Steve Litchfield demonstrates how to give your S60 smartphone the ultimate spring clean, increasing your free internal storage space and also (hopefully) improving performance and stability.

If you're anything like me, and despite the best of intentions, quite a bit of third party software has made its way through your smartphone over the last year or so. You've probably tried out 'those games' and installed various 'utilities', each of which claimed to transform the way you work but which you didn't like in the end. All of these have probably been removed with 'Tools | Manager', but you can bet they've each left files of various kinds scattered about your smartphone's internal memory. (Incidentally, if you're confused between storage memory and 'RAM', see here for a full explanation.)

Then there's a year's worth of normal smartphone operation to contend with as well, with all those SMS messages, emails and beamed items, temporary files used by the OS and for some reason not deleted, and so on. Symbian OS is a whole lot more careful in this regard that Windows on the desktop, but no complex software system is perfect.

The end result is that, despite me being careful to install applications and documents only onto the expansion card (disk 'E'), I find my 10MB internal disk (in the case of my Nokia 6630) 75% used up, with only 2.8MB free. Now this isn't just about bits and bytes, after all, losing (say) 5MB is insignificant in the grand scheme of things, especially with a 1GB expansion card stuffed in nearby slot. But the internal disk is special - it's where Symbian OS puts all its temporary files and workings and it's generally a good idea to keep this as clear as possible - just in case. Plus there's the peace of mind in knowing that you haven't got lots of rubbish lying around to clog up the works.

And, in my case, I was starting to see the occasional spontaneous soft reset, a sure sign that software under the hood was conflicting somehow.

Steve's Spring Clean Day

2pm. OK, so more of a spring clean afternoon. The first thing to do, before anything else, was to use PC Suite to do a complete backup of my device's internal disk. That done, whatever else happens, I know that I can always get back to where I am now.

2.15pm My plan of attack was two-fold. Firstly, I'd trawl through as much of the folder structure as I could understand, in FExplorer, deleting stuff that I knew I didn't need anymore. I was curious to see if this alone could reclaim enough storage memory.

   
From the left: examining the current file stats, deleting example and unnecessary files, getting lost in the System tree and remembering to copy data files from my third party applications

2.40pm. Thirty or forty file deletions later, I'd scraped together another Megabyte and now had 3.9MB free. Hmm.... I just couldn't see where the remaining 6MB had gone, but presumed it was buried in the System folder somewhere. Time to switch to my second and more drastic line of attack. Copy off stuff I needed and then wipe the internal storage memory completely. Here's what I did:

1. Synced the smartphone to Outlook, to make sure all the PIM data was safe.
2. Checked I had all my reg codes and email settings written down safely, in the likely event that I'd have to re-enter then later on.
3. Several applications had data associated with them and I spent a couple of minutes finding their data files in the \system\apps tree and copying the files somewhere safe on my expansion card. Just in case.

Time for the three-finger-salute, used in anger for the first time in my life! 'Green'+'*'+'3' held down for ten seconds after powering the smartphone on. Twenty seconds later I was staring at a fresh startup screen, asking for location, time and date.

2.58pm. Time to start putting back the bits I needed. Again, here's how I proceeded, step by step.

1. In 'Tools | Manager | Settings', I disabled the (rather silly) 'Software installation' block. Now I can put 3rd party applications on.
2. I installed FExplorer and checked the free space on disk C, the internal storage: 8.5MB free. Well, it's not the full 10MB, but the operating system is started and there must be quite a number of temporary files in use already. a 4.6MB gain will do me, anyway. 
3. I synced with Outlook again, thus putting back all my Contacts, Calendar, Tasks and Notes in one fell swoop. No hassles here. Still 8.2MB free on 'C'.
4. As my expansion card was still inserted, most of the applications were still shown as present and correct. Starting each one in turn, I found half a dozen that needed their registration code typing in again.
5. In Messaging, I took a deep breath and typed in my UKOnline mailbox details (servers/username etc). Glad I don't have to do that every day of the week....
6. Finally, not surprisingly, I found that my Bluetooth pairings had been deleted. Setting these up again (with my PC and GPS) didn't take long.

 
Proof of the final after-cleanup free space, after inputting all settings and installing a handful of small freeware utilities

3.38. I'm done. A little shuffling of icons around the Menu screen is still needed, but essentially I'm back up and running, with full functionality. With just over 4MB more space on my internal disk, a smartphone that seems slightly more responsive, and the peace of mind in knowing that all the rubbish from a year's experimentation has been well and truly purged.

A productive use of an hour and three quarters, I feel, and a record of what to do if you'd ever like to try the procedure for yourself. Quite apart from any performance benefits, it's excellent practice at 'disaster recovery', replicating to a large extent what you'd have to go through if your device failed (or was stolen) and was replaced, and successfully completing the above should give you a lot of confidence.