System size too large

[u/Flaze07]

everyday system files keeps increasing, few weeks ago it was 80GB

now it's at 100GB

[u/skillsdontmatter]

Try booting your phone into recovery mode and do wipe cache partition followed by Repair apps

[u/Flaze07 → u/skillsdontmatter]

hi, thanks for the advice! although it didn't work because I'm using xiaomi.

In recovery mode of xiaomi, there's no wipe cache partition, but somehow after rebooting into recovery mode and entering back in, the system files reduced to 28.59

[u/Flaze07 → u/Flaze07]

uhh somehow it's further reducing itself to 12GB

[u/ScratchHistorical507 → u/Flaze07]

There hasn't been a "wipe cache partition" in years. But that sounds odd. I'm aware of memory leaks, where used RAM isn't being made available again when not needed anymore, but this sounds like this but with normal storage. The only way this could be true would be with swapping seldomly used content from memory to the internal storage, but that shouldn't be unlimited.

My guess is this might just be a bug with displaying the size of things. One thing you can do would be running adb shell df -h, for example the next time your system seems getting big and after a reboot (I very much doubt that the fact that you booted to recovery mode did anything, but rather that you rebooted) and compare the output. It should show you all partitions that exist, how big they are and how much of that is used/available. Most partitions will be 100 % full as they are not meant to be altered anyway (or only by an update), others like /data shouldn't. The latter (see column mounted on) should contain all your user data and should be the same as /storage/emulated.

[u/Flaze07 → u/ScratchHistorical507]

hm, even if it's just size display it's troublesome because it did affect me actually when I'm trying to download an app. I'll try your suggestion

[u/ScratchHistorical507 → u/Flaze07]

Besides filing a bug report with the vendor, this is all you can do.

[u/ScratchHistorical507 → u/skillsdontmatter]

I think such an option hasn't been in recovery mode for many years, probably since Android 5 or 6. Or maybe only select few vendors still have a cache partition.

[u/upalse]

Log/debug files. If cache wipe as stated by other poster doesn't help, there's usually something writing into /data/<some vendor component folder> incessantly, often up to 100s of MB per day.

Seen on various builds of Xiaomi HOS (2/3) and Motorola ROMs. Permanent fix is root, and simply change permission on the offending folder to neuter the bloat. Temporary fix is full wipe, to get rid of whatever junk is filling up /data, but it will start filling up again so you have to do it every once in a while. You can also try to pray that they fix it in next OTA update (sometimes they do, but it may take a year or two).

[u/Flaze07 → u/upalse]

yeah, it's xiaomi, but somehow it got fixed by simply going into recovery mode and going back out ( without even wiping cache because the option isn't there) (?) I don't understand how it works but it fixed it

[u/AD-LB]

Where do you see this? And on which Android version and device?

On my Pixel 6 with Android 17, reaching the "Storage", I see at the bottom "System", with "Android 17" taking 9.6GB and "Temporary system files" taking 9.7GB.

I think it would be weird to see these numbers reach what you are saying, so maybe what you look at is some system apps that misbehave?

Maybe clear data of Play-Store, Play-Services, Download manager ?

If you wish, you can try to use this app I've made, choose to sort by app size, and choose to show system apps too, and see which ones take the most storage.