How do I actually use my micro SD card? - Galaxy S II Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Okay, first of all, I have done a lot of search on this topic over various forums and google. Some topic pops up occasionally, but never got answered, strange...
Basically I am trying to figure out two things:
1. How to move apps to microSD card? Not a single definitive answer or tutorial would allow me to move apps to external SD card. I've tried app2sd, link2sd also the stock CM7 application manager, which all of them would only allow to move apps to internal storage of the phone which is called SD card for Galaxy SII. Also the microsd card is under the diretory of mnt/emmc. Some other tutorials suggesting moving game data over /sdcard/external_sd/, I tried as well, but my microSD's storage doens't go down so I assume the data is still on internal SD card.
2. How to enable apps to save user data automatically on micro sd card? For example, I have lots of camera apps, which automatically save photos that I took on /sdcard/DCIM, I want them to be on my micro SD card AUTOMATICALLY, is there a way of doing this?
Many thanks, oh btw, I am using cyanogenmod 7 on Galaxy SII

I cannot see much reason to move apps to external sd card with a sgs2, that is something for inferior phones , there is a lot of space on application storage and internal sd card for that.
Most people are fine by just moving media files to the external card.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk

how about my second question, i shot a lot of photos and hd videos daily, i know i can manully move them to external, but that Kinda make my gallery look clustered if you know what i mean.

Have you tried doin it internally via your phone:settings-applications-running services.On the top left touch on "downloaded" and all your downloaded apps will appear.Touch on whatever app you like and you will get the option to move,uninstall or clear data.Remember that not all downloaded apps are able to be moved to external sd and if the app you would like to move is unmovable by default then you will see that.

The problem is Android only likes one sd card. So when you have an internal SD card like the sg2 the system doesn't take advantage of your external sd card.

imolared333 said:
how about my second question, i shot a lot of photos and hd videos daily, i know i can manully move them to external, but that Kinda make my gallery look clustered if you know what i mean.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can change storage area in camera settings (with stock camera app).

Related

[Q] Rooted but can't move apps to SD?

Hello,
I have a Streak with the 318/12821 build. It's rooted and has busybox installed, but I am not able to move many of my apps to the SD card. I have an Aria in which I am able to move all of the downloaded apps to the SD card, but on this Streak, it is still very limited. More apps have the move to SD button grayed out than allow it.
Anyone have any ideas?
Thanks!
Unless I'm mistaken, it's actually something that needs to be enabled by the App developer. You can't (again, unless I'm mistaken) forcefully move any app to the SD card unless it's been coded to allow it.
The Apps2SD feature is relatively new so not all apps have been re-coded to enable it.
Personally, I don't understand why people want to move their apps to SD card. Unless you fill up your apps list with loads of crap, there should be plenty of room on the device memory! Think of it this way, if you want to swap memory cards (for whatever reason) then all your apps that you have put on the SD card will not function.
Then there's the fact that most SD cards are slower than the internal memory, and that any widgets will not function if moved to SD etc...
Personally, I don't understand why people want to move their apps to SD card. Unless you fill up your apps list with loads of crap, there should be plenty of room on the device memory! Think of it this way, if you want to swap memory cards (for whatever reason) then all your apps that you have put on the SD card will not function.
Then there's the fact that most SD cards are slower than the internal memory, and that any widgets will not function if moved to SD etc...[/QUOTE]
Actually not all of the phones carry a lot of memory. The more expensive the phone the more memory you receive. Thanks for your advice, though. I had the same question as the other person.
spdivr said:
Hello,
I have a Streak with the 318/12821 build. It's rooted and has busybox installed, but I am not able to move many of my apps to the SD card. I have an Aria in which I am able to move all of the downloaded apps to the SD card, but on this Streak, it is still very limited. More apps have the move to SD button grayed out than allow it.
Anyone have any ideas?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Using the apps2sd that is 'built in' yu can't move everything to the sd card, each app dev can choose to enable or disable allowing this and for some apps it is not recommended (apps with widgets for example) because if the SD Card is removed the app won't work properly.
Your Aria was probably running a modified version of apps2sd which, if I understand correctly, creates a partition on the SD Card to be used for apps. This works differently than the apps2sd that is native to Android.

[Q] what is the point of having an external micro sd card in this phone???

if you cant put apps and save pics and it doesnt function like a normal android device sd card
care to answer?
More storage space? a lot of programs let you set the storage location, which you can change to the external.
also great for media like music and movies since it's removable. Works just like any sd card i've ever used in a phone. Just a different directory name.
you are wrong when you save you cannot save pictrures to it and that it does not fucntion like a normal android sd card. Of course you can save music, video, and pictures to the external sd card. it functions just like any other sd card. if you phone happens to die, you can remove the sdcard and still retreive those media files. if you keep everything on the internal sd card, if your phone dies, how do you expect to retrieve those files?
extremely useful.
it does not let me use my sd storage says no storage is there when i unmount my internal Sd how do you guys have it setup. my sd is under sd ext in astro whan i take a pic it says cannot save to sd its probably mounted wrong but it still saves the pic to the external sd but really its annoying and it does not function properly
it does not let me move to SD card just to MEDIA which is still the internal so....
Did you make sure the sd card is formatted correctly? Also with an app you can move some appz to the sd card I believe. also you can 100% back up your contacts as vcards on the sd card which I think is pretty nifty
Sent from my MB860 using XDA Premium App
Try to use sdtools and use the external and tell me what it does
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
This phone has 16gb internal plus whatever size your sd card is. When I set mine up I formated the card and pushed my music to what the phone calls the media area. The music ended up on the phone internal memory and all apps only have the option to go to the media area in app manager. So I just manually moved the music to the sd card. But I am guessing it wont start using the sd card until the internal 16gb is filled up. The memory setting has an option for windows sync to go to either the internal mem or sd card.
What I think they should add is the option to fill up the sd card first then the internal memory if the card fills up.
I'm lost? The external SD card option is great because once that 16GB is filled up, you have the option to add upto 32GB of memory to your phone. If you don't see that as a good thing, then you don't need to put in an SD card. I got an Atrix over the Nexus S because of the lack of external SD card on the phone. I like it when I have options. I have pictures and musics on my SD card.
you dont need to fill up internal storage; i made a folder in the SD root directory called music, added music to that file with windows media player, and they were found right off the bat. did the same with movies, ringtones, and pictures; everything goes to my SD card, all my fresh downloads of movies pics and music go to the phones internal storage, so when i hook up my atrix to my PC i sync all other media to the memory card and my pc gets all the new data off my atrix. i have about 10GB open on the atrix and 4GB open on the microSD card.
i just hate the fact everything goes to internal first then you transfer later that sucks
lorijuan1024 said:
i just hate the fact everything goes to internal first then you transfer later that sucks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you're referring to the camera and other things, no, you're wrong. There must be some issue with your micro SD card and the phone. On my Atrix, if I choose SD card for storage in the Camera's settings, all pictures I take go to the dcim folder on the SD card immediately. I don't have to move anything. Similarly, when syncing my music, I go into the Device menu in Motorola Media Link and choose my SD card. All the music, photos and videos go immediately there. I never have to copy things over manually.
I'd suggest trying another brand of SD card, or reformatting your card (use FAT32 as the format type).

Problem with App to SD (2.3.4)

I've never had problems with moving apps back and forth from my phone's internal storage to the SD card. But recently, I've noticed that apps I used to be able to store externally (Shazam, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) have the "move to SD" option greyed out, making it impossible to move them off my phone. I'm running stock 2.3.4. I've combed the internet trying to find a fix to this issue, but have found no results so far. I'm contemplating doing a hard reset to hopefully fix this as a last resort if nothing else works... Anyone have any suggestions?
Unfortunately, not all applications support moving to SD card. This is typically because the developer has good reason for not allowing this. For example, apps like facebook that make use of widgets would error every time your SD card is unmounted. Now you may be thinking: "I never take out my SD card so why would this bother me"
However, every time you plug in your phone to a USB port to transfer files such as photos and videos the SD card automatically unmount.
Download App2SD from the market for an easy way to see a list of apps installed on your phone that are programmed to support moving to SD card.
Conclusion: without manipulating your device, there is no way to transfer the apps you've mentioned to an external storage device.
Having the same problem
blastindamusic said:
Unfortunately, not all applications support moving to SD card. This is typically because the developer has good reason for not allowing this. For example, apps like facebook that make use of widgets would error every time your SD card is unmounted. Now you may be thinking: "I never take out my SD card so why would this bother me"
However, every time you plug in your phone to a USB port to transfer files such as photos and videos the SD card automatically unmount.
Download App2SD from the market for an easy way to see a list of apps installed on your phone that are programmed to support moving to SD card.
Conclusion: without manipulating your device, there is no way to transfer the apps you've mentioned to an external storage device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm...that would make sense. But I've had Pandora stored externally on my SD card since I was running 2.3.3 and that has a widget feature as well. I'm assuming that the update to 2.3.4 made it impossible to store apps that have widget functionality to the SD once you move them onto internal storage. Thanks for the help.

Can't move apps to SD Card

I've 16gb class 10 sd installed in SIII. Can browse it using My files (stock filemanagr) but can't see the external sd in OIbrowser or when trying to move apps from internal to external. In app manager it doesn show the option to move. Also tried app2sd but the option of moving doesn't show.
Any help would be appreciated.
Samsung changed the mount location for the external SD card, will be a problem for lots of apps until they update to support the new location (I confirmed this in my hands-on with the S3 last weekend - details @ AndroidNZ.net). Can you not do it with the native a2sd function from Settings --> Apps --> Manage apps though?
NZtechfreak said:
Samsung changed the mount location for the external SD card, will be a problem for lots of apps until they update to support the new location (I confirmed this in my hands-on with the S3 last weekend - details @ AndroidNZ.net). Can you not do it with the native a2sd function from Settings --> Apps --> Manage apps though?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
NOpes appmanager doesnt show move option in SIII.
This is not good can this be changed by a dev?
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA
Why would you want to do it? GS3 has a single partition for all data, you'll never run out of the 16GB (11 usable) space you have to store apps. And it's faster memory than your sdcard.
ECrispy said:
Why would you want to do it? GS3 has a single partition for all data, you'll never run out of the 16GB (11 usable) space you have to store apps. And it's faster memory than your sdcard.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, i understood this after reading more posts. This way is much better. 11gb itself + 50GB dropbox + wahtever you can throw in extSD
That's correct. You can read all about this in the excellent article by Chainfire on his blog entry: "Is Google blocking apps writing to SD cards?". In summary; it is not yet clear whether or not this is a (Google) feature or bug. But although Samsung is trying to work around the issue, they do so in a very sloppy way...
:?
Thanks for the link to the article. clarifies a lot. Got my SGS3 yesterday & I freaked out when I couldn't find the "Move to SDcard" link in the app manager...
I don't really like that method...
who needs to move apps to sd card if u got a freaking 11 gb of storage in the 16 gb version or any other .....!!
jithendra194 said:
who needs to move apps to sd card if u got a freaking 11 gb of storage in the 16 gb version or any other .....!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if that is the case, then what is the point of the freakin SD card???? for show??
or for MP3 and movies only?
vasp3690 said:
if that is the case, then what is the point of the freakin SD card???? for show??
or for MP3 and movies only?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Agreed this is not what I was expecting, the question is can it be changed?
Or have I just wasted my money on a 64gb sdxc card?
the phone has 11 gb to store music and files, or it has 11 to install app's (internal memory, like the s1 had 1.9 gb to store apps and 5.6 to store files)?
according to the above, i would say that internal memory is used for apps and the external(SD) for music/video or non app.
im wondering if you can store maps for navigation there as they do take quite a bit of space.
Apollondor said:
as
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is this some sort of code ?
I've been using my SGS3 for 3 days now. 16GB internal +32GB external SD
So far:
- device memory total space 11.35GB & available 1.65GB (downloaded my Google Play Music collection, went straight to internal memory, no choice)
- SD card total space 29.71GB & available 29.71GB
What I hope is happening:
the data is being distributed somehow between both cards and it just doesn't show, OR as someone stated above, the internal storage has 11GB dedicated to apps & music and what-not, and once that is used up, any additions will be moved to the external SD
What I think will happen:
"You have run out of memory, please remove some files or apps to proceed", in a typical Microsoft moment...
I was prompted only once to install stuff on the external SD; those were additional files (250MB) that needed to be downloaded for a game I had just installed. Of course I chose external SD but it doesn't look like it worked...
Some positive indications
Camera app allows me to chose the default save location. I chose external SD and now I see it has created the DCIM folder there with some pics.
My internal card is almost full. I've been making a few little downloads. Using the default file explorer I checked the external card folder, and found another new folder called Downloads with my recent stuff in there.
As explained by Chainfire (the way I understood it), the combined space from both cards works together as one.
Dropbox as well it would seem. Not that I tried that.
This isn't an issue for me. I already have a 64gb card with all my music stored on it. I will most likely never download anymore. The rest of the memory card will be for roms kernels themes and backups and an occasional movie.
_______________
Just Flash It !!!
vasp3690 said:
or for MP3 and movies only?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Spot on
Storage is shared for everything from Honeycomb onwards. Many ICS phones don't have sd cards.
EDIT: Oh I see the problem, many apps aren't being given permission to write to the primary external flash storage (16/32/64Gb etc...) and are then failing. That sounds like a bug to me. They've got to be able to write their app data somewhere.
Alright, this is not working properly.
I filled up my internal SD with my Google Play music. Downloaded an app which requires additional data, and it wouldn't download it until I freed up space, even though my external SD is practically untouched.
Freed up just the right amount of space by removing some of my music and I was able to download the extra data for the app.
Went back to Google Play Music to see if a Google product would know how to manage between both cards. I re-check all the music I deleted to download it again, and it tells me my memory is full...
Not happy
If you cannot even save apps on the internal SD card, then that is def. a problem and a bug. But i would doubt that is happening, otherwise all the already pre-installed software would have taken all the space.

sd card question

how the heck can i move my apps to my sd card?? i run the app App 2 SD and all it does is move my apps from phone storage (internal) to the phones (''sd card'') i cant move google chrome, google+, facebook, adobe...all fairly large apps. when i look at apps under settings > apps, the only options i have is to move it to phone storage or internal storage. im pretty lost
Linch89 said:
how the heck can i move my apps to my sd card?? i run the app App 2 SD and all it does is move my apps from phone storage (internal) to the phones (''sd card'') i cant move google chrome, google+, facebook, adobe...all fairly large apps. when i look at apps under settings > apps, the only options i have is to move it to phone storage or internal storage. im pretty lost
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you may need root.
don't hold me to that though
thats what i was thinking but i wasnt trying to talk out of my rear end ah well at least i can still store my music and pics on my sd card...without root a 32gb card seems pretty extreme doncha think? without all the nandroids and roms lol
Linch89 said:
how the heck can i move my apps to my sd card?? i run the app App 2 SD and all it does is move my apps from phone storage (internal) to the phones (''sd card'') i cant move google chrome, google+, facebook, adobe...all fairly large apps. when i look at apps under settings > apps, the only options i have is to move it to phone storage or internal storage. im pretty lost
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
know i don't know if this will work with apps but it work for photos, i opened the phone's card and long pressed on the ones i wanted to move and selected the option-move to, and transfered photos from phone card to sdcard. i did this with es file explorer. from the phones card not the internal storage or memory wharever it's called
Tried using es file explorer and my sd card didn't even show up. This is what it looks like in disk usage
The storage card is the phones hard drive I think (it's 8 gbs right? And we can't use all 8?)
The /mnt/sdcard/ext_sd is my 32 gig sd card. But when I move my apps it goes to internal storage
Linch89 said:
Tried using es file explorer and my sd card didn't even show up. This is what it looks like in disk usage
The storage card is the phones hard drive I think (it's 8 gbs right? And we can't use all 8?)
The /mnt/sdcard/ext_sd is my 32 gig sd card. But when I move my apps it goes to internal storage
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you tried plugging in phone to computer and dragging and droping from one drive to the other, just a suggestion, don't know if it will work
I'll try that after work thanks boss
Aldo101t said:
Have you tried plugging in phone to computer and dragging and droping from one drive to the other, just a suggestion, don't know if it will work
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
We established this in another thread about a month ago. With the introduction of Android 4.0, Google decided to change the way mounts work in Android. Google, assuming that microSD card would be phased out in the introduction of larger capacity internal storage phones without microSD slots, decided to make the internal eMMC storage be named 'sdcard', since most apps already used the 'sdcard' location for saving data, and name a real SD card 'sdcard2', also reachable by a folder in 'sdcard' name 'sd_ext'.
The largest phone out there right now that I know of has 64GB total of internal storage, while phones like ours only have 8GB total, with about half being taken up by the system, necessitating the usage of a real SD card for storage. The /data partition on our phone only has about 1GB available, and a dozen medium-sized apps and their data will use that up quickly. In short, there's no way to install apps to the real SD card since ICS, and once your eMMC 'sdcard' fills up, you're out of luck. A large oversight, in my opinion, by Google and HTC.
If our phone had 16GB of internal storage, we might not have that problem nearly as quickly, but games like DEAD Trigger, which is nearly 200MB, will quickly fill up our phone.
Basically, pick and choose the apps you want carefully, and keep the eMMC 'sdcard' partition as empty as possible, aside from your larger apps.
Aldo101t said:
Have you tried plugging in phone to computer and dragging and droping from one drive to the other, just a suggestion, don't know if it will work
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When you move an app to 'Phone storage', it saves in the eMMC internal storage '/sdcard/.android_secure/' folder as a '.asec' file. In my testing, if you move it to actual SD card, that is '/sdcard2/.android_secure/', it won't recognize it. It displays 'Application not installed' when clicking on the app to run it. The Android system saves the pointer to the apk, whether it's saved in '/data/app' or '/sdcard/.android_secure/', and that's the only place it will look for it. You can't move it to the real SD card unless someone else has found a workaround, and I haven't heard of it if the have. I'll find the link to our previous discussion and post it.
IceDragon59 said:
We established this in another thread about a month ago. With the introduction of Android 4.0, Google decided to change the way mounts work in Android. Google, assuming that microSD card would be phased out in the introduction of larger capacity internal storage phones without microSD slots, decided to make the internal eMMC storage be named 'sdcard', since most apps already used the 'sdcard' location for saving data, and name a real SD card 'sdcard2', also reachable by a folder in 'sdcard' name 'sd_ext'.
The largest phone out there right now that I know of has 64GB total of internal storage, while phones like ours only have 8GB total, with about half being taken up by the system, necessitating the usage of a real SD card for storage. The /data partition on our phone only has about 1GB available, and a dozen medium-sized apps and their data will use that up quickly. In short, there's no way to install apps to the real SD card since ICS, and once your eMMC 'sdcard' fills up, you're out of luck. A large oversight, in my opinion, by Google and HTC.
If our phone had 16GB of internal storage, we might not have that problem nearly as quickly, but games like DEAD Trigger, which is nearly 200MB, will quickly fill up our phone.
Basically, pick and choose the apps you want carefully, and keep the eMMC 'sdcard' partition as empty as possible, aside from your larger apps.
When you move an app to 'Phone storage', it saves in the eMMC internal storage '/sdcard/.android_secure/' folder as a '.asec' file. In my testing, if you move it to actual SD card, that is '/sdcard2/.android_secure/', it won't recognize it. It displays 'Application not installed' when clicking on the app to run it. The Android system saves the pointer to the apk, whether it's saved in '/data/app' or '/sdcard/.android_secure/', and that's the only place it will look for it. You can't move it to the real SD card unless someone else has found a workaround, and I haven't heard of it if the have. I'll find the link to our previous discussion and post it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
okey dokey, maybe after root we can do something with it.
Has anyone tried a 64 GB card with this phone? I jumped the gun and bought one for $44 because they work in the Incredible 2.
itll work for media like pics and music I think. Thanks for all the info. I'm new to this phone and also official ICS
bberryhill0 said:
Has anyone tried a 64 GB card with this phone? I jumped the gun and bought one for $44 because they work in the Incredible 2.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1841317

Categories

Resources