Solution to INSTALL_FAILED_INSUFFICIENT_STORAGE error on Android

Question

The INSTALL_FAILED_INSUFFICIENT_STORAGE error is the bane of every Android developer's life. It happens regardless of app size, or how much storage is available. Rebooting the target device fixes the problem briefly, but it soon comes back. There are hundreds (if not thousands) of message board posts from people asking why the problem occurs, but the folks at Google are frustratingly silent on the issue.

There is a simple workaround. If your test device is running Android 2.2 or later then add the android:installLocation attribute to your application's manifest file, with the value "preferExternal". This will force the app to be installed on the device's external storage, such as a phone's SD card.

For example:

<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
          package="com.andrewsmith.android.darkness"
          android:installLocation="preferExternal"

This is more of a band-aid than a fix, and it may not be ideal if you want your finished app to install on the device's internal memory. But it will at least make the development process a lot less frustrating.

i got this msg in manifest file:-> error: No resource identifier found for attribute 'installLocation' in package 'android' Pls help — someone_ smiley, Jul 06 '12 at 08:19
@AndrewSmith: could you please answer your question? Just stumbled across this question during review because it's flagged as *not a real question*. While the flag is basically correct, it would be a shame if the solution will be lost. — eckes, Jan 28 '13 at 14:29
First thing to do is: find out if the problem is actually space related! See [my answer on this question](http://stackoverflow.com/a/19861111/825924) for details. — Robert Siemer, Nov 08 '13 at 15:22
Very helpful. I encountered this problem when I am doing samples on LibGDX cookbook. This is a quick fix! Cheers mate. — Neon Warge, Jan 13 '15 at 08:11
Uninstall, restart phone, installing again, and again didn't give this error to me — M. Usman Khan, Feb 11 '15 at 14:21
This error appears when there is not enough space on your device. Uninstall some not needed apps and clear your memory and problem will gone — support_ms, Feb 13 '15 at 18:12
For me I had to restart my computer - Mac OS X Mavericks - and the error went away. Restarting eclipse was not enough. Related to this, I noticed that my VirtualBox/Genymotion was also failing until I did the reboot — Gene Bo, May 04 '15 at 22:23
None of the suggestions worked for my device. It seems that Android is also reserving a fixed percentage of free space, just like any file system. My guess is around 10% but I can't confirm it. I've quickly searched the source for some config entry without success. Anyone know about this ? — ForeverLearning, Aug 18 '15 at 19:12
I had the same issue. Fixed it with simple restarting of my Android mobile device ('LG L70') Windows Command line: d:\>adb -s LGL70 install myapp.apk [100%] /data/local/tmp/myapp.apk pkg: /data/local/tmp/myapp.apk Failure [INSTALL_FAILED_INSUFFICIENT_STORAGE] After restart the device: d:\>adb -s LGL70 install myapp.apk [100%] /data/local/tmp/myapp.apk pkg: /data/local/tmp/myapp.apk Success — Kiryl Ivanou, Dec 16 '16 at 00:10
I had this error on android emulator. In android studio - AVD manager, there is an option to wipe data on a specific device. This fixed my problem — Aseem, Dec 04 '19 at 00:56
Can I increase the internal storage from 200 mb to 400 mb on the avd device and solve the problem? I am running android studio on windows 10 — Golden Lion, Feb 12 '20 at 12:01
Fastest solution: Open AVD Manager and choose Wipe Data in Actions for the device. — hellobody, Sep 24 '20 at 19:27
'flutter clean' did not work for me. What did work? Delete everything in /data/app/ (See high-ranking answer below). It was funny, I had just added custom icon images to the app, and I'm like "Whoa, did I make those icon images way too large?". Whew, no. — George D Girton, Jul 20 '22 at 19:05
Uninstalling and reinstalling is a not a solution (especially when you're working on an app that requires a login) — Marty Miller, Sep 20 '22 at 18:05

score 229 · Answer 1 · edited Apr 30 '20 at 11:41

229

This is only a temporary workaround and not a real fix.

After having this happen to me and not being pleased with the current responses I went to work trying to figure it out from the AOSP source. I have found a REAL solution.

Explanation

First off, a bit of (simplified) background on how Android installs and updates

The first time an app is installed:
The APK file is saved as
/data/app/<full.package.name>-1.apk  (1.apk)
When the app is to be updated:
The updated APK file is saved as:
/data/app/<full.package.name>-2.apk (2.apk)
The first version (1.apk) gets deleted.
On our next update(s):

The new APK is saved as (1.apk) and (2.apk) is deleted (Repeat forever).

The issue that most of us are having happens when the application is updated, but deleting of the old APK fails. Which itself does not yet cause the update to fail, but it does cause there to be two APK files in /data/app.

The next time you try to update the app the system can't move its temporary file because neither (1.apk) nor (2.apk) are empty. Since File#renameTo(File) doesn't throw an exception but instead returns a boolean PackageManager, it doesn't have any way to tell why it returns INSTALL_FAILED_INSUFFICIENT_STORAGE even though the failure had nothing to do with the amount of free space.

Solution

Run:

adb shell "pm uninstall <full.packge.name>"
adb shell "rm -rf /data/app/<full.package.name>-*"

OR

Uninstall the app

Use your favorite method to delete BOTH:

/data/app/<full.package.name>-1.apk

/data/app/<full.package.name>-2.apk

Make sure nothing else blocks future installs in a similar way. In my case I had a /data/app-lib/<full.package.name>-1 directory lingering around! In this case, an install to the SD card worked, and a subsequent move to internal memory, too. (Creating /data/app-lib/<full.package.name> without the -1 ending.)

Why other "solutions" worked

The code for installing to external storage is significantly different which does not have the same problems
Uninstalling the app only deletes one version of the APK file in /data/app. That's why you can reinstall it once, but not update it.
The amount of free space in an emulator isn't really relevant when this bug occurs

edited Apr 30 '20 at 11:41

Thomas

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answered Aug 12 '13 at 06:23

gabcas

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sad part, its temporary – Akhil Jain Sep 07 '13 at 12:15
Great hint! Had a related problem, but not the same: a directory named `/data/app-lib/full.package.name-1` blocked the direct install to internal memory. (I also found out that install to sdcard works!) – Robert Siemer Nov 08 '13 at 09:28
Thanks! In my case there was /data/app/-1.odex only without *.apk, so the app was invisible in every app list. Deleting odex solved the issue. – Fr0sT Feb 03 '14 at 10:18
I wonder how this can be done on a non-rooted device? – Stan Apr 09 '14 at 19:24
@Stan this works on a non-rooted device just use the sdk tools from android. Than adb is available. – Msmit1993 Jun 05 '14 at 06:52
In my case /data/app-lib/-1 was the blocker. It got 3 native so libs. Deleting the folder helped and nothing else did. – WindRider Jun 05 '14 at 09:26
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@Msmit1993, you don't have access to the data directory on a non-rooted device. Having SDK and ADB does not matter. – Stan Jun 05 '14 at 18:14
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For the truly lazy, here's a bash snippet: `function fix_app { adb shell "pm uninstall ${1}; rm -rf /data/app/${1}-*; su -c 'rm -rf /data/app-lib/${1}-*'" }` `$ fix_app com.facebook.katana` – gnmerritt Jul 25 '14 at 14:06
my `data` directory is empty but still I am facing this issue, what to do? – Ram Patra Feb 12 '15 at 09:18
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I also tried `android:installLocation="preferExternal"` but all in vain, nothing is working in my case. I am using a real device for testing. What's the solution in this case? – Ram Patra Feb 12 '15 at 09:51
I have this problem but I don't just have it with 1 app. Once it started I pretty much can't install/update any apps despite having plenty of space. How do you use this sort of approach, which I see all over the internet, when you don't have just 1 problem app? – Confused Mar 07 '15 at 02:54
my case was unusual -- I was working on a custom ROM that had a modified SELinux implementation, and in the course of experimenting I commented-out the platform signer tag in mac_permissions.xml; this apparently caused platform apps like PackageManager to never be assigned the seinfo value 'platform', and they wound up labeled with an scontext of untrusted_app. Since PackageManager wasn't allowed to successfully write to /data/local, adb returned 'install failed: insufficient storage' – CCJ Jan 29 '16 at 20:12
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I had to clear `/data/local/tmp` – 18446744073709551615 Jan 31 '16 at 20:43
I get, `unexpected EOF`. How to fix it? THanks :) – Ruchir Baronia Feb 23 '16 at 05:55
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In my case, I add to install the app with adb install -f ... It was refusing to install it otherwise, even though I had 1.7GB free in internal memory; may be it was because I had no SDCARD. But with the -f option, at least it worked, I don't know why... – xtof54 Aug 24 '17 at 16:40
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Android Studio's AVD Manager now has an option to "wipe data" when you click on the "Actions" drop-down which seems to fix this issue as well. – Renato May 02 '18 at 07:38
Isn't `adb shell "pm uninstall "` equivalent to `adb uninstall `? – AutonomousApps Jul 17 '18 at 18:24
The first command `adb shell "pm uninstall ...` failed for me with "`Unknown package`", however the 2nd command, deleting the APKs indeed fixed the problem. ... The first time, after I went to run the app again, this fix no longer seems to work and I am facing the "INSTALL_FAILED_INSUFFIENT_STORAGE" bug again :( .... Thank you for taking the time to look into this and figure out what is going on. I'll post if/once I figure out why it doesn't keep working for me. – kris May 10 '20 at 22:54
While there are a lot of great suggestions here, simply turning the emulated device off and on again also solved this for me, could be a fast easy solution also. – Eric Aug 21 '22 at 16:26
@Renato Using "Wipe data" worked for me. Thanks! – PrgTrdr Aug 25 '22 at 14:55
Of course uninstalling the app will fix the problem. This isn't a solution to the problem. – Marty Miller Sep 20 '22 at 18:07

score 123 · Answer 2 · edited Dec 21 '13 at 15:01

123

You need to increase the Android emulator's memory capacity. There are two ways for that:

Right click the root of your Android Project, go to "Run As" and then go to "Run Configurations...". Locate the "Android Application" node in the tree at the left, and then select your project and go to the "Target" tab on the right side of the window look down for the "Additional Emulator Command Line Options" field (sometimes you'll need to make the window larger) and finally paste "-partition-size 1024" there. Click Apply and then Run to use your emulator.
Go to Eclipse's Preferences, and then select “Launch” Add “-partition-size 1024” on the “Default emulator option” field. Click “Apply” and use your emulator as usual.

edited Dec 21 '13 at 15:01

Peter Mortensen

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answered Apr 11 '11 at 04:24

Oscar Salguero

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Oscar, you presume that this is happening on the simulator. In my case, it's happening on the actual device, which this answer doesn't address. – Jeff Axelrod Sep 20 '11 at 14:28
The second option didn't seem to work for me. However option 1 did! Great stuff! And worked with a 2.1 emulator. – DonnaLea Sep 23 '11 at 02:06
This didn't work for me, presumably because I have snapshots enabled? How can I get the emulator to start Android from scratch with the new -partition-size option? – Timmmm Jan 27 '12 at 19:42
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Lost on option 1 - I don't have a "Target" tab in ecclipse at this location. – Ted Betz Mar 16 '12 at 22:24
2nd option worked for me, thanks for the gud post @RacZo – DD. Apr 12 '13 at 11:31
@JeffAxelrod try this solution. I do not know if this work because I solved my problem by deleting the older version of my application, but is a suggestion. http://stackoverflow.com/a/7133508/1465756 – arniotaki Jul 09 '14 at 11:52
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how to set in Android Studio 4.2.1? – Venus Jun 15 '21 at 03:40

score 30 · Answer 3 · edited Dec 21 '13 at 15:09

Thanks for posting this question. I have some additional insights that may help some developers.

I am debugging my application on a device (not the emulator). The device has 21 MB free on /data (as revealed by "df" when doing "adb shell") and my app is only 5 MB. However, I did find that if I deleted other apps on the device (without rebooting the phone or restarting adbd), INSTALL_FAILED_INSUFFICIENT_STORAGE would go away for a while and then come back.

So it seems that debugging my 5 MB app requires more like 20 MB of space in /data, and in addition something was leaking each time I debugged my app.

So I did "adb shell" and listed the ENTIRE /data directory with

cd /data
ls -a -l -R

And I looked at the 5000-line output to see where all the space was going.

I discovered vast quantities of wasted space on my device in the /data/klog directory in the form of old log files from months-old debugging sessions.

These were not my log files: they were created by some part of the Android infrastructure.

I deleted them and instantly saved 58 MB which was not attributed in the Settings app to any particular app. I have a small device so 58 MB is very significant (about 40%).

So far, I have not gotten INSTALL_FAILED_INSUFFICIENT_STORAGE again after many runs. Let's hope that was the real issue, though the OP suggests that his device had plenty of space (but didn't say how much).

Hopefully some of you will also be able to escape INSTALL_FAILED_INSUFFICIENT_STORAGE by periodically deleting /data/klog/*.

Or, you can at least do the ls -a -l -R in /data to see where all your space is going, if indeed there is really some (hidden) space issue.

any idea how to do this on a non-rooted phone? I don't have access to the data diretory. great post btw +1 — Rich, Jan 19 '12 at 15:38
Thanks for the info. FYI you can consolidate flags in Unix so that `ls` command becomes `ls -alR` — mharper, Feb 12 '13 at 18:47
With root access do: # su # du /data | sort -g to get a list of folders/files ordered by size — JuanMa Cuevas, Aug 13 '13 at 12:06
@Rich, try downloading the 3rd party app Astro File Manager. It's very popular and gives you access to your phone's files. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.metago.astro&hl=en — Azurespot, Feb 21 '15 at 06:31
@rich My device is not rooted, I was able to delete most of the logs in /data/log (klog did not exist) — Fafaman, Oct 06 '15 at 13:40

Saad Farooq · Answer 4 · 2013-01-21T10:45:35.433

The following helps:

Open a shell to the device
```
adb shell
```
Navigate to the temp directory where the incoming APK is first copied
```
cd /data/local/tmp
```

List the available files and delete as desired

rm * // use at your own risk, good practice to list files first

This has been reliable for me so far on an actual device.

EDIT: This turned out to be not as reliable a solution as the one above.

I tried a number of the solutions. Nothing really helped. Finally I found an app called SD Maid. That helped.

It says the functionality is limited on unrooted devices. Mine is rooted so it would be good to see hear from people effective it is in those scenarios and if it was just a fluke that it worked for me (it is an unpredictable problem anyway).

NOTE: I have nothing to do with the app. Just found it with a search.

It helped me.. Some of my previous application are stored in the tmp folder. After i removed those its working fine.. — Mahendran Sakkarai, May 15 '15 at 09:25

score 28 · Answer 5 · edited Feb 27 '14 at 11:51

28

I have solved it by including android:installLocation="auto" inside <manifest> tag in AndroidManifest.xml file.

edited Feb 27 '14 at 11:51

Paresh Mayani

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Works indeed. Thanks. – Teddy Jun 20 '15 at 11:35
This is the only fix that worked for me, on a real device. Thanks. – Shah Abaz Khan Jan 10 '16 at 12:22
simply and nicely working.thanks – brahmy adigopula Sep 20 '16 at 06:14
i added these line of code.but still getting this error `Error: ADB exited with exit code 1 adb: failed to install build\app\outputs\apk\app.apk: Failure [INSTALL_FAILED_INSUFFICIENT_STORAGE] Error launching application on Android SDK built for x86.` – Husna Aug 02 '18 at 07:48
Best solution to work with emulator. Thanks! – Br0wn Mar 09 '20 at 12:01
It didn't work. – Arda Kazancı Jun 14 '20 at 07:40
2

Thanks, it worked! But can you explain why do we need to do this? Thanks for the help! – thechargedneutron Sep 05 '21 at 22:49

score 16 · Answer 6 · answered Apr 06 '12 at 10:31

I had added an additional line to the application's manifest file, which is android:installLocation="preferExternal". by using this line it forces to install the app to the external storage. see the example below,

<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    package="com.nasir.phonegap"
    android:installLocation="preferExternal" >

score 12 · Answer 7 · edited Dec 21 '13 at 15:13

12

I tried the following:

Restarted my device
Deleted previous APK
Rebuild my APK
Uninstall my previous copy in the device
Reinstall

Check if it works the same with you.

edited Dec 21 '13 at 15:13

Peter Mortensen

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answered Jan 03 '12 at 07:22

CoolRunning

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Yep, restarting the device was the only one to work (after trying several solutions from this page) – Sulea Cosmin May 14 '14 at 09:49
Restarting the device work :) – cinobili19 Apr 24 '20 at 13:33

score 11 · Answer 8 · edited Dec 21 '13 at 15:06

A related issue on the emulator is when there isn'y any space left in the /data partition.

For example,

% adb shell df

Filesystem             Size   Used   Free   Blksize
/dev                   252M    32K   252M   4096
/mnt/asec              252M     0K   252M   4096
/mnt/obb               252M     0K   252M   4096
/system                154M   154M     0K   4096
/data                   64M    57M     6M   4096
/cache                  64M     1M    62M   4096

Here is a sample view of the /data/app directory:

% adb shell ls -l /data/app

-rw-r--r-- system   system      19949 2011-10-12 17:09 CubeLiveWallpapers.apk
-rw-r--r-- system   system      27670 2011-10-12 17:09 GestureBuilder.apk
-rw-r--r-- system   system      34341 2011-10-12 17:09 SoftKeyboard.apk
-rw-r--r-- system   system      20151 2011-10-12 17:09 WidgetPreview.apk

I removed the extra APK files. It seems upon every install you get a new APK file. Just remove the extra APK files.

For example,

adb shell rm /data/app/com.brooklynmarathon.calendarapi2-1.apk

1. run "adb shell" 2. cd into each directory in data, and find the ones with big useless files. 3. delete them using "rm (filename)" 4. my recurring problems are with trash like "ApiDemos" and "dalvik-cache" (just delete the whole contents of that one) — Adam, Apr 30 '13 at 15:34

score 10 · Answer 9 · answered Jun 16 '14 at 14:21

In my case failure was caused by com.android.providers.media app. I faced this on x86 android emulator. What did I do:

$ adb shell df
Filesystem             Size   Used   Free   Blksize
...
/data                  224M   209M    14M   4096
....

Too low free space on /data

$ adb shell du /data
...
409870  /data/data/com.android.providers.media
...

Almost all was consumed by single app! It's system app so I consider better not to delete it. Instead I cleaned up app data.

$ adb shell pm clear com.android.providers.media
Success
$ adb shell df
Filesystem             Size   Used   Free   Blksize
...
/data                  224M     8M   215M   4096
...

Disk was cleared and app installed successfully.

This is the only solution that worked for me. After 2 hours! :) — Ruchir Baronia, Feb 23 '16 at 06:07

score 8 · Answer 10 · edited Mar 23 '13 at 11:37

8

Answering to the very first post of this topic...

Symptom : Some app don't install, saying there is no space and in reallity there is plenty of space free on both internal and external storage !!! Solution: disable external installation by default.

Setting external install by defaut with this:

adb shell pm set-install-location 2

Makes install impossible on many apps that can't install externally (such as adblock + or so)

Then the solution is

adb shell pm set-install-location 0

Or

adb shell pm set-install-location 1

0: auto (if one is full - or irrelevant !!! - it select the other)
1: internal
2: external

edited Mar 23 '13 at 11:37

martin clayton

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answered Mar 23 '13 at 11:20

dan

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I was starting to think this phone's internal storage was broken, but the setting the install location to 1 fixed the "insufficient space" issue. Thanks! – Wodin Jul 30 '16 at 21:06

wrygiel · Answer 11 · 2012-06-13T06:55:01.283

I feel a bit weird writing this, but I can't be 100% sure that it's not true in some cases (it worked for me). If you had the following symptoms:

You've been working using a physical device (in my case, Samsung Galaxy Ace),
You've been developing for a couple of days straight,
Your phone was connected all the time, day and night.
You started getting this error after a couple of days, and it kept getting worse.
None of the other answers worked for you.
You're as resigned as I was...

Then, try this:

Unplug your phone when you're not working!

I unplugged my phone and let it rest for ENTIRE DAY. My battery wore off a little. After this, I reconnected it and started debugging again. Everything worked fine this time! And I mean really REALLY fine, just as before.

Is it possible that this error might be due to some battery-related hardware stuff? It still feels weird thinking this way, but now I keep disconnecting my phone every now and then (and for the night) and the problem didn't return.

This happens to me all the time - on all my devices. During the cause of a day things usually start to fail at the end of each day. This is so annoying and its pretty amazing Google has not fixed this yet... — slott, Nov 21 '12 at 12:52
Same behaviour for me but reboot of the phone solved my problem persistently. — bdevay, Mar 22 '14 at 08:33

score 7 · Answer 12 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:34

7

As this issue still exists, I thought I'd add something to RacZo's answer for development purposes. If you're not using the Eclipse plugin or for whatever reason you don't have the source, but just the .apk, you can increase the partition size from the command line using the same option when you launch the emulator:

emulator -avd <emulator name> -partition-size 1024

As far as I know, This option is not documented at developer.android.com, so I thought I'd post it here so people might find this solution.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:34

Community

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answered Jan 20 '12 at 17:58

DrBwaa

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this is by far the best option because doesn't involve updating any file nor using any application, just `avd` – 7ynk3r Mar 12 '19 at 22:42

score 6 · Answer 13 · answered Feb 09 '12 at 20:02

6

Emulator solution

Open your .Android directory. Usually in your home directory. Then go to avd and then open the directory that has the name of the avd you would like to change.

Now edit the config.ini file and add the following line or modify the following line:

disk.dataPartition.size=1024

Where 1024 is the size you would like to use in MB. Save the file and then start your emulator with wipe user data checked. Your emulator should now have the new size.

answered Feb 09 '12 at 20:02

prolink007

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Answer written in 2012, working wonderfully well in 2022. – Hoxtygen May 03 '22 at 05:53
Working in 2023. For those who can't find the folder, open your Android Studio IDE > Open device manager > click "Show on disk" - see this image https://i.postimg.cc/rwqxRQfD/xo.png – Linesofcode Mar 04 '23 at 17:29

score 5 · Answer 14 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:26

Samsung Galaxy Ace advertises 158 MB of internal storage in its specifications, but the core applications and services consume about 110 MB of that (I used the task manager on the device to inspect this). My app was 52 MB, because it had a lot of assets. Once I deleted some of those down to 45 MB, the app managed to install without a problem. The device was still alerting me that internal storage was almost full, and I should uninstall some apps, even though I only had one app installed.

After installing a release version of the .apk bundle and then uninstalling it, my device displays 99 MB of free space, so it might be debugging information cluttering up the device after all. See Louis Semprini's answer.

score 4 · Answer 15 · edited Sep 23 '12 at 13:30

4

Just uninstall the application from emulator either from command line or go to settings and uninstall the application. This will stop the error from coming.

edited Sep 23 '12 at 13:30

Raghav Sood

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answered Sep 12 '12 at 10:49

Nagendra

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score 4 · Answer 16 · answered Mar 16 '12 at 07:47

4

The solution is simple.

Open up the AVD Manager. Edit your AVD.

Down in the hardware section, there are some properties listed with "New..." and "Delete" to the right of it.

Press New. Select Data Partition size. Set to "512MB" (the MB is required). And you're done. if you still get issues, increase your system and cache partitions too using the same method.

It's all documented right here: http://developer.android.com/guide/developing/devices/managing-avds.html

answered Mar 16 '12 at 07:47

Zaid Daghestani

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Data Partition is not an available option with the Google API Level 14 – Ted Betz Mar 16 '12 at 22:36
This is how it works for me! Even now 10 year later! thanks! – Matheus Camara Jul 26 '22 at 17:44
Link is broken :/ – Gabe Rogan Jan 13 '23 at 20:45

score 3 · Answer 17 · answered Aug 09 '13 at 18:15

3

I ran into this problem with my new Nexus 4 and an APK built with Adobe AIR. I already had android:installLocation="preferExternal" in my manifest. I noticed I was also calling adb install with the -s option (Install package on the shared mass storage such as sdcard.) which seemed like overkill.

Removing the -s flag from adb install fixed the issue for me.

answered Aug 09 '13 at 18:15

Sarah Northway

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+1, good one, -s should only used if overriding previous installed build. – AAnkit Aug 12 '13 at 06:23

score 2 · Answer 18 · answered Apr 20 '12 at 12:03

2

Make sure you don't connect your android device with usb while trying to run the emulator

answered Apr 20 '12 at 12:03

Sharpless512

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score 2 · Answer 19 · edited Dec 21 '13 at 14:59

2

Workaround:

Compile as 2.1 without android:installLocation="preferExternal".

OK?

Compile as 2.2 including android:installLocation="preferExternal".

This will still install on SDK version less than 8 (the XML tag is ignored).

edited Dec 21 '13 at 14:59

Peter Mortensen

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answered Feb 14 '11 at 00:36

Team Pannous

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score 2 · Answer 20 · answered Apr 14 '11 at 16:57

I came across this question because I was getting this error using the Sideload Wonder Machine to install apps to my actual phone. I found the problem was that I had multiple .apk files in the /payload directory. I thought this was something that was supported, but when I removed all but one .apk, the error went away.

score 2 · Answer 21 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:18

2

If you're using a real device, you've simply run out of internal memory. Just go to Android settings -> Applications, and move some apps to the SD card or uninstall some apps.

If you're using the emulator, see RacZo's answer.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:18

Community

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answered Oct 05 '11 at 14:41

marmor

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We're talking about the insufficient storage error which comes up when there's plentiful available storage. – user999717 Nov 04 '11 at 19:53

score 2 · Answer 22 · edited Dec 21 '13 at 15:13

2

I came across the same error when I tried to batch install about 50 apps in the SD card directory using the ADB shell after a full ROM update:

for x in *.apk; do pm install -r $x; done

Some of them installed, but many failed with the error INSTALL_FAILED_INSUFFICIENT_STORAGE. All the failed apps had space in their name. I batch renamed them and tried again. It all worked this time. I did not do reboot or anything. May be this is not the problem you guys are facing, but this might help someone searching with the same problem as I faced.

edited Dec 21 '13 at 15:13

Peter Mortensen

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answered Dec 29 '11 at 01:49

Insilico

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Also I notice that when I miss spell the app name sometime this same error comes. It's a misleading error message in my case. – Insilico Dec 29 '11 at 05:10

score 1 · Answer 23 · edited Apr 23 '12 at 14:55

If you are running your application on an emulator, and if this problem persists, check your notification manager. If it shows you an icon and notification about "Phone memory is full", that means you have already installed so many applications on your emulator. Uninstall several applications which you don't want currently from "Settings >> Manage Application >> Select Application >> Uninstall".
That Set.
Now re-run the program.

score 1 · Answer 24 · answered Feb 16 '13 at 20:44

I got this error today, when using my phone for testing/debugging with Eclipse.

My error was that I used Norwegian special character ("æ", "ø", "å") in the application name. When I refactored the app name (using "o" instead of "ø") the app was installed correctly..

Probably not your problem, but could be note for other people getting the same error.

score 1 · Answer 25 · answered Jun 08 '13 at 00:46

1

After trying out everything else in this thread, I found out my own problem was because the path to the .apk file was too long. So I cd'ed to the directory where the .apk was in and did:

cd /Very/Long/Path/To/Package/
adb install mypackage.apk

instead of

adb install /Very/Long/Path/To/Package/mypackage.apk

And it worked...installed just fine.

Just thought this might help someone else.

answered Jun 08 '13 at 00:46

Alma

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I might add, that making the directory a symbolic link allowed me to make builds from the IDE and debug: ln -s /Users/abc/a\ ridiculously\ long\ directory\ path/subpath/subsubpath/subsubsubpath/ shortpath – David van Dugteren Feb 18 '14 at 03:46

score 0 · Answer 26 · answered May 14 '13 at 05:07

0

I ended up uninstalling the app from the device and then re-installing it back in Eclipse. This is a problem I get all the time on my device from regular use, but today I got that message from development.

answered May 14 '13 at 05:07

Roberto

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score 0 · Answer 27 · edited Dec 21 '13 at 15:01

0

I too faced the same problem, and I did a "Factory data reset", and it worked fine after that.

edited Dec 21 '13 at 15:01

Peter Mortensen

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answered May 18 '11 at 10:24

Monish

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I really would not recommend this as a solution. Total overkill. – Tim Sep 22 '11 at 12:08
3

It wipes your /data, that frees up some space so installations will work again. A very blunt instrument and not a solution. The error may come back after a few apps. – user999717 Nov 04 '11 at 19:53
28

This is the equivalent of the doctor saying: I don't know what's wrong with your arm so I'm cutting it off. – Derek Nov 06 '11 at 20:46

score 0 · Answer 28 · edited Oct 27 '12 at 05:35

0

In my case it got fixed by increasing the extended memory of eclipse, by changing the value of -Xmx768m in eclipse.ini

edited Oct 27 '12 at 05:35

Andro Selva

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answered Feb 11 '12 at 15:43

santhosh

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score -1 · Answer 29 · edited Dec 21 '13 at 15:10

I didn't have root access on my phone and am unprepared for my app to be installed on the SD card. 15 MB of space is available on /data/ and my application is under 2 MB.

For a while I got by; cleaning the Eclipse project and restarting the phone, but eventually that stopped working (probably after an update).

Cleaning my application cache has solved the problem for me and doesn't require a restart of the phone or uninstallation of the app.

There are applications on the market which you can use to clear the cache of multiple applications at once. Search for "clean".

score -1 · Answer 30 · edited Dec 21 '13 at 15:20

A bit time consuming, but it should work in any case:

Install a file manager, like Adao Task Manager, on your phone.

Connect via USB and enable USB storage. Copy the APK file from your local build to the phone (you might need to allow unknown sources under application settings).

Then just tap the APK file and Android will install it. Like I said, it's time consuming, but it might be faster than rebooting every now and then.

Solution to INSTALL_FAILED_INSUFFICIENT_STORAGE error on Android

30 Answers30

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