One UI 5.1 bloatware is not consuming 60 GB storage on new Samsung Galaxy S23, Galaxy S23 Plus or Galaxy S23 Ultra

[Redaktion]

Recently there have been reports that One UI 5.1 reserves upwards of 60 GB storage for system partitions on the Galaxy S23, Galaxy S23 Plus and Galaxy S23 Ultra. Samsung may continue to insist on pre-installing third-party apps on One UI, but claims of 60 GB in bloatware are far from true.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/One-UI-5-1-bloatware-is-not-consuming-60-GB-storage-on-new-Samsung-Galaxy-S23-Galaxy-S23-Plus-or-Galaxy-S23-Ultra.692149.0.html

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It's even worse than this though.

The original ArsTechnica article (which is the source for all this misinformation that every other news outlet ran with) claims to have gathered the evidence from responses to a tweet by Mishaal Rashman.

Yes, the Galaxy S23 is slowly trickling out to the masses, and, as Esper's senior technical editor Mishaal Rahman highlights in a storage space survey, Samsung's new phone is way out of line with most of the ecosystem. Several users report the phone uses around 60GB for the system partition right out of the box. If you have a 128GB phone, that's nearly half your storage for the Android OS and packed-in apps. That's four times the size of the normal Pixel 7 Pro system partition, which is 15GB. It's the size of two Windows 11 installs, side by side. What could Samsung possibly be putting in there?!

There are multiple issues here, beyond the GB to GiB conversion issue, which is actually something all Android phones do (as far as I'm aware) (CORRECTION: While many vendors do this, some, notably Pixel, do not.), not just Samsung, as your article suggests. In fact this is a rather well-known practice and you can find posts about it dating back ten years or more.

If you go to Twitter and check the responses to Mishaal's tweet, focusing specifically on screenshots from Samsung devices, you'll notice the vast majority of them have an "i" icon next to the section that is supposed to measure user apps. That's because the Samsung My Files app (which is used to measure storage within the Settings app) does not have the permissions necessary to measure this by default. As the device is aware that something is using this space, it gets added to System by default, until the user gives the My Files app the necessary permissions.

As it's impossible to know how much storage a user has taken up with user apps, any screenshot with the "i" icon is therefore useless as a data point.

If you look at the remaining screenshots, they all fall in line with what's expected at their storage tier (after accounting for the GB to GiB issue) and not a single 128 GB device ever approached the kind of scenario this suggests:

If you have a 128GB phone, that's nearly half your storage for the Android OS and packed-in apps.

But it gets worse still. If you search Twitter for image responses to Mishaal that include the string "s23", ignoring whether or not the screenshot has the "i" icon, there are only five screenshots of unique S23 devices (the sixth is the same device again, after the owner gave the correct permissions to the My Files app), and only two of them approach anything near 60 GB (one other is under 50 GB, and the rest are under 40 GB). Of the two, only one of the screenshots are taken with the correct permissions, but let's assume the author was ignorant and put that aside for now. That still doesn't excuse this line in the article:

Several users report the phone uses around 60GB for the system partition right out of the box.

As any statements without screenshots can't be assumed to be true, this is either seriously negligent journalism at best, or at worst, a blatant lie about how many sources supported his claims.

[Grillitdaddy]

I have a 512gb s22 ultra, At&t. The system takes 57.99 gb. Already granted permission for my files app. Apps27.26gb not included in the 57.99.

[Adam K]

on my 12/512 s23u model, 58.09gb are system.

[ADA]

This site doesn't support screenies but my European S23+ 512GB takes up 59.63GB for the system.

[Perzeus]

My S23 256gb shows system is using 39.52GB, that is with MyFiles permissions. While it's not 60 as reported, but still outrageously huge. And that is an OS that does not support many of Androids standard features, basically a cut down Android version. Samsung software sucks.

[..]

I have a 512gb s22 ultra, At&t. The system takes 57.99 gb. Already granted permission for my files app. Apps27.26gb not included in the 57.99.

on my 12/512 s23u model, 58.09gb are system.

This site doesn't support screenies but my European S23+ 512GB takes up 59.63GB for the system.

My S23 256gb shows system is using 39.52GB, that is with MyFiles permissions. While it's not 60 as reported, but still outrageously huge. And that is an OS that does not support many of Androids standard features, basically a cut down Android version. Samsung software sucks.

Do you all have some crippling selective vision or did you all choose to ignore the entire section on GB to GiB conversion?

For the 3 of you with 512 GB phones, 512 GB = 476.837 GiB. Android phone vendors got tired of people complaining about "false advertising" when they saw the storage in their phones only add up to 476.837 GB (GB is used to mean GiB in many operating systems including Android and Windows due to JEDEC standards) so they add the number 35.163 to System to make everything add up to 512 GB.

For the 256 GB phone, same thing but they add 17.581.

It's just a number added. Not actual space that exists or is used.