Android App Data (Google Play Music)

[Rhino172]

So looking at my storage on my Nexus 5, the Google Play Music app is showing as App 14.43mb and Data 2.21GB.

I have no music stored on the phone at all, I stream using the Google Play Music app due to having an unlimited data package. Clicking on Clear Data I get "All this apps data will be deleted permanently. this includes all files, settings, accounts, databases, etc."

what does this actually mean? Am I oing to **** up all my music by doing this?

I don't desperately need the space as I still have 14GB free on the phone but I don't understand why this app would have over 2GB of data if there is no music on the phone?

Googling just gives me a load of guides on how to clear the data and not actually what it will remove and result of doing so.

 

[Ay Ay Ron]

Have you tried playing music while not online.
I had a load saved to device a while back which I didn't mean to do. It did enable me to play them when I wasn't online.
I ended up clearing everything and it pretty much started from fresh as I cancelled my subscription. If you have music stored to your library it will sync them again I think as that's what happened again to me.

 

[Ben..]

The Google play music app stores songs as it streams them, so you'll notice you don't get any buffering with tracks you've played recently.

In the settings menu of the play music app there is a checkbox "Cache music during playback" so i think if you uncheck that it will stop doing so. If you remove the data you'll lose all the cached tracks, no biggie when you have unlimited data but if you don't need the space you might as well leave it there as it will drain your battery less to play music from the cache than to stream.

 

[Rhino172]

Ok thanks, makes sense. Although I would have thought the cached tracks would have been under the "clear Cache" button rather than "clear Data"? As the Cache for the app is currenlty showing as 20kb so basically nothing.

Interesting in the settings for the app where the "cache during playback" button is, there is another "clear cache" button. I've just pressed that and hey presto: App 14.43mb, Data 220mb