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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.
With Lollipop, does the Z5 (without rooting):
allow apps to be moved to an external SD card?
allow apps to write to the external SD card?
With the Z3 and Kitkat, point 2 was possible with root, but I haven't figured out point 1, not even with root.
I read somewhere that Lollipop should allow (2), but it should depend on the implementation of each phone.
Also, do you know if these two points are supposed to change in any way with Marshmallows?
Yes to both. The Z3 does both too.
jeremy_inc said:
Yes to both. The Z3 does both too.
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Click to collapse
Mmm, my Z3 with Kitkat does neither without root. Are you sure the Z5 does?
In my Z3:
There is no 'move app to SD card' option.
As for getting apps to write to the external SD card, I only managed to achieve it with root (there's a way to modify write permission which you can only change if you are rooted). Before this change, for example, Titanium Backup couldn't write backups to the external sd card
Sorry, Z3 on Lollipop I meant
Well apps on SD Works on z5
Just like on z1. I don't know if all apps work this way but:
You have to go to your app menu and check those checkboxes under the SD card page
I believe it'll work the same on z3
For apps to write on SD card it's need to be implemented in the app
For example total commander does this:
Once you try moving to SD card it opens the default android dialog and chose SD card
Bare 2 things in mind:
1. The whole app wont be moved over. Some can still take a load of space up on main storage.
2. When you update an app the system moves the whole app back onto the main storage.
This was from my Xperia z3 experience on lollipop.
Sent from my E5563 using Tapatalk
JKWR said:
Bare 2 things in mind:
1. The whole app wont be moved over. Some can still take a load of space up on main storage.
2. When you update an app the system moves the whole app back onto the main storage.
This was from my Xperia z3 experience on lollipop.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Does (2) apply to all apps, or does it depend on how the app was coded by the developers?
I'm thinking of apps where it makes sense to keep the app/engine separate from additional data required (as is the case for games, dictionaries, etc.).
It totally defies the purpose...
To be honest I only remember the biggest culprits which were the big apps, namely:
Ms Word, Excel, PowerPoint. (probably a gb there that you have to mess about with all the time as it seems they are updated at least once a week)
Nearly all Games like plants vs zombies 2, angry birds 2, rayman fiesta run, angry birds transformers, jetpack joyride.
So basically you have to make sure you always have 3-4gig free on your main mem to stop these regular updates from eating every last bit up or getting a long list of update messages saying canot install due to insufficient memory. It drive me nuts on the z3 16gb.
I may have to skip the z5 32gb main mem for this purpose as well. Im a heavy app/game user though so 32gb might be OK for you
Sent from my E5563 using Tapatalk
cdl2 said:
With Lollipop, does the Z5 (without rooting):
allow apps to be moved to an external SD card?
allow apps to write to the external SD card?
With the Z3 and Kitkat, point 2 was possible with root, but I haven't figured out point 1, not even with root.
I read somewhere that Lollipop should allow (2), but it should depend on the implementation of each phone.
Also, do you know if these two points are supposed to change in any way with Marshmallows?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1 - Yes - Go to Settings > Apps > Scroll right one to ON SD CARD tab > tick which app(s) you want moving to the SD card. Not everything is moved though, but enough. The Z3 on Lollipop is exactly the same.
2 - Unrooted, the rules are, as far as I can tell - System apps (like File Commander) have full access to the SD card, so can read and write to/from the SD card. If you install a 3rd party app, like another file manager from Play Store, it will not be able to write to the SD card as it is a user app. Certain 3rd party apps can write to the SD card, but their data is stored in a system sub folder on the SD card, and they are restricted to that location only. If you delete the app, the data is also deleted.
I used to use the SD Fix on KitKat, but I just rooted my Z3, and my File Manager can read/write the SD card. Not really sure how we are going to go with rooting Locked Bootloader Z5's yet, so we'll just have to see.
SD card access is changing again in Marshmallow, and should be better, going by what I've heard. You can now choose to treat your SD card as you do now, or as an 'extension' of your internal memory, but I think if you do choose to extend your internal memory, then it will be encrypted for use in that device only. If you don't use it as an extension, then I'm not yet sure what the permissions will be for general read/write access.
MickieH said:
1 - Yes - Go to Settings > Apps > Scroll right one to ON SD CARD tab > tick which app(s) you want moving to the SD card. Not everything is moved though, but enough. The Z3 on Lollipop is exactly the same.
2 - Unrooted, the rules are, as far as I can tell - System apps (like File Commander) have full access to the SD card, so can read and write to/from the SD card. If you install a 3rd party app, like another file manager from Play Store, it will not be able to write to the SD card as it is a user app. Certain 3rd party apps can write to the SD card, but their data is stored in a system sub folder on the SD card, and they are restricted to that location only. If you delete the app, the data is also deleted.
I used to use the SD Fix on KitKat, but I just rooted my Z3, and my File Manager can read/write the SD card. Not really sure how we are going to go with rooting Locked Bootloader Z5's yet, so we'll just have to see.
SD card access is changing again in Marshmallow, and should be better, going by what I've heard. You can now choose to treat your SD card as you do now, or as an 'extension' of your internal memory, but I think if you do choose to extend your internal memory, then it will be encrypted for use in that device only. If you don't use it as an extension, then I'm not yet sure what the permissions will be for general read/write access.
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Hi, fellows, has anyone solved the problem of writing to external SD cards on marshmallow?
I saw a question here in XDA where a person was asking how his torrent app could save downloads to the external SD card without root, in KitKat. This can actually be done, with many apps.
Surprisingly, there were no answers, except to tell him to root. That is not always the case! I've been saving and writing data to my external SD card since I got my KitKat device and, I am not rooted. I didn't know this was not a well known technique, or I would have posted this information a long time ago. I just did an internet search (to see if it was well known or not) and it came up empty! But, if this method is common knowledge and I just missed it (wrong search criteria, for example), I apologize!
With KitKat, you do not have to be rooted for many apps to be able to write to an external SD card, if you follow Google's guidelines!
Let me explain via an example:
One main requirement is that the app in question can actually see and use the external SD card - some cannot. Also, please be aware, depending upon your device manufacturer, the path examples given in this explanation may vary.
For the example, I am going to use a made-up app called MyTorrent. Let's say MyTorrent has a home-directory of '/storage/emulated/0/Android/data/com.company.mytorrent/files' where it stores its downloads, but you want it to save the downloads to the external SD card instead of internal memory. With many apps, this is easily and completely doable!
To have MyTorrent use the external SD card to save its downloads, you need to first make sure a home-directory was created for MyTorrent on the external SD card. There should be an Android directory on the external SD card, just like there is in internal memory. An app's external home-directory path will look a lot like its internal home-directory path, something like: '/storage/extSdCard/Android/data/com.company.mytorrent/files'. If the app you are setting up does not have a home-directory on the external SD card, just create one manually (use the internal home-directory path as a template).
Finally, just point MyTorrent's download location to its external SD card home-directory! As long as you can select the external home-directory path as the app's download destination, it should work. If this technique doe not work, it is usually because of how the app is written or, you got the external SD card home-directory wrong. Google set KitKat up so that any app has write permission to its own external SD card home-directory.
This is not a perfect answer and does not open up the external SD card for KitKat's use carte blanche, but it will help free up a lot of wasted, limited internal memory.
This method also works for file managers. Unfortunately, only their external home-directory will be available to them, but it is a good place for manual copy-type backups and zips.
Gonna check it out with my torrent. I saw this thing in Snap Camera app, when I wanted to save videos in SD card, but it saved in its directory, not anywhere else.(but I didn't understood that it can only save in its dir)
DarkLTU said:
Gonna check it out with my torrent. I saw this thing in Snap Camera app, when I wanted to save videos in SD card, but it saved in its directory, not anywhere else.(but I didn't understood that it can only save in its dir)
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Click to collapse
I use Flud, and it works fine for me. But, like you reiterated, it must use its own home directory.
BTW, it works (in most cases) the same way with Lollipop, too.
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.
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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.
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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.
I have an sd card backup of about 150GB. I've randomly tested the files, and they are real, working files, perhaps 20,000 of them, mostly images and videos! So, my sd card died. So, I decided to restore a new one with the backup on my PC SSD. First I put the new card in the Android device, Android 10, Samsung Tab S4, and let Android format it. I removed it, put it in a USD<>microsd card adapter, and transferred the files. After every copy operation, I sync'ed the memory buffers to the sd card, so all data was written. I made the transfer in about 30 chunks.
Installed the card in the Android device, but only a few files had any contents. The remainder either weren't there at all, or were there, and the correct size, but all zeros. I verified that with a hex viewer, and by copying some files back off the sd card to the PC, and they were indeed zero-filled. I repeated the same process, but with card installed in the device, and using adb push.
Same problem. Many of the files that appeared to transfer were completely absent, and many more were zero-filled, but the correct size. Is there any way to restore a backup to an sd card in Android? I can't figure it out! A few files are written, but the rest are not. Do I maybe need a faster microsd card? It's driving me insane! I'm about to relinquish myself to the fact that it's impossible! Yet, other users don't seem to have this problem.
Guesses are welcome, but there should be some validation for them.
Thanks for all the help.