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[Q] Android SD Navigation - How does this thing work?

My SD (the one on the Android, not the SD Card, why the hell did they name it SD?!) is full of junk. In fact, it comes with a load of junk by default.
How do I:
1. Get Android to not pull videos, pictures, and music from games? My gallery, video player, doubletwist, etc is full of stuff like that.
2. Know what I can delete and what I can't? I'd like to clean this place up.
3. How do I find stuff? I mean, is it up to me to make "Music" "Pictures" "Videos" folders for my own sake, and Android just looks everywhere and grabs it?
4. How do I go to my SD Card? In fact, I am 100% sure my SD card has two auto-assigned folders on it and nothing else. I have no idea how to access it or put things on it, and I am also sure my phone does not care that it exists. Obviously my phone's SD has plenty of memory on it, but I don't know why there is even a SD card slot. I was thinking of copying some files onto my SD card to put onto my friend's Android phone, but I am also positive I'd have no idea how to perform what should be a basic task.
So, help me out. What am I doing? And, what apps would I need for question four, or just file browsing apps in general.

I'm confused about what this topic is about.
All the words that would describe what he is talking about are replaced with junk and stuff.
.___.
edit: The captivate assigns the internal sd card as SD:
Delete the "junk"

thehyecircus said:
My SD (the one on the Android, not the SD Card, why the hell did they name it SD?!) is full of junk. In fact, it comes with a load of junk by default.
How do I:
1. Get Android to not pull videos, pictures, and music from games? My gallery, video player, doubletwist, etc is full of stuff like that.
2. Know what I can delete and what I can't? I'd like to clean this place up.
3. How do I find stuff? I mean, is it up to me to make "Music" "Pictures" "Videos" folders for my own sake, and Android just looks everywhere and grabs it?
4. How do I go to my SD Card? In fact, I am 100% sure my SD card has two auto-assigned folders on it and nothing else. I have no idea how to access it or put things on it, and I am also sure my phone does not care that it exists. Obviously my phone's SD has plenty of memory on it, but I don't know why there is even a SD card slot. I was thinking of copying some files onto my SD card to put onto my friend's Android phone, but I am also positive I'd have no idea how to perform what should be a basic task.
So, help me out. What am I doing? And, what apps would I need for question four, or just file browsing apps in general.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A search would have answered your questions. your SD card memory is the phones main programs memory. IT is where alot of your apps store the data. You can use many apps to as a file explorer it even comes with one. Its called My Files. I use Root Explorer which allows to access Root files and make changes to them. The sd card slot is for....wait for it.......More memory. As for it not seeing the files. there are a few music apps that let you set the folders it scans. Power Amp is the best at the moment IMHO. You can also put a file in the folders that you dont want scanned named no media, (with root explorer you can copy one of these files from the root folders if you can make one.)

with pre existing folders (for apps and such)
create a "new file" in it named " .nomedia " with the . (preriod)
this can be done with root explorer or in windows. create blank text document rename to .nomedia with NO .txt then copy and move to folders.
nothing in that folder or sub folder will be included in media scans
or if it is a personal folder you are creating name it starting with a . (period)
and ya internal SD gets messy. Use external for your files to keep organized!

Wouldn't my SD card (even if it is SDHC) be slower? DoubleTwist is already inexcusably slow with my files on the SD itself, what would it be like on the external?
And yes, I know what the SD is, I was just asking why it was named that.

Bumping this because I am curious about any speed differences, and because I would like my SD Card to matter.

[Q] external SD card questions

i'm new to android so please bear with me.
i have a 32GB SD class 4 in my phone. it's been formatted so all it has is the lost.dir (i'm on a mac)
since there are no folders there - how do i gets apps to use it? where do i put music and other files? i have podcasts and other stuff i'd like to drag over but i'm not understanding how the different apps would see it.
i can move some apps to SD card but i think it just moves them to the internal SD card.
it seems that there are 2 SD cards in the phone but no way to differentiate between the 2.
also it sometimes takes forever for the gx2 to recognize the card, its kind of annoying. is having a class 10 better for this?

I use filemanager from the market and it recognizes my external as........"_externalSD" also allows me to transfer files between the two.

ecpht said:
i'm new to android so please bear with me.
i have a 32GB SD class 4 in my phone. it's been formatted so all it has is the lost.dir (i'm on a mac)
since there are no folders there - how do i gets apps to use it? where do i put music and other files? i have podcasts and other stuff i'd like to drag over but i'm not understanding how the different apps would see it.
i can move some apps to SD card but i think it just moves them to the internal SD card.
it seems that there are 2 SD cards in the phone but no way to differentiate between the 2.
also it sometimes takes forever for the gx2 to recognize the card, its kind of annoying. is having a class 10 better for this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When you have your phone plugged in pull down the alert bar on the top of the screen and press the "USB Connection" option. It should ask you if you want to turn USB mode on and have a picture of an Android. This will allow you to mount your internal and external sd as if they were regular flash sticks. You can then copy whatever you want to them. I also like to use drop box in combination with Astro for moving things to and from the cloud.

ecpht said:
i'm new to android so please bear with me.
i have a 32GB SD class 4 in my phone. it's been formatted so all it has is the lost.dir (i'm on a mac)
since there are no folders there - how do i gets apps to use it? where do i put music and other files? i have podcasts and other stuff i'd like to drag over but i'm not understanding how the different apps would see it.
i can move some apps to SD card but i think it just moves them to the internal SD card.
it seems that there are 2 SD cards in the phone but no way to differentiate between the 2.
also it sometimes takes forever for the gx2 to recognize the card, its kind of annoying. is having a class 10 better for this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. G2x has the internal sd card partitioned into 2 parts (1 for OS & apps & other for storage & apps).
2. Sd card's class does help but it is not something important until you're running a high def video.
3. Use any file explorer app (File expert etc) for copying files from Internal SD Card to External SD Card.
4. Most of the app's setting menu gives you an option to physically select the storage destination folder i.e. external sd card.
Hope I helped.
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App

so say i have podcasts and other files on my computer i want to copy to the 32GB SD card - do i just make folders on the card and copy the files over from my computer?

ecpht said:
so say i have podcasts and other files on my computer i want to copy to the 32GB SD card - do i just make folders on the card and copy the files over from my computer?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, just simply copy the entire FOLDER of the particular file to your External SD Card & if in future, if u download something directly from your phone then simply just copy/paste it from your using any file manager app.
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App

so i have the phone connected to the computer and I see 2 No Name disks. That's fine. I put a folder called music at the root level of the 32GB card. Now I find that folder in File Expert and I go to play something and it says that file isn't supported. I tried Google Music and Doubletwist. Just mp3's from a CD. are there certain settings for android i need to know about? and do i need to go to File Expert to play this music everytime? Or should I be going through doubletwist on my mac and using it like itunes?
thanks you any help, i'm pretty clueless with this aspect of android right now, trying to catch up.

also both SD cards randomly unmount themselves. is there a reason for this or a way to prevent this?

ecpht said:
so i have the phone connected to the computer and I see 2 No Name disks. That's fine. I put a folder called music at the root level of the 32GB card. Now I find that folder in File Expert and I go to play something and it says that file isn't supported. I tried Google Music and Doubletwist. Just mp3's from a CD. are there certain settings for android i need to know about? and do i need to go to File Expert to play this music everytime? Or should I be going through doubletwist on my mac and using it like itunes?
thanks you any help, i'm pretty clueless with this aspect of android right now, trying to catch up.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok. After reading your problems, here are my suggestions:
1) Copy your 32 GB SD Card files on your computer.
2) Format your 32 GB card. Replace all files back in it.
3) Stop worrying about putting certain files (pics, music) in a root folder. Simply just put any files OR folders inside the Sd card.
4) When it comes to File sharing, think of Android in the same category as Windows.
I hope I helped.
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App

[Q] Saving music to internal SD

Hello, I have an AT&T HTC ONE X running AOKP Jellybean. I currently have 1.64gb of internal storage available on the phone and about 4gb on the "external" storage. The phone is claimed to have 16gb of total storage. I believe they just partition the card into two sections to create internal and external storage.
My music files account for exactly 1.55gb of storage on the external portion of the SD. I have been attempting to move that music into the 1.65gb of free space on the internal portion. I have been unable to do this. Most folders are read only and while I can use root explorer to move files into these folders, or create new ones, I am unable to get my syncing program to access the folders because they are technically read only. I have a program that syncs all my music files in the cloud so I can share multiple devices.
Some of the folders in the internal SD are not read only and I can actually move files into them, but for whatever reason, these same folders wont sync properly with my program. The program (foldersync) will see the folder and claim to be downloading music to the folder, but nothing appears. And other folders which are not read only, won't evcen appear in the selection list to choose from within the foldersync app. I've even tried storing the music in a non read only folder on the internal SD and creating a link to it thats on the external SD to trick the foldersync program. The trick works and everything syncs perfectly, but the amount of available storage on the EXTERNAL SD is affected when everything appears to be on the internal.
All I'm trying to do is sync some stuff to the internal SD with the foldersync application, can anyone tell me how to do this? Haha sorry for the wall of text!
Also, I thought about using Google Music but it appears that Google Music stores everything on the external SD and there are no options in the app to change it.

Closed use proper Q&A section

integrating SD card good or bad?

does this feature work better than having the SD card as an external device?
my concern is if you change the card or have to change the card..
surely everything will go to crap if its integrated and you change or upgrade the card.

I won't integrate it, if something goes wrong you have to reformat entire SD card to make it work as normal.
I will just save everything on SD card while internal memory is used for apps/chat storage

The disadvantage is as you have stated. But the advantages are 1) it will become part of your phone storage. You can store app or any other type of date there. 2) It's encrypted and only work while it's in your phone. You won't be able to read it once it's removed but you don't have to worry about loosing sensitive data if someone got your phone. If you need to change the card (replace with a bigger card), just connect to your computer, copy the data to your computer, switch the card, copy date back to new card.

toiday said:
The disadvantage is as you have stated. But the advantages are 1) it will become part of your phone storage. You can store app or any other type of date there. 2) It's encrypted and only work while it's in your phone. You won't be able to read it once it's removed but you don't have to worry about loosing sensitive data if someone got your phone. If you need to change the card (replace with a bigger card), just connect to your computer, copy the data to your computer, switch the card, copy date back to new card.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi, total n00b here, but is this true? I thought the data stores were completely scattered once an SD card is integrated, so a simple copy of the data (after porting it onto a computer/other storage) to a new SD card would not guarantee reintegration, as you'd have to reintegrate/mount the new SD card.

frankfrank12 said:
Hi, total n00b here, but is this true? I thought the data stores were completely scattered once an SD card is integrated, so a simple copy of the data (after porting it onto a computer/other storage) to a new SD card would not guarantee reintegration, as you'd have to reintegrate/mount the new SD card.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When you setup initially, you have option for what folders, app you want to store in the SD card. I choose to keep all the app I use often in the phone (faster) and folders like media (video, pictures, music) in SD since they're the reason I need SD card. I currently have 64GB SD card. I plan to upgrade to 128GB when they have it available in UHS-3. At that time, I'll need to migrate from the 64GB to the 128GB. Here is my plan: Under Settings -> Storage & USB, it shows Phone Storage and SD Card. Under SD Card, it show the Apps folder with my few app in it, my music folder, my picture folder, and my video folder. There, I can move the pictures, Video, music folders to the computer. I then move the app back to phone storage (there is option for that). Then I can eject the SD card. Insert the new one and format as internal storage. Copy the folders back from the computer. In addition, I probably don't need to copy my picture files since they're backed up to Google Pictures.
It's not very convenience but the price I pay for encryption. Don't have to do that often anyway.

Even with SD card set as primary storage most apps still reside on local storage

When I first got the phone I set the 32 gb SD card as the primary storage because I read the phone lacks the feature at least in 4.1 to manually manage moving apps to SD card. I thought everything was fine but now I notice in the details of almost all of my apps that they are stored on the local storage. Without an option to move these items to SD how can I force them to move to SD card. I downloaded HiSuite and got it working after I enabled everything but don't see a way to move apps to SD and most of the apps on the play store just direct you to the section where you'd traditionally move the items to SD and the feature isn't there. Is there something I can do to get some of these games/apps to SD card or any chance that once I get nougat in the next month or two I'd at least be able to do so then? Thanks. These forums have been real lifesavers a number of times even though I mostly lurk.

I think ever since Android 5.0 (Lollipop) google stopped allowing apps to be installed to an SD card, therefor you need tricks or apps like Link2SD, which has a paid feature to make symbolic links to the sd card.
I bought a 128gb card, which is basically overkill if nothing can be installed on it. Nice for music I guess, but spotify als refuses to store stuff on the sd card.

eddoc said:
When I first got the phone I set the 32 gb SD card as the primary storage because I read the phone lacks the feature at least in 4.1 to manually manage moving apps to SD card. I thought everything was fine but now I notice in the details of almost all of my apps that they are stored on the local storage. Without an option to move these items to SD how can I force them to move to SD card. I downloaded HiSuite and got it working after I enabled everything but don't see a way to move apps to SD and most of the apps on the play store just direct you to the section where you'd traditionally move the items to SD and the feature isn't there. Is there something I can do to get some of these games/apps to SD card or any chance that once I get nougat in the next month or two I'd at least be able to do so then? Thanks. These forums have been real lifesavers a number of times even though I mostly lurk.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
select External SD as default storage which is present in Settings (settings > advanced settings > memory & storage > last second option > default Location - change it to external MicroSD ..

As I said in my post one of the first things I does was set sd card as default
However when you look at the details on apps almost all of them are still installing themselves to internal. The size on my sd card has only dropped a bit.
Bhargav7 said:
select External SD as default storage which is present in Settings (settings > advanced settings > memory & storage > last second option > default Location - change it to external MicroSD ..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

eddoc said:
However when you look at the details on apps almost all of them are still installing themselves to internal. The size on my sd card has only dropped a bit.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if this is the case.. i too want to find & learn the solution.. !! Hope we get some real solution..

I've installed XInternalSD (xposed & root [i think] required), which seems to have done the trick. Games like Asphalt 8 now fully install their data on the external sd card.