NOTE TO SELF: How To Keep Phone Organized
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This is how I organize my files and contacts (against duplicate and invalid contacts)
Files
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The apps and how to use them (1 app per * star):
* Dropbox (signed in to it and have bought extra space but thats optional)
* Astro File Manager (best filemanager, authenticated with dropbox so I can use its great feature set with dropbox)
– Make the folders on the root of your storage/sd:
/Videos
/Music
/Pics
/Documents
If they are already there your good to go
* Redirect (This will scan your system for files, really quickly and move them to specified location. You build redirect rules. A single Redirect rule can say move all .gif files to /Pics folder exluding (blacklisting) folder so-and-so, so that so-and-so gifs files get ignored. Ex: All of your phones videos are always in /Videos, You can preview what files are going to be moved if the redirect was to run. Note all redirects can be run at the same time, and on a schedule – set it up on a schedule – awesome feature as well: if you didnt like last redirect, you can undo it. It keeps history of redirects. Also if location that your moving/redirecting a file to has a file with same name, it will rename the new file so as to not overwrite)
– Schedule every 6 horus
Redirects:
1. All Pictures: (custom redirect, why not default, because apps have pics all over the place and you have to tell it manually which folders to blacklist) gif, jpg, jpeg, png, bmp (no raw just incase another app uses raw as something else), to /Pics. Blacklist: All Social Media directories like /Voxer,/Whatsapp,/Snapchat, also app data /data, also keepsafe – if you have that app – /.keepsafe – also /smart app protector if you have that app, also /DCIM/Camera and /DCIM/.thumbnails(these get regenerated alot), check RENAME files with same name (TIP: blacklist picture folders that regerate pics alot, like social media apps that pull up pics for all contacts and .thumbnails folder in DCIM which keeps small versions of your pics for gallery app use) IF you accidentally did mess up and now you have duplicates in your destination /Pics, run “Search Duplicate Files” or undo the redirect
2. Documents: docx, docx, ppt, pdf, odt to /Documents, check RENAME files with same name
3. kdbx: kdbx to /Documents
4. Movies and Videos: mp4,avi,3gp,mov,mov,mpg,wmv,mkv,mpeg,asf,srt,stl,m4v,flv to /Movies, check RENAME files with same name
5. Music and Audio: wav, flac, mp3, m4a, aac, rm ,m3u, pamp, aiff to /Music, check RENAME files with same name
* Search Duplicate Files – This will find duplicates (based on size I think, but I hope its better in reality – I just let it run either way because the duplicates it found for me were thumbnails for gallery in my /Pics folder due to a badly configured redirect from the app Redirect – hey I was learning its okay – anyhow I let the thumnails rebuild by going to gallery, so now I had doubles in /Pics and /DCIM/.thumbnails – so then I deselected all folders besides /DCIM and /Pics and clicked find duplicates – Not OneClick, but Search, then I looked thru the search items and I long held on one of the items in the folder /Pics and I said select all duplicates in this folder. So then it selected all of the duplicate thumbnails but that were only in /Pics folder and I deleted them all, leaving only 1 copy of each thumbnail inside /DCIM/.thumbnails folder – I could of just deleted every thumbnails from /DCIM/.thumbnails and /Pics and then let gallery rebuild thumbnails into /DCIM/.thumbnails, however I couldnt find a way to select all with that app, only other types of selections – by the way very smart types of selections – such as select the shorter filename versions of the duplicate files, so that shorter versions are selected, then you can invert selection and delete then you will be left with only one copy of the duplicate files, but the shorter version)
* MyBackup Pro (by RerWare) – Set this up to backup on a schedule and keep 3 latest backups on cloud, and local storage (/Documents/BackupPro). When doing cloud backup just select simple things (not backup apps, and not backup videos and pictures) – note on Galaxy S4 (vanilla not rooted) I couldnt backup APNs and couldnt backup Alarms (some error, but it didnt prevent the backup software MyBackup Pro from continuing to next job – great software) Restoring is simple Just use your pin (like username) and password to reconnet. When you first setup app it will ask for Password (in cleartext you will write it, and also make sure its just alphanumeric no special symbols), then it will ask for your email. The pin which acts as your username is emailed to you (and in the backend of their system im thinking the pin acts as the folder where your backups are stored). Luckily that huge pin is auto inputted every time, so you dont have to enter it, so you just need to enter your password.
* Force Media Scanner – usually the system just does its Media Scan (what updates Gallery albums etc) at boot, but we need to do this all the time after redirects. So Just open that open everynow and again and let it run. When its done you can close app. While its running you can click Homescreen. I couldnt find a Force Media Scanner that runs on schedule.
* All-in-One Toolbox – I used this to delete empty folders and uninstalled apks (uninstalled apks, were just apks files hidden around my filesystem that I wasnt aware of, some that I was aware of, but still I let it delete them for me to save space on phone – most of the uninstalled apks that will show up are older versions of the apps that you already have, look at the version number of uninstalled apks, then look at version number of installed apks, installed are newer)
Contacts
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Before doing contact changes, backup contacts to file (export). If thats already done then your good to go.
(Option 1) – What I Did – (Contact Utility recommends this so I did this)
Next consider turning off Google Contact Sync (Settings->Accounts->Google->Contacts Sync), Turn it off on all accounts that you have google Sync. Then after running optimizers/utility you will have alot less contacts. Turn Sync back on. It will sync up google to match your device.
NOTE (Dealing with “Too Many Deletes” – I believe it happens after about 50 deletes as I read): it might complain about “Too Many Deletes” meaning your device has cleared like lets say 1000 contacts so it has to delete those 1000 contacts from google. A notification will come up, open it up and select “Delete Contacts”. The notification might not go away, but let it run. There is no sense of progress here, it almost feels like its not doing anything (but it is… I think I read on the forums that some people had issues with this not working, for me it was… It just took like an hour to sync 1700 deletes)I recommend after 5 minutes Going back to Contacts Sync under Account Settings and turning it off (The message will disappear), wait 3 seconds, turn it back on, the sync will restart (but it will be further along now), that message might come up again and this time it will say 500 contacts need to be deleted. Press delete again and the process will restart. The other option is to just wait and hopefully that message will go away (everytime you click on the notification the number didnt seem to go down – in reality it was going down just the notification popup wasnt updating until I stopped sync of contacts and restarted it). Lets say my method didnt work and that message just doesnt go away: An alternative would be to export contacts, turn on airplane mode, reboot phone (airplane mode should still be on), delete all contacts(Delete data of Contacts Storage app: Settings->Apps->Manage Apps->Contacts Storage->Clear Data), go to google contacts from browser (on pc prefereably) and backup all of your contacts, delete them now (hopefully you dont have any other devices syncing to google right now). (Google and your phone should now be blank of contact) Now import your old backup to Google and turn off your phones Airplane and wait for sync, OR (instead of importing to google): Turn of airplane mode (Google and your phone should now be blank of contact) and import the contacts to your phones (google accoutn), sync should then sync up google account and your phone.
(Option 2) – Technically this should work as this is the
Make sure sync is on, and run your optimizers/utilities to clear contacts. Sync should detect adds of contacts and deletes of contacts and then update google accounts with it. Sync as defined on
Next time I will go with this method. (Maybe you wont have to deal with “Too Many Deletes”
Here is what google says about their Android Contacts Sync feature:
–Syncing your contacts–
Your contacts are automatically synced when you first turn on your phone and sign into a Google Account, so make sure to add your Google Account to your Android device. Any existing contacts from that account are synced with your device.
After that, all your contacts automatically stay in sync, whether you make changes on your phone, from another device, or from any Web browser. The contact information on your device is also available in Gmail, Google Talk, Messenger, Phone, and other apps where it’s useful. As you add contacts from different sources, they are synced automatically across all the places you need them.
–Importing Android contacts to Gmail–
Android contacts are automatically synced to your Gmail account, so there’s no need to import them…
Since contacts are automatically synced, if you delete a Google contact from your device, it will also be deleted from Google Contacts, which will also remove it from other places, such as Google Chat.
The apps and how to use them:
* Contacts Utility (run all free tools – be smart with what you delete, export at the end to a file or email or both)
* Contacts Optimizer (run all free tools – be smart with what you delete – had to do alot of manual deletes “delete this but not that”, export at the end to a file or email or both)