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I had dropbox on my PlayBook, but I removed it to try and resolve an issue I had. I noticed that even though the app is gone, there is still a folder called
Misc/android/android/data/com.dropbox.android
It has quite a few files in it including a cache folder with photos in it. Is it possible/safe to somehow delete these folders?
I believe it it safe. If in doubt, back it up somewhere, then delete and see if things work okay. Android, especially sideloaded apps do not necessarily clean up after themselves.
Thanks for the advise.
Wow, those android apps are messy little buggers! Stuff all over the android directories from apps that I have installed, played with a bit, then deleted again.
I am carefully working through it, getting rid of stuff that needn't (shouldn't!) be there any more.
I was going to add that type of info to my reply but left it simple - YES. And making it more complicated is that there are TWO Android/android folders (upper and lower case) with the same and differing stuff in them.
CAUTION: in case you don't know - the folders that "seem" to have copies of jpgs, music, etc are MIRRORED folders. While they do not really contain extra copies, they are REAL LINKS and if you erase them, you erase (delete) the real files. But also complicating this is that Windows (don't know macs) don't distinguish so if you start copying stuff for a manual backup, those mirrored files will copy, doubling the storage on your computer. Bottom line: it is hard to pick and chose what to copy out of those Android folders when you do want to save the files - for instance, some photo editing Android apps do store real and unique files you may want copies of. (and I'm probably not explaining it well)
Thanks for your reply.
No, you are explaining it pretty well. I had found out most of this myself from some experimenting (I like to know how things work). I realised that these music etc. folders MUST be links as otherwise I had the first 64Gb Playbook with about 150Gb of music on it!! I confirmed it by adding and deleting a few files, and seeing where else the files appeared/disapeared. The Upper and Lower case thing had me a bit confused, and as you say, Windows does not differentiate between these, so that is going to cause some confusion.
Do you know if the Blackberry Desktop Manager is smart enough to deal with all of the above when doing a backup? I'd like to think it would be...
Again, as you say, if there is a mixture of mirrored and real files scattered round the directories, not to mention duplicates all over the place, the whole thing is a bit of a mess, and probably best left well alone...
I guess it's not possible to do any serious damage to the Playbook OS, as all those files seem to be hidden out of harms way(?) So as long as I have my important personal data backed up then in the worst case, I'd just have to copy the files back/re-install a few Apps.
I'm not sure if Rim understood the full ramifications of creating the Android "Player" inside the pb. It really does create a very complex MESS, frankly.
I really don't know what the Desktop Software (or now the new Link software) does but I suspect it does not deal with the sideloaded Android stuff. And I have no idea if "OFFICIAL" Android apps sold in appworld are handled better or similarly or what!
And yes, it is magical that a 64gig pb can hold 150gigs of music and photos!!!!! :D I, too, discovered that when I was doing my manual backup and Windows complained about lack of room - what the heck! I'd forgotten about those "mirrored" files.