Galaxy S5: How to Wipe the Cache Partition

One of the most common reasons for issues with various applications boils down to the bad/corrupt cache for the app. So today I’m going to show you exactly how you can wipe the Galaxy S5 Cache Partition.

Applications and services use Android’s cache partition to store some data that it might need to access quickly(or a lot of the time). Instead of accessing this data from the internal(or external) storage, Android will put some of this in the cache partition to give applications quicker and easier access to that data. The thing is, sometimes the data in the cache partition can become corrupt or inaccessible for a lot of different reasons.

Sometimes it’s just random corruption that happens, sometimes it’s an application that has written invalid or incomplete data to the partition and sometimes it actually holds left over data from an update.

If you’re just having an issue with one particular application, like Google+, all you would have to do is launch the Settings application. Locate the Apps/App Manager section, swipe over to the All column and then tap on the application that is having an issue. In this case it would be Google+. So from here, you would tap on the clear cache button and then tap on the clear data button. Simple, right? Well, what happens if you’re having an issue with the entire Android operating system? Something like incredibly poor performance or excessive battery drain after you have performed an update(or even just over time). This is when I suggest that you wipe the cache partition of the Galaxy S5 to see if this fixes it for you.

Galaxy S5 Wipe Cache Partition

1. Power Down the Galaxy S5
2. Boot the Galaxy S5 into Recovery Mode
3. Press the Volume Down Button to Navigate the Menu
4. Highlight the ‘Wipe Cache Partition’ Option
5. Press the Power Button to Select this Option
6. Wait(sometimes up to 15 minutes) for Android to Wipe the Cache Partition of the Galaxy S5
7. When it is Complete, Use the Volume Up/Down Buttons to Highlight the ‘Reboot System’ Option
8. Press the Power Button to Select this Option and Reboot the Galaxy S5

Explanation

If you read the tutorial I wrote yesterday, then you’ll know exactly how to boot the Galaxy S5 into Recovery Mode. If you missed this tutorial, click the link in the instructions above and go through that page. Once your Galaxy S5 is in Recovery Mode, we can go ahead and start wiping the cache partition. You’ll want to use/press the Volume Up and Volume Down buttons to navigate through this menu. Once you have highlighted the ‘Wipe Cache Partition’ option, you’ll need to press the Power button to perform this task.

This entire process can last around 15 minutes or so. Let the Galaxy S5 do its thing and Android will delete all of the data that is inside the cache partition. Once this is finished, you’ll be taken back to the main menu of the Recovery Mode. Again, you’ll need to use the Volume Up and Volume Down buttons to move the selector and highlight the ‘Reboot System’ option. Once it has been highlighted, pressing the Power button to select this option and it will reboot your Galaxy S5 into the standard Android system.

This is all you need to do to wipe the cache partition of the Galaxy S5. I saw a ton of reports from users updating their Nexus devices to the initial Android 5.0 Lollipop update. These reports were talking about how horrible the performance of their device was after they had updated. Google’s support staff was instructing people to wipe the cache partition and doing this one simple task helped to clear up the performance issue for the majority of those users. This is why I suggest doing troubleshooting step so much(because it works!).

It won’t fix everything, but it’s easy to do and relatively quick to do as well. If you ever suspect your Samsung Galaxy S5 is not functioning like it should then definitely wipe the cache partition to see if it helps.

Experiencing difficulties with your Device, check out our “How To” page on how to resolve some of these issues.