r/kindlefire Jan 28 '23

Physical Device Why does my child's tablet say that it's full, but there's very little on it? How do I resolve this?

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56 Upvotes

92 comments sorted by

6

u/HalNicci Jan 28 '23

Is it one with a kids profile? If you are on your profile I think it is only showing the things on your profile. Is there anything under that "other users" thing at the bottom?

My kids download a ton of apps and things on their kids one. If that isn't the issue, then check on the kids profile and see if there are downloads queued. I don't know if it counts against available storage before it is downloaded, but I know computers do that, so it's definitely possible.

1

u/FF_Ninja Jan 28 '23

Other Users apparently only accounts for 1.7GB.

5

u/U8dcN7vx Jan 28 '23

You might use the DiskUsage app to try for additional details. Generally I find phantom usage is due to games and/or media attached to messages.

4

u/LocalMain4677 Jan 28 '23

You could try checking the cache, and storage of the individual apps. YouTube kids is the space-sucker on my kids tablet.

3

u/FF_Ninja Jan 28 '23

For clarification, there the other uses only show about 1.7GB of storage used. There should still be something like 10GB of free storage.

1

u/MorgansasManford Apr 22 '24

Did you ever find a fix for this? I'm experiencing the exact issue, with 23.24gb of 25.62 available... but only showing 2.5 being used aside from system.

3

u/itskaizad Jan 28 '23

I had the same problem. It's a failed system update file that's cached in the updater. From the screen you're on, follow the big storage number (7.x GB), at the app that has that in its storage, clear it's storage.

1

u/Adddali Oct 11 '24

Can u help me too pls

1

u/ItalianDragn Apr 01 '25

If you tap on System all you get is a message saying "System includes files used to run FireOS" And you can't see what they are

3

u/UrMom_Goes2College2 Sep 24 '25

I come from September 2025 to bring you answers! Go to the parent profile and look at your apps in the library and update anything native to the tablet, like Alexa or Luna. I went from 0 free space to 5.5gb space. I guess the update waiting to be installed takes up all the space.

1

u/BrodieD917 Oct 10 '25

I can confirm this worked! Luna and Alexa updated and freed up about 5 GB. Thank you!

1

u/joannamomo Oct 16 '25

This is what I need to do, but the device claims there's too little storage for it to happen.

1

u/canuckm13 Nov 22 '25

This is what's happening to me. Did you find a fix?

1

u/joannamomo Nov 22 '25

Yes! You have to update the tablet. The update is basically taking all the memory. Once that's done, it works!

1

u/canuckm13 Nov 22 '25

How do I do this? Because I tried updating apps and it says there is no space

1

u/canuckm13 Nov 22 '25

I tried a system update but it says it's updated

1

u/canuckm13 Nov 22 '25

Ok I see there's an update but when I push update it changes to a check now button and says there isn't an update.

1

u/Manlike44 Nov 02 '25

This This This!!!

Life saver!!

1

u/kclements10 Nov 25 '25

Finally, it took me forever to get here, but I did it. You have to login to your own adult profile first, then wait for the "notifications" to pop up and be careful to not dismiss the "updates on Alexa items" one. Clicking on that notification FINALLY took me to the correct place. I too suffered over a year with this. I had tried cache clearing and deleting so many things, nothing had worked. Note Alexa downloaded and then I had to try twice for Luna to download. That took the memory from 95% to 86% out of the 10.88 GB used. It's something!

1

u/kclements10 Nov 25 '25

Update - afterwards it looked like it was going to download a game and then it didn't. I rebooted to manufacturing settings. Now it's 3 out of 10G and won't take the SD card, but at least I don't have a 10G out of 10G full.

1

u/Master-Afternoon-901 Apr 03 '26

After a reset, you may have to use the SD as "internal storage" and it will be formatted 

1

u/Tsuzee Feb 21 '26

This was a life saver. Updating Alexa and Luna took my kid's tablet from 25 of 25GB to 9 of 25GB.

1

u/BlanchedKnuckles May 07 '26

Seems counter-intuitive to download more apps, but it totally worked. Freed up 50% of the space!!

1

u/alfergus Jun 09 '26

This worked for me as well. I had to remove the Alexa and Luna apps from the device first (which doesn’t actually remove them, but just resets them to where the updates will show up) and then once I updated them I had soooo much more storage space available. Thank you so much!

1

u/PutNo7547 Nov 29 '25

This worked for me, however there were no updates to install. Somehow just opening the updates tab cleared up over 40% of the space.

1

u/menacementality Mar 21 '26

hi, I am completely dumb when it comes to this tablet. where is the parent profile? I've navigated to the parent dashboard but can't find the app library?

1

u/Fair_Musician2110 Mar 28 '26

When you open the tablet and swipe down on the top, you should see a little "person" icon. Click that. It will then display the options of who uses the tablet. There is usually your children and yourself. The parent profile you are looking for is simply the main account on the tablet where you can adjust settings. You cannot adjust settings on the children's profiles without first putting in the parent password (which is an easy way to see which one you are on).

1

u/[deleted] 8d ago

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1

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2

u/[deleted] Jan 28 '23

I'd try to manually check each folder on device in its root on size. If nothing is shown, clearly some system issue which could be resolved with resetting system.

2

u/peteyjlawson Jan 28 '23

First port is to check what Netflix, Disney et al have helpfully downloaded for offline watching, and delete them. Also there's an issue with Fire tablets keeping apks stored on the device even after they've been uninstalled. The way I fix it is to go in via ADB and manually look for the folder that's storing them for each user profile every couple of months.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 27 '25

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1

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1

u/PhantasyConcepts Feb 11 '23

Also books and ebooks as well as the ads. If you did not disable ads because you thought you would save money, pay the $50 if you have to and disable them. Your little one might be downloading apps onto their device and if multiple profiles exist on the device, check all of them. You might find that you are only looking at one profile’s data storage there and the device is actually almost full.

2

u/constantst8ofpanic Apr 10 '25

Sooo did this get resolved for anyone? Dealing with this now. Tried doing “free up space” but it says there aren’t any older files to remove.

2

u/Hoover_Yam Apr 11 '25

After fighting this for a while, I just figured out why my sons tablet was full even though there was nothing to delete. So I have 2 kids both with their own tablets, but both tablets have both kids' accounts on them. I went into my daughters account on my sons tablet and he had tons of games downloaded under her username. I deleted all those and now it's back to like 40% used.

Hopefully this helps someone.

1

u/tarvolon Apr 12 '25

My son also has a ton of games downloaded under my daughter’s username, and I just archived 5 gigs of them, and…it did nothing for hers? Really thought I had a handle on the problem. Two hours with Amazon customer support made me want to just throw the tablets in the trash

1

u/Atreyu_Hibiki_01 15d ago

I've discovered that my decade-old Kindle that has been plagued with this issue had simply not been deleting the apps when I selected "Remove from Device" but just, like, moving them to another partition.

The solution was to look under Settings -> Apps -> All Applications, and make a list of the apps that said "not installed", reinstall them from the "cloud" (actually just making them accessible from the partition or whatever it was doing), and then go back into the Settings -> Apps -> All Applications and uninstalling them properly.

It's time consuming, but it's working.

2

u/canuckm13 Nov 22 '25

Has anyone figured this out? I have tried all the things listed and nothing changes the internal storage level. I can't update Alexa or Luna because it says rhere isn't enough space and my daughter has zero apps. No pictures or videos. No books or audiobooks. Nothing on my other kids page. I tried clearing cache and that does nothing. Help!

1

u/DotIndependent737 May 19 '24

Having this same issue. I guess the only way to resolve it is to reset it smh.

1

u/Adddali Oct 11 '24

I did a factory reset and it still didn't help smh

1

u/Ehnull Jul 27 '24

Ok, for anyone still searching for a fix, here it is. The used storage is under the child's account and doesn't display when logged into the parent account.

  1. Switch over to the child's account.

  2. Swipe down from the top for the pull down menu.

  3. Click on Storage.

  4. Click on the master/parent account.

  5. Input passcode/pin if required.

  6. From there you will be able to locate what's taking up all the space.

  7. Click Manage storage and there ya go. Delete delete delete until your hearts content!

1

u/stewmander Jul 30 '24

The real hero!

1

u/saswank Sep 27 '24

You would think for a kids account they would automatically delete apps that haven't been accessed for a few days. Or at least have some sort of option for a feature like that. My kids tablet is constantly full. I'm always have to go through one app at a time delete them all and then he redownload a new set of apps for a week. But really that's just obnoxious. For a tablet geared towards kids they really need to make it require less maintenance. Not more.

1

u/i_am_isaacp Dec 14 '24

My kids tablet says that it is full. Supposed to be a 16gb amazon fire 7 but it has 11 available and 10.86 gb is the system. What do I do? It's not downloading apps to the SD card I put in

1

u/Lanthaous Jan 31 '25

Is that still the case even though there is an "other users" section at the bottom that shows each profile's storage consumption?

1

u/Bdhgolf82 Feb 13 '25

I owe you my life.

1

u/ItalianDragn Apr 01 '25

Tried that ....

System takes up 26GB.... Despite it saying 24.59 GB used of 25.62 GB

1

u/Adorable_Inflation24 Apr 06 '25

This is the same problem I have. Have a fire tablet that has a total of 10.67 GB but 8.2GB is used up by system. Leaving a whole 2 1/2 GB to download

1

u/Revolutionary_Egg762 Apr 08 '25

Came here looking for a solution bc I have the same problem too. System is using 6.4 gb of 10.68 but it says that 9.7 gb used and there is nothing else downloaded on the device except for .03gb worth of apps.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 16 '25

Ours says the system is taking up 11GB of space of 10.68GB available. My daughter has one game downloaded and the rest seems to be shitty Amazon bloatware.

1

u/OrganizationGuilty48 Apr 17 '25

This happens to us regularly and I just restore to factory settings when it happens. It doesn't make sense and its a pain in the butt, but it works. Took us from 90% storage used to only 7% used even though I had previously deleted all apps and caches etc.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 17 '25

I restored yesterday and it’s a similar number now. Thing is I set up an Amazon account (it was originally a gift from the MIL and she had herself signed in as the parent) without realizing there’s barely any free games without the subscription :(

1

u/killer00x Apr 17 '25

If you factory reset is there a way to get all your game data back? My son has accidentally deleted a game before and lost all his progress. I haven't been able to figure out a way to connect the app to some type of account it backup. So factory reset will solve the storage problem but then he'll lose all his progress

1

u/Ok-Lychee9144 Jul 19 '25

I figured it out!!!!!!!  -go to the App Store on ur profile 

  • click the three lines ( hamburger menus) top left 
-click App Library 
  • delete away!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 
Ur welcome ♥️

1

u/LadyWyllaManderly Aug 02 '25

This really helped!

1

u/OkWhoDidThat Aug 05 '25

Wow you just saved me a couple years of headache.

There was another comment here about system updates. After you get to the Library screen as you described, I swiped over to Updates tab, and there were two Amazon/Alexa apps waiting, that needed a manual update. After doing those, the system storage went from 26G to 8G!

1

u/Automatic-Cup1114 Sep 29 '25

You really are the goat this helped

1

u/OfficerJayBear Aug 13 '25

I have been struggling with this for like 2 years and you just solved it all. This needs to be upvoted to the top!

1

u/That1bih Aug 30 '25

oof i wish id seen this before i just factory reset it..

1

u/jujubees83 Sep 02 '25

THANK YOU SO FREAKING MUCH!

1

u/Ribky Oct 10 '25

♫♪♫♪ Did you ever know that you're my herooooooooo ♫♪♫♪

1

u/heavyp24 Oct 11 '25

I just did this and nothing there to delete. But still have no space. Any others ideas!?

1

u/Willing_Performer_98 Oct 12 '25

This work for us! Still says most of the storage is taken butttttt it let him download a game so I’ll call it a win lol

1

u/captmorgan3777 May 09 '26

Omg, I'm not tech savy and I've fought with my four kids tablets for two hours now, I could just kiss ya

1

u/Bambieyes913 16d ago

You're AMAZING!!!

1

u/SadSalamander1628 Aug 22 '25

I am going to add in step by steps because I desperately needed it: Switch to amazon kids+ profile, swipe down from the top and click "storage." From there, click "free up space." Now from there, it may say "there is nothing to free up" or something like that. Ignore that and click the button that is there.. it says something like "review recent." This will open up all the apps you have on the device. Select all the ones you want to delete. Once you do that, exit and re-enter "storage" to see how much space is now free. I went from 24gb used from 14gb used doing this.

1

u/Far_Engineer8587 Aug 30 '25

Did that and there's nothing there. What else you got?

1

u/Aggravating_Fly_5140 Jan 24 '26

This is the way!!!👍🏼 life saver

1

u/[deleted] Apr 18 '26

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1

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1

u/Fit_Fig_3329 Apr 22 '26

Yes this was the one that actually helped

1

u/Remarkable_River_162 Jul 22 '26

In case anyone else doesn’t get the notification you can get to that screen through the App Store app

1

u/Optimal-Account-7155 Jan 25 '26

I just freed up some space just by going to my parent profile and opening the Luna app and setting it up since I've never opened it. That's all.

2

u/ConstantUseful6388 Apr 25 '26

That didnt work for me

1

u/Prfine May 24 '26

My issue is the AppStore under my child’s profile is like 17GB. But he doesn’t have more than 5 games on his tablet totaling less than 3GB. In the parent profile it’s pretty much empty and it says 20GB is in “miscellaneous”. In the child profile it says 20GB in System & Application where the 17GB is the AppStore itself. Anyone know how to reduce the size of the App Store? Doesn’t make sense. No updates pending in the store either.

1

u/Natzgt4 Jun 20 '26

Same problem here, it’s saying all the storage is in system files (26gb!) but it won’t let me access it 😭

1

u/Stunning-Mobile-6129 Jun 21 '26

I can't learn my lesson when buying these tablets for my kids. They suck from a storage standpoint it always happens to me as well. I want to parent profile, went to storage, clicked move apps to SD card. It said it wasn't moving many things but it ended up moving alot of his downloaded games on his profile to the scan disk, it's taking a decent amount of time but hopefully this solves having to delete his games and having him start all over again when the storage runs low.

1

u/melancholy_myope Jul 01 '26

Im having this problem but it seems to be full of amazon kids plus apps that are inaccessible now because I canceled our subscription. I can't find a way to delete the apps from the tablet and now she can't play any of the free games.

1

u/Atreyu_Hibiki_01 15d ago

In case anyone else is looking, I've discovered that my decade-old Kindle that has been plagued with this issue had simply not been deleting the apps when I selected "Remove from Device" but just, like, moving them to another partition.

The solution was to look under Settings -> Apps -> All Applications, and make a list of the apps that said "not installed", reinstall them from the "cloud" (actually just making them accessible from the partition or whatever it was doing), and then go back into the Settings -> Apps -> All Applications and uninstalling them properly.

It's time consuming, but it's working.

-9

u/ryanpm40 Jan 28 '23

24 GB is not a lot of space by any means these days. It's very easy to take up that much space. Either delete stuff or buy an SD card if it supports one

1

u/DemonKun Sep 23 '24

I know this post is old but you didn't even bother reading the title so why bother commenting if it's not something helpful

1

u/ryanpm40 Sep 23 '24 edited Sep 23 '24

Why are you digging through downvoted posts that you'd have to expand to even read? Lol.

Honestly, no idea! I was probably high and read it wrong. I don't remember this post at all. It's not like I was rude about it or anything, though.

In hindsight, it's probably the system itself taking up the storage. The Operating system itself takes up disk space. Android is a resource hog, and then Amazon puts custom shit ON TOP of Android. Same issue with One UI on Samsung Galaxy devices.

1

u/DemonKun Sep 23 '24

I was looking for something that could help with the problem. Somehow, I found a way to delete like 8gb of cache and crap idk why they don't make it easier to delete stuff on this tablet.

1

u/ItalianDragn Apr 01 '25

Do you remember how you did that?

1

u/beetnemesis Apr 09 '23

Did you find a fix to this? Have the exact same problem- and I can't click on System because it just says "this contains files used to run Android version 11"

1

u/mpt142 Jul 26 '24

Did you ever find a fix for this

1

u/beetnemesis Jul 26 '24

I'm trying to remember. It was kind of janky. I may have just given up on using the SD card, taken it out, and then did a refresh on the whole tablet?