Samsung shows more accurate system storage figures with One UI 6 update

Phone

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

A few months ago, there was a lot of heated discussion about how Samsung displays system storage status on its phones and tablets. An inaccurate report from ArsTechnica had claimed that Samsung's software uses upwards of 60GB of storage space due to bloatware apps and services, but that turned out to be false. However, Samsung is now changing the way it shows system storage figures so that people make an issue out of nothing.

One UI 6.0 changes how it shows system storage figures for a more accurate picture

With One UI 6.0, Samsung is more accurately depicting system storage numbers. Rather than grouping the disparity between advertised storage space and actual storage space into ‘System,' One UI 6.0 displays it as ‘Other Files.' This stops people from believing that Samsung's software actually takes as much as 60GB of space on their 512GB phone. This change was spotted by Max Weinbach, and when we checked our Galaxy S23 Ultra unit running One UI 6.0 Beta 1, the My Files app showed 17.56GB of space for the System and 4.98GB of storage occupied for ‘Other Files.' This Other Files section is nothing but the disparity between advertised storage (measured in Gigabytes) and the actual way of measuring storage (gibibytes).

For example, a 256GB (Gigabyte) Galaxy S23 has 238GiB (the way OS uses to calculate available storage space) of actual storage space. That difference of 18GB was earlier grouped into System (which is around 16-18GB), resulting in a number that's around 36GB. Now, One UI 6.0 shows System figures more accurately around 17.56GB. For comparison, the Pixel 7 Pro (which people think runs pure Android) has a system partition of around 16GB.

Hopefully, with this change, Galaxy smartphone and tablet users will no longer complain about Samsung devices using too much storage space unnecessarily. One UI 6.0 also brings a lot of new and improved features, including a redesigned Quick Settings toggles area, and you can view all those changes in our in-depth video below.

Asif Iqbal Shaik - Senior Editor

[email protected]

First Samsung device: T100

Asif is a computer engineer turned technology journalist. He has been using Samsung phones since 2004, and his current smartphone is the Galaxy S21 Ultra. He loves headphones, mechanical keyboards, and PC hardware. When not writing about technology, he likes watching crime and science fiction movies and TV shows.

Phone Android 14 My Files One UI 6.0

One UI 6 shows more accurate system storage figures to stop users from freaking out

One UI 6.0 changes how it shows system storage figures for a more accurate picture

Asif Iqbal Shaik - Senior Editor

[email protected]

First Samsung device: T100

You might also like

See green line appear live on Samsung phone’s OLED display

Samsung Find's One UI 7 icon makes its way to One UI 6.1.1

Music controls in One UI 7 are not where you expect

Galaxy S22's One UI 6.1.1 lands in the USA