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Does Android benefit from a clean install?

Greeting all, I’ve only ever been an android user, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone talk about this. My Galaxy S21 is starting to have performance issues and I’m curious if a clean install would breath new life into it?

Does this help with android devices like a fresh install on a PC, or do android devices just get bogged down with updates? Would it be worth the trouble to back things up and do a factory reset?

Thanks!

henfredemars ,

I know this question was from last week, but I have an only slightly different angle that I’d like to share.

Android doesn’t benefit from reinstallation in the same way that a PC does because it uses a different app model. A PC can slow down due to accumulation of useless junk files, plugins, and services running in the background that you no longer use. On Android, you can have junk apps, but Android does a good job of bringing them to your attention by requiring a notification while an app runs in the background or else the apps and services get heavily throttled to avoid using the CPU if the user doesn’t access the app regularly. Android also provides clean removal of all files when you delete an application. Apps are very self-contained with few exceptions. If you removed all the apps you downloaded, the system is pretty much the same as its factory reset state.

In the really old days, a PC could slow down due to fragmentation of the files on the disc over years of use. This is no longer a significant problem because flash storage offers fast random access even to highly fragmented files. Manufacturers actually recommend against attempting to defragment this media.

BearOfaTime ,

Factory reset is probably all you need.

This wipes the user data partition, which deletes all your apps, and it also deletes any accounts on the phone.

Do that, then run the Universal Debloat Utility disabling only the “safe” category. github.com/0x192/universal-android-debloater

This is about the best you can easily do on Samsung, since they’re a bit bloated. It’s made a significant difference on some lower-end Sammy’s of friends and family (like the A series).

Alternatively, if you don’t want to reset everything, you can try uninstalling what you don’t use (or anything that would be easy to reinstall), then run SD Maid and have it clean up orphans, etc. Then run Debloat.

Keep in mind that as your data partition fills up, it can slow the phone. I find that under about 15%-20% free space I start to see lags.

PlantObserver ,

Up until December I was still using my old S10 without slowdown. Never factory reset, just debloated via adb and used KISS launcher (minimal mode). Since it was a snapdragon one, I couldn’t unlock the bootloader to install a custom rom. Had I been able to, I wouldn’t have bothered switching to a pixel and graphene os yet. Point being, if you debloat your phone using adb you should be fine in terms of slowdown. There’s guides on GitHub for what packages to remove safely.

If you are able to unlock the bootloader and use a custom OS, even better.

xarexyouxmadx ,

I think it’s likely updates. The phone was originally built with an earlier version of the OS in mind. Just a guess. I feel like this happens to all my phones eventually.

Fwiw I have an old s21 fe version that I still play with (I have a pixel 8 now) and it feels more sluggish than it used to.

x2XS2L0U ,

If you’d install something like lineageOS you might be better off, because your phone doesn’t have to run all the bloatware Samsung ships with their devices. Some nice features of the device may not work then, though. I run custom roms on all my android devices.

Infinite_Indecision OP ,
@Infinite_Indecision@midwest.social avatar

I’ve considered doing this but I’m hesitant to do this for the first time on my primary device. I figure when I upgrade I may keep this phone to experiment on.

x2XS2L0U ,

You may have a look at places like xda-developers forum to find out about the support your phone has. Some devices are hard to run custom ROMs on. If the support is good there’s nothing in the way to use it reliably on a daily basis

Atemu ,
@Atemu@lemmy.ml avatar

Not really. If you uninstalled all apps, you’d effectively end up in the same state as a clean install (modulo system settings). Reversely, if you did a clean wipe and then installed all of your apps again, you’d end up in roughly the same state as before.

In 9/10 cases, it’s not the OS that’s bogging down your device but the apps. Take a look at memory usage and uninstall or stop things you don’t need running in the background.

BearOfaTime ,

There’s quite a bit of stuff that builds up that app installers don’t remove. Because Android is still pretty open, the rules around this stuff aren’t as mature as say the Windows MSI database.

When you factory reset, the entire user-data partition is wiped.

On a rooted phone I can emulate a data wipe by uninstalling apps and manually deleting a lot of stuff.

On a non-rooted phone, uninstalling then using tools like SD Maid will get you pretty far, maybe fsr enough to not notice the difference.

Atemu ,
@Atemu@lemmy.ml avatar

There’s quite a bit of stuff that builds up that app installers don’t remove.

Such as?

Because Android is still pretty open, the rules around this stuff aren’t as mature as say the Windows MSI database.

“Mature” and anything relating to the insanity that is Windows package management do not belong in the same sentence.

By default, Android has pretty strict guidelines where apps are even allowed to store state to begin with and will wipe all of those places upon uninstall. Integration state (default apps, app-related system settings etc.) is quite minimal and I’ve never had any remaining after an app has been uninstalled.
The only possible leftover state after uninstall I can think of is things apps can store in the user storage (“sdcard”) when given explicit permission to do so.

Besides, app data storage of any sort is unlikely to “bog down” your phone anyways unless usage is abnormally excessive, making you run into IO or free space issues.

BearOfaTime ,

Uninstall enough apps and you’ll see the crap left around.

And yes, MSI is mature compared to Android, by a country mile (as much as it sucks. I’ve done app packaging since the mid-90’s, before MSI, and what a massive difference it made). Even with it’s challenges that are largely a result of having a no-rules OS at first, just like Android, it very rarely has issues today, and then usually just for trying to do things that are work-around for apps that don’t want to follow guidelines (very few of them anymore, 99% of the time I can just run through setup and let it build the difference file). Most apps today take a matter of hours, including full testing, when they used to take days.

In theory Android has a cleaner app install/uninstall process (it’s really good, and getting better), but it still leaves stuff around sometimes. I’ve seen it plenty. I’m not sure why it happens, I just know what I see. App data folders left behind, downloaded files left behind (even with scope, because the download folder is still used).

Just because the latest versions of Android have scoped storage doesn’t mean that there isn’t crap spread around. Having reset many phones I’ve seen the difference between just uninstalling all your apps and wiping the partition.

I have folders all over the place that no uninstall will touch. My download folder is currently 8gb, and no app uninstall will clean that.

I have a half dozen folders from apps that are no longer on my phone. One has a file in it dating from over a year ago…I remember testing the app then, and uninstalling it.

Just yesterday I reinstalled an app and expected to have to create a new user account for it, but it found it’s old data folder from when I uninstalled it in August.

Atemu ,
@Atemu@lemmy.ml avatar

it still leaves stuff around sometimes. I’ve seen it plenty.

You still haven’t declared what this “stuff” is and, more importantly, where it leaves it.

App data folders left behind

What kind of “app data folders”? In /data/data/? I doubt it.

downloaded files left behind

Duh. If the user downloaded files through the app and explicitly told the app to put those in downloads, those should remain. It’s user data at that point, not app data.

Downloads are also just inane user files. They won’t slow anything down (again, excluding excessive storage use; causing free space issues).

Infinite_Indecision OP ,
@Infinite_Indecision@midwest.social avatar

Thank you. I fairly compulsively keep apps closed to free up memory and also don’t keep many extra apps installed.

Atemu ,
@Atemu@lemmy.ml avatar

Note that Android usually does a pretty good job of that by itself. Make sure you’re not using (zram) swap or anything that would confuse Android’s memory management.
If your RAM isn’t >50% full, memory used by apps likely isn’t the issue. Keep an eye on that.

knotthatone ,

Short answer, maybe, but go through your installed apps first & get rid of crap you don’t use. Even if you still decide to do a factory reset, no sense re-downloading garbage apps. Your phone is still modern enough it shouldn’t feel slow day-to-day so it’s probably one or more shitty apps causing the problem.

Infinite_Indecision OP ,
@Infinite_Indecision@midwest.social avatar

Thanks for the advice. I keep installed apps to a minimum for data privacy purposes. I’ll see if there is any other fat to trim though

verdantbanana ,
@verdantbanana@lemmy.world avatar

depends

as long as it is an android image from the manufacturer for the drivers

beyond that the part that contains the operating system the memory module is the same as desktop/ laptop, auto, and any other computers in one regard

anything that contains, reads, or writes data will eventually lose integrity usually at 2-3 years sometimes up to five years

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