Unlocked android phone AT&T bloatware removal?

@lizdance40  @tim horton

Thank you, lizdance40 for your awesome, quick response!! 

"I bet Tim has information on adoptable storage, which I believe works on the GS7 series."

I would love to know more about "adoptable storage". I will search for it, and if I can't find adequate info, will be back here! 🙂

" System apps and bloat use about 6 to 8 gigs, not 28.  Some can be uninstalled and you can disable in google play. "

That is so strange. I bought this phone used, factory refurbished. It came with 28GBs of stuff on there. I wonder what is taking so much space.

I will try disabling the apps and see what happens... however, I have tried to uninstall, and the one I want to uninstall can only be disabled from the APPS section in the General Settings. There is no option to uninstall them.

What do you think could be taking up so much space?

Do you think I should factory reset and see how much I have when it restarts?

Thank you so much for your time and thoughts.

-sofiap

@sofiap

I’m inclined to suggest the dreaded “factory reset”.   

It doesn’t surprise me you have 28 gigs filled, but it should be a combination of your apps and data as well as system.  You should be able to store data, like photos and music on SD card.  

But first, it seems you should know exactly what is using your storage.  Can you post a screen shot of the storage?   Should look like....

Adoptable storage is not "native" to GS7, but it can be enabled with some maneuvering. Google the topic if interested in finding out how to do it. Basically it is turning the sd card memory into internal memory so the user memory will include the sd card memory. Sounded too good, but personally I would not touch it. Once you make the conversion, the data in the sd card is no longer readable out of the phone. The phone will not function without the sd card. Sd cards do corrupt sometimes, and the phone most likely will not work then.

The biggest help if you have not done so is to change the default storage of the camera to sd card. Also move the rest of photos currently in the internal memory to sd card.

Go to settings, device maintenance, storage. All the files under the grouping of documents, images, audio, video are potentially be move to sd card.

That left with the files in the app grouping. Uninstall apps you are not using. You can always reinstalled them when you need them again. Some apps can be moved to sd card. You need to try it one by one. Go to settings, app manager, the app, storage, if the app can be moved, you will see a change button. Select sd card and the app will be moved. You can install a third party app (AppMgr Pro), it will group the movable apps together. Unless you are desperate, this is a very tedious process. The gain is not much, and once an app is updated, it would go back to the internal memory again.

By managing the number of apps and moving data to the sd card, I found Galaxy 7 was quite usable. I don't remember ever running out of memory in spite of I like to experiment with a lot of apps.

@lizdance40 & @tim horton

Thank you both for your help!! I have felt so alone for a few months!!

I am going to say I don't want to do the SD card extension because of the possible negatives.

I will go with factory reset if I can't get enough off my phone.

I have been saving all of my pictures to the SD card already, and then delete them as they are saved in Google photos.

I also take movies and record audio, both of which are storage heavy, so I will check where I am storing them.

However, please look at the photo of my storage situation... It has me mighty confused. 🙂

32Gb S7 Edge with low hd memory

Thanks again,

Sofiap

@sofiap

That is a very full phone.   Newer models start with 64 gigs internal.  

@sofiap

6 to 8 gigs are the OS and built in apps.  Everything else is your data (should be).  If you typically have a lot of apps with a lot of data in them, it may be time to accept the obvious.  You need a different phone with more gigs.  

Storage effects speed of processing as well as space to put stuff.  Samsung is notorious for getting sluggish with time.  

I like Samsung, I’ve had several of them, including an S7, but the S8 and S9 blows it out of the water.  I have the S9 now as my business line.  

   Just a plug for my current crush, one plus 5t (on my personal line).  I’ve been watching the one plus since their first phone. The 5t seemed like the time to get on board.  I still have a Samsung on my other line, because you can’t get ATT features without an ATT phone.  But if I could, it would be the one plus alone.  The phone is amazing.  Sleek design, fast...FAST....  and lots of storage, no carrier bloat of course.  But just as much storage is used for the android OS as on any other phone, 6 to 8 gigs.  But with 128 gigs internal, it’s not and issue.  The one plus 6 comes in a 128 and 256 gig version.  

I remember the first PC I worked with had 512 MB’s hard drive.   30 years later and my smartphone makes that computer a joke.

@sofiap

Let's do the math. Apps is 4 Gb, others did not add up to be 1 Gb. You used up more than 31 Gb. I looked up my S9, the system partition is 9.31 Gb, the S7 could not be much bigger than that. So up to 16 Gb of storage is not accounted for.

The storage categories did not account for data, app cache. Could those items eating up your storage space. May be the apps you are using are generating large amount of data? You can do a deeper dive into understanding the storage situation. There is an app "DiskUsage" can give a pretty nice break down on what is using how much storage.

I'd really just like to have the AT&T Contacts app NOT open when I open the Phone app or the Contacts app. I don't care about the rest but I don't see any way to remove or disable the AT&T Contacts app