CCleaner, Cooler Master, Memory Booster, All-In-One Toolbox - Brief review based on questions from the comments. Where are images stored on Android? What is DCIM and thumbnails

Again I return to the Android operating system and its “features”. These unpleasant features come out at the most inopportune times. You know this yourself. But has it ever happened to you that applications did not want to be installed on your phone or, suddenly, the memory turned out to be full of something completely incomprehensible? Have you heard anything about sketch files? No?

In my case of a sudden lack of space for installing applications and incomprehensible errors, I blame the mechanism for creating thumbnail files. I couldn't install it several times. required applications due to the fact that an error occurred during installation or the application refused to be installed due to a small quantity free space on disk. And I also didn't take many interesting shots. Unfortunately, some advice from the Internet for solving this problem is contradictory or does not work at all.

It is clear that this angered me. Below the cut I will tell you how I looked for the memory eater and got rid of it. Initial reference data:

— Archive of photos of the Camera application by default is located in the phone at /mnt/sdcard/DCIM/ (you can save phone memory if you install applications and store photos on the memory card. I wrote how to do this in a post about basic questions about Android - “ “ ).

— Thumbnail files for the Camera application are located on the phone at /mnt/sdcard/DCIM/.thumbnails/

I did not set up super-user (root) rights (with root everything is done in two seconds - access rights are changed right in the phone), but I installed two applications and connected the phone to the computer once.

Attention! Next are 3 ways. You can skim everything. They work correctly on all devices for me. On Android 6.0.1, the .thumbnails folder is deleted and space is freed up (see bottom of post). The third method is simpler.

Preparation. First I installed Android app Assistant and Total Commander. Launched Android Assistant. On the “Toolkit” tab, I selected “Clean up the system”. In the line “Sketch files” I indicated a volume of 778.93 MB. Not weak, right? Clicking on exclamation mark in the triangle I saw the contents of the folder (copies of photos from the gallery) and the file directory. Here you can delete them selectively by checking the box next to each file, or by checking the “Sketch files” box, you can clear the entire sketch folder at once. This help is temporary. After viewing the gallery, shooting, installing applications, the folder will be filled with files again.

Method 1. Next, I connected the phone to the computer (two new drives appeared in Explorer: internal memory phone and the memory card installed in the phone) and found the DCIM folder in the root of the first disk of the phone - path Sdcard/DCIM/ (DCIM folders store photos and videos from the phone’s camera). There is also a .thumbnails folder in the DCIM folder in which these very sketches are stored, which so suddenly interfere with my life. In addition to the photos, the .thumbnails folder also contained the .thumbdata4-1967290299 file (you will have different numbers). Here's what it looked like:

First I deleted the .thumbnails folder.

Instead of the .thumbnails folder, I created an empty one text file, which was renamed to thumbnails for which it was set to “Read Only” in the properties.

Why did I create a thumbnails file? The point is that I will make a file of the same name in the .thumbnails folder with a zero size, but I will prohibit anyone from writing anything into it. Why didn't I put a period before thumbnails? Because the operating room Windows system does not allow you to work with files whose names begin with a dot. From her point of view, such a file does not have a name, but only the extension .thumbnails. Android, like its ancestors Linux and Unix, perfectly tolerates the period at the beginning of the name and considers such a file hidden. I got distracted. In short, don’t put an end to it, but specify the “Read-Only” attributes in the file properties. Now no one can write anything to this file.

Then I disconnected the phone from the computer, otherwise I would not have access to the DCIM folder from the phone. Now I launched Total Commander on the phone and went to the SD card and there into the DCIM folder, and in it I found the thumbnails. A slightly longer press on the thumbnails line called context menu, where I selected “Rename”.

I took photos, surfed the Internet, installed applications, but the .thumbnails folder no longer appeared, which is what I wish for you. Good luck and take care of your memory.

Method 2.

Hello! The topic turned out to be very popular, but questions remain. Therefore, I propose to try the second option for deleting the folder of sketch files - without a computer. I think that you have read the material above and I will not dwell on the details.

From the Google Play Store I installed it on my smartphone and

1. Opened ES Explorer and went to the folder at /mnt/sdcard/DCIM (the path in my case). Created a thumbnails file (without the dot).

2. Launched Total Commander, went to the address /mnt/sdcard/DCIM, there are folders: 100ANDRO, Сamera, .thumbnails and the newly created thumbnails file. I deleted the .thumbnails folder, then renamed the thumbnails file (added a dot).

I took a photo and made a video, but the folder did not appear.

Method 3.

I launch Total Commander, go to the address /storage/sdcard0/DCIM, there are active folders of the Camera application: 100ANDRO, Сamera, .thumbnails. Deleted the .thumbnails folder. With a long tap (long press) on the Camera folder, I called up a menu where there was a “New text file” item, selected it and created a .thumbnails file.

This is what came out. The result is similar to the previous ones - thumbnails are not created, memory does not suddenly run out.

Popular questions on the topic and answers to them:

— Is /mnt/sdcard/DCIM the only path for storing photos?

No, each disk can have its own path sdcard, sdcard2 and so on. The active one is the one designated in the settings as the “default recording disk”. You can check by taking a photo and seeing in which folder /mnt/sdcard/DCIM or mnt/sdcard2/DCIM it ended up. There will be an active file of thumbnails.thumbnails. The path can also be written as storage/sdcard0/DCIM or storage/sdcard1/DCIM

UPD. 6/11/2016 In the comments to this post, readers write that on devices with Android 6, deleting the .thumbnails folder does not free up space. I have one hypothesis about this. I’ll say right away that on my Android 6.0.1 the folder is deleted and space is freed up. Just checked. So, I deleted everything and looked at the free space through Total Commander. I suspect that if you delete a folder through ES Explorer, you will not notice an increase in free space. Why? Because the ES File Explorer app has its own trash bin where it moves files but doesn't delete them. To permanently delete, you need to empty the trash. I wrote about this in a post.

I don’t see any point in providing screenshots, but I have on Android 6.0.1 the .thumbnails folder is deleted and space is freed up. I suggest continuing the discussion in the comments.

The Android operating system, in most cases, is located on devices with a meager amount of memory. Sometimes, 32 GB (what can we say about 16 GB) of internal memory becomes not enough for regular user. To somehow free up memory, many Android owners gadgets are looking for folders and files that can be deleted. Thumbnails may catch your eye. What kind of folder is this, what files it contains and whether it can be cleaned, read within the framework of this article.

About the folder

Folder.thumbnails- this is a cache directory that contains thumbnails of all the photos and videos that you have ever had on your device. These sketches are used standard application"Gallery", allowing you to quickly load images in tiles.

The folder is located in "/sdcard/DCIM/"- storage location for photos and videos from the camera.

By default, .thumbnails is a hidden directory. If you connect it to a Windows computer, you may not see it through Explorer, even if you turn it on hidden files and folders.

A folder can take up to several GB of space in the device’s memory (depending on how often you took photos and shot videos).

There may be several folders. Because Android kernel Linux stands out, similar directories.thumbnails can be in other folders of programs that interact with pictures and videos (for example, the cloud or instant messengers).

How to remove from Android device?

Wondering if it's possible to remove .thumbnails? Yes, you can. And it’s even necessary if you are desperately short of space on your smartphone or tablet. There will be no harm from deleting files stored in the directory. The only negative is that if you open the “Gallery” after deleting, the thumbnails will take longer to load.

To remove .thumbnails, use file manager. For example, ES Explorer or Total Commander. For an example of deletion, we use TC:

There is one caveat! In the .thumbnails folder, thumbnails of photos and videos that are on your device will reappear as soon as you use applications to view them. To avoid this, you need a lock.

Lock thumbnail creation

To ensure that thumbnail files are no longer written to the directory, let's create an empty file with the same name:

Now, Android OS will not be able to create the .thumbnails folder and place the contents in it, since this name is already occupied by the file.

An alternative to blocking thumbnail creation is an empty .nomedia file placed in the DCIM folder or other folders that contain .thumbnails. You can create it via text editor, by analogy with the method described above.

Every user modern gadget, equipped with Android OS, was faced with such a not very pleasant problem when, at the most inopportune moment, the phone’s memory is full, and it is no longer possible to take photos or install applications on it. Even a device with 32 GB of built-in memory will sooner or later be full, and this is not to mention the capacity of 16 GB or less.

When such a problem occurs, the user begins to audit his device, deleting photos, videos, etc. And in the process of searching for files to delete, the owner of a phone with the Android operating system can find a file with the same name thumbnails. Almost no one knows what kind of folder this is and why it is needed.

Thumbnails – translated from English language"miniature". Thumbnail is a cache directory, which saves thumbnails of previously viewed images. Every time a user goes to the “Gallery” folder and opens any photo, picture or video for viewing, a mini-thumbnail of this image is automatically saved in the thumbnails directory.

The main, and perhaps the only purpose of these miniature thumbnails is that they help to quickly load miniature photos in the tiles of the “Gallery” folder on Android. The downside is that after a while thumbnails can again take up to several gigabytes of the phone’s built-in memory. And what to do in such cases is it possible to delete this folder, it is necessary to understand in more detail.

But first you need to find the place where the thumbnail directory is stored.

Is it possible to delete

The location of thumbnails is “sdcard/DCIM/”. In order to delete this directory, you must first find it, sometimes this will take some time, because if you simply connect the device to the computer through Explorer and at the same time enable hidden files and folders, you still cannot always see it. In addition, there may be several such folders in memory. Deleting a directory is also not so easy, as it would seem, because simple deletion will not solve this problem, since when you open the “Gallery” the system will completely restore all the sketches after some time.

Some experts simply advise not to use the “Gallery” application at all, but to use other tools with greater functionality and then there will be no problems. But not everyone is comfortable with this, so you should know how to delete a folder with copies of thumbnails.

There are several methods to delete the thumbnails folder manually or using special applications, but in this case it is necessary not only to remove it, but also block its further recovery.

Ways to remove thumbnails

How to block folder recovery

Even after deleting thumbnail using any of the proposed methods, the system will still restore it sooner or later, so it is necessary block restoration of the thumbnails directory. And to do this, you should perform the following actions to deceive the system:

1. Using a conductor, connect the device to the computer.
2. Find the thumbnails folder and delete it (you can delete it using any other of the suggested methods).
3. Launch a text editor, such as Notepad.
4. Create two empty file one with the name thumbnails, the second with the name nomedia and when saving, specify the file type “All files”
5. Move both files to the location where the thumbnails folder was just deleted.

The task of the nomedia file is set a ban on scanning the “Gallery”, and the purpose of thumbnails is to block the restoration of a deleted directory.

Now the system will not be able to create thumbnails and they will not have to be constantly deleted.

It is known that Windows Explorer can automatically display thumbnails for supported image file types (eg JPG, PNG). This is definitely useful feature, but there are times when thumbnails are not displayed correctly (or not at all). This could be due to a number of reasons (such as large number files).

How to remove and reinstall the thumbnail cache in Windows 10?

What is Thumbnail Cache and what does resetting it mean?

Whenever Windows displays thumbnails for supported file types (JPG, PNG, etc.) in a folder, it also caches them so that the thumbnails do not have to be restored each time the folder is accessed. This allows you to speed up the process preview, this can sometimes lead to problems such as incorrect display sketches. This is mainly due to caching of corrupted thumbnails. However, everything can be easily fixed by deleting the existing cache file. Essentially, this resets the cache and the thumbnail preview is recreated and cached.

How to remove and reset Thumbnail Cache in Windows 10?

Deleting (and therefore resetting) the thumbnail cache in Windows 10 is extremely simple.

Step 1: Right click on system partition, click on Properties. When the dialog box opens Properties, click on .

Step 2: After some time, the disk cleanup tool will evaluate various types files that take up a lot of disk space. In the dialog box that opens, select from the list Sketches - Thumbnails, and click OK. When prompted for confirmation, click on Delete files. See screenshot below:

That's it. The existing thumbnail cache has been removed and a new one will be generated from scratch the next time you view supported file types from using Windows Explorer.