solution (for me at least). There are some forum posts that describe this issue.

The 'move apps to SD card' works as intended, even though it doesn't as we laymen want it to work. We would like it to move the app to SD card completely with all the data, and expect it to reside and live there from that moment. However, the process only moves the main app file (I think it has .apk extension) to the external memory. The rest is up to the app itself. So unless the app developer allows the data to be moved there (usually via app interface), the Android OS can't do anything about it.

And really, I made transition to some other apps (e.g. 'The Podcast Source' to 'Podcast Addict') and is they have the option in their settings, their data really moves to the external memory, allowing the space in internal storage for OS/other apps usage.