I've been looking for a method to move or force installation of apps to my 128gb micro SD card and so far I haven't found anything that works correctly, is there some method that actually allows moving apps to the SD card? or any custom rom that allows this? would titanium backup "move to SD card" option work?
You can use adoptable storage. It binds an SD card to your phone so you won't be able to use it with any other devices, but it essentially extends your phone's storage space by that much. Make sure you back up everything on your external SD card somewhere if there's anything important on it because this will wipe it clean.
1.) Open the "Files" app (the Google app with the colorful folded rectangles).
2.) Go to Browse.
3.) Scroll down to the bottom where you see your SD card, and tap on it.
4.) Hit the three dots in the top right.
5.) Click "Storage Settings".
6.) And finally, "Format as internal".
Once you've "adopted" the storage space you can move apps to it freely by going to a specific app's "App Info" page, clicking Storage, and choosing "Change" for each app. If you want to move multiple apps you can use something like "Internal Storage To SD Card" from the Play Store, which helps streamline the process; or even go into Developer Options and enable the option "Force allow apps to write on external storage" near the bottom which will force the majority of apps to favor the external SD card over the phone's.
Here's a bit more info on where your files are kept after this process.
If you want to retain separate access to the external SD Card so that you can use it with your computer or other devices while also storing app data on there, I'm afraid it's not very simple to do so. Android 9/10 has made a lot of changes with file access and how things are managed and stored on your device. I'm still figuring it out for myself, too.
i have a question, it will lose performance?
because i think if the phone is using a UFS 2.0, is the same or better maximum speed of R/W of SDCARD?
Polakiyo87 said:
i have a question, it will lose performance?
because i think if the phone is using a UFS 2.0, is the same or better maximum speed of R/W of SDCARD?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Of course, the performance of the external drive will be lower.
However, don't underestimate them.
The performance of modern transflash is quite enough, for example, to run games like Doom, witcher or Skyrim(20+GB distros) from them on Nintendo consoles. The main thing is that the card is good. Like the same Sandisk extreme.
Not working for me. I've formatted the SD card as internal, but I can't move any apps to the SD card. When I go to the storage screen for an app, it only displays the total, app size, data and cache. There's no option to change storage location.
Yes, I've rebooted.
Same for me.
App mgr III and link2sd did not works even with Root :/
WTF nobody found a solution on a Android 10?
You don't want the apps running off the SD card as it's bandwidth is a lot slower than internal memory! It's a bottleneck to avoid.
Use the SD card as a data drive only.
Internal memory: OS, apps, temporary data and downloads.
SD card: all critical data, backups, music, vids, etc. Everything you need to fully restore the phone after a factory reset should be on it including copies of the apks.
Always redundantly backup the data drive on at least 2 hdds that are physically and electronically separated! Or you will lose your data sooner... or latter.
blackhawk said:
You don't want the apps running off the SD card as it's bandwidth is a lot slower than internal memory! It's a bottleneck to avoid.
Use the SD card as a data drive only.
Internal memory: OS, apps, temporary data and downloads.
SD card: all critical data, backups, music, vids, etc. Everything you need to fully restore the phone after a factory reset should be on it including copies of the apks.
Always redundantly backup the data drive on at least 2 hdds that are physically and electronically separated! Or you will lose your data sooner... or latter.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes i know ... All my pictures, videos etc are on SD ...
But you don't reply, do you have a solution?
Like millions of android users, i have not enough space for games in the phone. I don't care about slow speed of game. Genshin inpact for example take more of 7gB !
OS takes 15gB ... App takes often many hundred of mB it's WTF...
App are crazy to cache, and snapchat instagram facebook etc can take 1gB each.
The sd limitation is a programmed obsolescence for smartphones (256 gB of microsd are cheap). All people don't care about low performance of specifics app, it's better than the impossiblity to install then.
Normally we should be able to make symbolic links between linux partititons.
That's the same on windows, i install my terabytes of games on an hard drive because my sdd is not enought ... And it works well.
raysar said:
Yes i know ... All my pictures, videos etc are on SD ...
But you don't reply, do you have a solution?
Like millions of android users, i have not enough space for games in the phone. I don't care about slow speed of game. Genshin inpact for example take more of 7gB !
OS takes 15gB ... App takes often many hundred of mB it's WTF...
App are crazy to cache, and snapchat instagram facebook etc can take 1gB each.
The sd limitation is a programmed obsolescence for smartphones (256 gB of microsd are cheap). All people don't care about low performance of specifics app, it's better than the impossiblity to install then.
Normally we should be able to make symbolic links between linux partititons.
That's the same on windows, i install my terabytes of games on an hard drive because my sdd is not enought ... And it works well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Be happy for the bump...
You should also post your OS version for solutions.
Maybe a ADB edit could get it.
Lol, I have one game loaded. Most are fair to high privacy/security risks... that could really keep you amused.
I used App2sd earlier with android 7 and devices with 8GB flash , where only 3.5GB we ahve for applications. The result, I was able to install 100 or more apps and games without problem. It will not work in modern android.
I use a script which move all pictures , movies, call recordings to the sd card when I plug in usb-c cable. The card is a place of storing multimedia, nandroid backup and titantium backup.
Modern devices with 64GB+ flash are able to keep all apps inside , of course if all media files will be moved to sd card.
raysar said:
Same for me.
App mgr III and link2sd did not works even with Root :/
WTF nobody found a solution on a Android 10?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I guess xda developers not the same. It is ****. They can't brake a **** Xiaomi? It seems that I have to buy an old phone not Xiaomi and brake it.
Hi, I know I'm late to this but hopefully it will help someone having the same problem.
Tested on Redmi 9a, android 10
1- After you format your sd card as
SeekerofLight.iz said, download this app from Google store: this app basically shows all the hidden settings on all Xiaomi phones.
2- Open the app and type storage in the search bar located at the top.
3- you will see several results, tap at
"Storage Use: Storage use
com.android.settings.applications.StorageUse".
4- A new window will open with a list of all apps installed on your phone. Tap the app you want to move to sd card then "storage and cashe" and you will find the da** "Change" button we all have been looking for tap it and select sd card.
I've attached screenshots for those who prefer them.
And about performance, there was a slight lag almost unnoticeable but games were playable in general.
AngryYoungMan said:
Not working for me. I've formatted the SD card as internal, but I can't move any apps to the SD card. When I go to the storage screen for an app, it only displays the total, app size, data and cache. There's no option to change storage location.
Yes, I've rebooted.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not all apps will support installation on sd card... If u want force it to be on sd card, u can use App2SD Pro app but root needed
Related
Okay XDA tenured- please be gentle. I ve searched, but can not find specific answers to my questions. I ordered a 16gb class 6 (currently have class 2), but would appreciate information before making the changes.
1.) Is it possible to leave current apps on the device memory, then set up for apps to SD and then future apps will go to the card?
2) Based on question 1) if it works, when I update future apps on the device, I am guessing they would then uninstall from the device and then install to card?
3) Would it be best for performance to leave all cache on the device memory? Seems like the system would be faster then.
4) What is the meg space difference leaving all cache or moving it?
5) When changing over to apps to SD, is it not kind of like the same constrained system as an iPhone (Plenty of intitial space, but no ability for external storage)? Point being, if all the apps are on the card and you want to listen to or view media on a seperate card, you would not be able to, since the apps are on the "device" card. This is the whole point to my first question. Unless you can copy the app directory path on the card to another card and use as is- just like the card already installed too...
1: Yes, if you follow my tutorial, it has you copy the existing apps to the sd card and if you use my app, the checkbox tells it to do that as well.
2: No apps will be on your device. There's no way to have a hybrid here, it's either all apps on the sd card or none(not actually true but would be a pain in the ass to make symlinks for each app individually and I don't know of anyone who cared enough to actually try it)
3: I have all apps and caches on the sd card and it is running just as smoothly as normal(and with a class 2 sd card!) There might be some slowdown but it's imperceptible to me.
4: With the cache on device it'll vary depending on what apps you have and how often you use them. With everything moved the memory on the device seems to stay permanently at 72-73MB. That said, moving the normal cache(dalvik-cache seems to be ok) is pretty unstable and I wouldn't suggest it unless you really know what you're doing.
5: Yes, unfortunately this whole process relies on the system not knowing the apps are on the sd card so it's pretty strongly tied to one. That said, you could probably get away with different sd cards as long as they also have an ext2 partition with the app, app-private, etc. directories in it. You'd probably have to reboot when switching sd cards but it should be possible(interestingly you could use this to get different settings depending on what sd card you have in)
Thanks!
So basically we have an iPhone in regards to being stuck to device memory and no option for external storage beyond what is on the card.
I guess there are pros and cons to either set-up. App hounds would prefer apps2sd and media hounds may prefer leaving things alone.
If you are an app and media hound, you are kind of stuck juggling media from the card.
Yep. Although as I was talking about, you could theoretically move each app independently and set up symlinks in the /data/app directory for each app, pointing to where it is on the sd card and leave the ones you want on the phone as they are, but that doesn't sound particularly fun.
So my sister has her phone when she does anything this message comes up she getting very pissed off any way on solving this ? she has space and she has a sd card ... whats the deal.
Sent from my SGH-T889 using xda premium
xxjrsmith3xx said:
So my sister has her phone when she does anything this message comes up she getting very pissed off any way on solving this ? she has space and she has a sd card ... whats the deal.
Sent from my SGH-T889 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The deal is that we only have 2GB of internal storage, which is where the camera defaults to. This can be filled very easy if one likes to take lots of pictures. There are a lot of ways around this, but the easiest for a non techie is to download a 3rd party camera app and set the storage to the external card. You could also swap mount points or try to symlink it as well.
dispozable said:
The deal is that we only have 2GB of internal storage, which is where the camera defaults to. This can be filled very easy if one likes to take lots of pictures. There are a lot of ways around this, but the easiest for a non techie is to download a 3rd party camera app and set the storage to the external card. You could also swap mount points or try to symlink it as well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have a hard time understanding this, too. Settings>Storage tells me that I have only about 60 MB free in "USB Storage." It also tells me that I have 93 MB of "Pictures, Videos" there. The trouble is, I have no pictures or videos in USB storage. It's all on the external SD card. The camera saves to the external SD card, and all my music, photos, and videos are there, not in internal storage. It even tells me I have 3.4 GB of "Miscellaneous files" in USB storage, which is impossible. That 3.4 GB is actually what's on the external SD at the moment. It tells me that over 1 GB of apps are stored there, even though the apps actually there come to far less---maybe there's app data that's adding to the total.
The only time it becomes a problem is when I run NewsRob, which invariably tells me it doesn't have enough memory to work.
ubizmo said:
I have a hard time understanding this, too. Settings>Storage tells me that I have only about 60 MB free in "USB Storage." It also tells me that I have 93 MB of "Pictures, Videos" there. The trouble is, I have no pictures or videos in USB storage. It's all on the external SD card. The camera saves to the external SD card, and all my music, photos, and videos are there, not in internal storage. It even tells me I have 3.4 GB of "Miscellaneous files" in USB storage, which is impossible. That 3.4 GB is actually what's on the external SD at the moment. It tells me that over 1 GB of apps are stored there, even though the apps actually there come to far less---maybe there's app data that's adding to the total.
The only time it becomes a problem is when I run NewsRob, which invariably tells me it doesn't have enough memory to work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For pics and such, use Google drive, drop box or sky drive. Mine is set to upload over WiFi only. After my pics are up, I delete them from gallery. Also, make sure all music is on external sd . Then go to settings/storage erase SD card. This should clean up any uneccesary files or clutter. Last, move all possible apps to SD and clear all caches. FYI , if on any cm 10 variants don't clear the caches to fast or the phone will freeze for 20-40 secs. That is all
jbats said:
For pics and such, use Google drive, drop box or sky drive. Mine is set to upload over WiFi only. After my pics are up, I delete them from gallery. Also, make sure all music is on external sd . Then go to settings/storage erase SD card. This should clean up any uneccesary files or clutter. Last, move all possible apps to SD and clear all caches. FYI , if on any cm 10 variants don't clear the caches to fast or the phone will freeze for 20-40 secs. That is all
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, I made an interesting discovery last night. I found that, even though I had set the PodKicker app to store podcasts on the external SD card, it had somehow reverted to internal USB memory, and had dumped a bunch of large files in there.
I also found that my Kindle app had deposited a bunch of files in internal USB memory. There's no way to tell Kindle to put them on the external card, but I supposedly only had a few books residing there. An examination of the kindle cache, however, disclosed almost two hundred, taking up a big chunk of memory. I deleted the whole directory, started Kindle, and let it re-download the few that I need. I think somewhere along the line I had to re-register the Kindle app, and it just left a bunch of old files there that it couldn't use anymore.
Between these two purges I freed up about 150 MB of internal USB storage.
150mb isn't much and will be eaten quickly.
a lot of apps install to the internal but load a bunch more on the external.
Camera ICS + is a good camera replacement that can save directly to the external SD.
Also, run ES File Explorer and use it's SD card analysis to see what is taking up space. I know that if you have your google photos synced, even just the thumbnails database file will be up to 1gb.
Move any Titanium or CWM backups to the external SD, but make sure you remember where they are when you go around deleting things.
I also found a trash can folder that was huge so I'm pretty sure that the internal SD card isn't fully freeing up memory when you delete things.
Also go to your App Manager and see which things are taking up a lot of space. I know that Google+, Gmail, Chrome, Facebook, Grooveshark and a few others take up a lot of space.
Okay so this phone has an internal memory that is split into internal storage (2GB) and phone storage (10GBs). I've been going through the memory and trying to clear it out because it always seems full. After freeing up some space it says I have 1.43GBs being used on my phone storage for all my apps, music (which is really just a couple of podcasts consisting of 550MBs), and my gallery only 90 photos. This leaves only 1.6GB free out of 10 on that partition? Where is all this missing space? I completely cleared the app cache and like I said there is no video or music of any kind. I figured the OS was part of the internal storage as well so what could be taking up the other storage?
I forgot exactly how its split up, and I think whether your are ICS, JB or AOSP it gets displayed a bit differently. But I think its 2 GB for apps, 4 GB for the OS, and 10 GB is user accessible storage (basically an SD card, just internal or "virtual"). I don't think the OS takes any of the 10 GB of user accessible storage ("phone storage").
Are you rooted/bootloader unlocked, and have TWRP backups or Titanium Backup data, because both of those take up lots of space on the SD (phone storage).
Do you have any apps, like games, that may have had additional content data downloaded after you started up the app the first time? These can often take up a lot of space on the SD (phone storage) as well. You will often see them in folders specially named after the app or the software company (such as Gameloft). This data is obviously needed to play the game or run the app.
Also take a look and see if you have a LOST.DIR folder. Sometimes corrupted files will get dumped in here, and never deleted until you do it manually. I think I found a couple hundred MB worth of files in here once. Unless you know you have corrupted files that you want to recover (like photos you took), this data is safe to delete.
Also use es file explorer. Go menu -> manager -> sd card analyst it will tell you where your storage is being used
Sent from my VENOMized HoxL
area51avenger said:
Also use es file explorer. Go menu -> manager -> sd card analyst it will tell you where your storage is being used
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Great tip. Thanks. I love ES File Explorer, and its my go-to file browser app for the time being. But I don't think I ever knew that feature existed.
I have a gold tmobile LG g5 that I just got second hand. Not rooted or modified in any way, and I have a Samsung micro sd 32gb class 10. Normally you can go to storage, format, and format as internal, but here it just says format as portable. And I can't move apps to it. Is this normal
If you're still following this thread, Most apps (due to the way they're written) won't run from the SD card, so the developers turn that option off (so that they don't have to answer all the "how come your app stopped working after I moved it to my SD card?" questions). Besides, you don't move the app, you move small pieces of it, and there's a link left in internal storage pointing to each piece. Many times that results in the links taking up more total space than the app, so you actually lose storage space.
Adoptable storage (using the SD card as internal storage) was actually developed for those little 8GB phones. (After loading the OS, the recovery partition and the download partition, there's not much space left for apps.) I've been running a 32GB phone for over 4 years now, I'm a software develop, a software junky and I help people with app problems [so I install a lot of apps just to see what the problem is, then I forget to uninstall them] and at the moment, I have 20.88GB available in internal storage - Of course I don't keep a lot of 6GB movies on the phone, but if you do, you can store over 40 full-length movies on one 256GB card - and that's what should be on the SD card - videos, music, documents, etc - anything that's not an app [oe widget, which is the same thing]).
My phone (Samsung Galaxy On5) has over 200 mb of storage free, & it still alerts me daily that I'm running low on storage. If I try to install anything from the play store, even something that's less than a MB in size it displays a popup asking me to uninstall a bunch of apps to make room. I just installed something on another device then transferred it over to this one (saved on SD so It's not taking up any internal space) & tried to sideload it & it still wouldn't install it. Is there a fix? It seems to me like Google has no real interest in fixing major issues with Android that have existed practically since the beginning like devices being "low on storage" while Android is the top mobile OS. Perhaps if something like Pinephone would actually succeed & give Android some competition Google would care & address the issues? /r (By the way, there really should be an '<r> </r>' tag.)
tsaxda said:
My phone (Samsung Galaxy On5) has over 200 mb of storage free, & it still alerts me daily that I'm running low on storage. If I try to install anything from the play store, even something that's less than a MB in size it displays a popup asking me to uninstall a bunch of apps to make room. I just installed something on another device then transferred it over to this one (saved on SD so It's not taking up any internal space) & tried to sideload it & it still wouldn't install it.
the issues? /r (By the way, there really should be an '<r> </r>' tag.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well yeah, 200MB is definitely low on storage. And this message can certainly be annoying but it's not a bug, but a "security" mesure, if you need to take a photo or something, or if an app needs more space to run, it'd be a good thing to have 200MB leftover.
Nowadays apps can take >200Mb just for cache so yeah, it's considered nothing. I personally try to keep at least 1GB free.
Have you checked your storage whether something can be deleted? This is a great app for showing you storage use
You can put in up to a 256 gb SD card, what are you waiting for?
Use internal memory for the OS, programs and downloads (temporarily).
Use the SD card as the data drive.
Yeh, Up to 256 gb SD card should work a treat...
galaxys said:
Yeh, Up to 256 gb SD card should work a treat...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
10+ takes up to 1 tb, put a Lexar .5 tb V30 in it for $75. Not too shabby... daul drives are a beautiful thing. Can do a full reload now with no PC and little or no internet connection; completely self contained.
Very cool indeed!
galaxys said:
Very cool indeed!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The newer generations of Samsung's are capable of very faster read/write times on a fast sd card.
The 10+ shows no lag when using media files off the card. Literally have over 200 albums stored as .wav files there and movies too.
Provides a little bit of a buffer too from malware getting into the data; I've picked off a couple in the downloads folder before they got going including a jpeg. The whole card is backed up on the PC and a 2nd hdd... just in case.
Lol, have an old Dell e6400 laptop I picked up cheap. Just realized 3 weeks ago I could swap out the DVD/CD player for a hot swappable hdd insert tray... $100 latter it now has a 2tb data drive. Split the page file between the two for now, OS and data speeds are a lot better.
You can -never- have too many internal bays on any device, only not enough.
blackhawk said:
Use the SD card as the data drive.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What do you mean by "set it as the data drive"?
The problem is I factory reset because of being low on storage, & left off a lot of the apps I had before & I'm still every bit as low on storage as I was before if not more. What am I supposed to do when I'm not the one at fault for my phone being low on storage? I would root so I could rip out all of the samsung bloat but A. I can't afford to buy a new phone should something go wrong, & B. I don't think the galaxy On5 has a 1-click root which means having to use a windows computer which I don't have.
Android phones have an in-built feature known as Adoptable Storage, which enables users to add an extra layer of storage space for music, pictures, videos, files, and so on.
The interesting thing is that the Adoptable Storage feature allows SD cards to serve as a permanent internal storage medium. This means that everything you save on your phone will be moved to the external storage (SD card) you mounted, and not your phone's internal storage. With SD cards in play, you never have to worry about your phone's storage getting full, and developing lagging problems.
I looked it up & from what I can tell it's disabled on my phone (Thanks again Samsung.). So that's not an option. Yet another reason to steer clear of Sammy if at all possible. I remember Google saying when they gave the first presentation on android that they wouldn't allow preinstalled, un-removable, then they did, & still do.
tsaxda said:
The problem is I factory reset because of being low on storage, & left off a lot of the apps I had before & I'm still every bit as low on storage as I was before if not more. What am I supposed to do when I'm not the one at fault for my phone being low on storage? I would root so I could rip out all of the samsung bloat but A. I can't afford to buy a new phone should something go wrong, & B. I don't think the galaxy On5 has a 1-click root which means having to use a windows computer which I don't have.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I use 20gb just for apps, caches and a tempory download folder. So if you 16gb of memory yeah I see the issue and had to trim the the tree with S4+ before.
Use this package disabler:
Home - Package Disabler
The only NON-root solution that let’s you disable any unwanted packages that come pre-installed / installed with your phone / tablet.
www.packagedisabler.com
Disable crap you don't need and then use that same app to clear it's data. The app is still there just not running and sucking up memory by adding more via data/cache.
Clear browser cache regularly, limit the phone to two browsers max. Clear data regularly on gmaps if you don't need that data or disable if you don't use it. Police the caches regularly, SD Maid (16mb) does a good job.
As for your music, vids, documents, pics, put all of that on an SD card.
Although you can use the SD card as internal memory as jwoegerbauer points out it's best not to unless you can't avoid it. You may have to though if you can't live without some of those large user installed apps.
I could cut my 10+ down to 14gb internal if I had too... so can you.
There are apps I rarely use. As pointed out already you should have at least 1gb of free space preferably 2gb or more head room.
Sort it out as what you're doing now isn't good Android husbandry.
tsaxda said:
I looked it up & from what I can tell it's disabled on my phone (Thanks again Samsung.). So that's not an option. Yet another reason to steer clear of Sammy if at all possible.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not on your model without root apperantly.
How to adopt SD card as internal storage on Samsung devices?
I recently upgraded to 6.0.1 Marshmallow on my Galaxy S5 and I would like to adopt an SD card as internal storage. However, there is no option to do this. When I format the SD card, there is no "
android.stackexchange.com
It can cause operational issues anyway including crashes. Try to use the KISS (keep it simple studip) principle whenever possible to limit things that can go wrong.
tsaxda said:
I looked it up & from what I can tell it's disabled on my phone (Thanks again Samsung.). So that's not an option. Yet another reason to steer clear of Sammy if at all possible. I remember Google saying when they gave the first presentation on android that they wouldn't allow preinstalled, un-removable, then they did, & still do.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Whether Adoptable Storage is default feature on a phone or not can easily queried with following ADB command sequence:
Code:
adb devices
adb shell "sm has-adoptable"
If true is returned than phone has this feature.
tsaxda said:
My phone (Samsung Galaxy On5) has over 200 mb of storage free, & it still alerts me daily that I'm running low on storage. If I try to install anything from the play store, even something that's less than a MB in size it displays a popup asking me to uninstall a bunch of apps to make room. I just installed something on another device then transferred it over to this one (saved on SD so It's not taking up any internal space) & tried to sideload it & it still wouldn't install it. Is there a fix? It seems to me like Google has no real interest in fixing major issues with Android that have existed practically since the beginning like devices being "low on storage" while Android is the top mobile OS. Perhaps if something like Pinephone would actually succeed & give Android some competition Google would care & address the issues? /r (By the way, there really should be an '<r> </r>' tag.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
200mb its nothing storage broh