Hello!
I need to know how android phones handle applications being installed in them?
I didn't know if this is phone specific or software specific, so am posting it in both.
I own a Samsung Ace and hope to own an Xperia Play as well.
Now if I install an application, how can I make sure it goes to the SD card instead of the phones internal memory?
For example:
I recently installed Talking Tom Cat 2 on my Ace, when I opened it the first time, it asked me to download a few more files, only when I did I was able to use the application. After that I uninstalled the application using the Task Manager. But where do I delete the other package, or does it get deleted automatically?
Please reply soon.
Thanks.
In some cases it's phone specific and others, it's software specific. Before I explain this, the answer to your question about if the data is deleted automatically, is: for some games/apps, it is, and others, it's not. The data is usually stored on the sd card so you can check to see if you see a folder which was not there previously. Data for games are usually stored directly on the sd card, or the following folders: data/data, android/data, or gameloft/games. Phone's without an sd card slot will have the directory created for the data storage. Phone specific wise is explained in my previous sentence. Software specific wise is of course based on software. Certain roms allow you to choose the default location for apps to be installed to. On stock roms, apps are usually (if not always) installed directly to the internal memory and if the software is Android 2.2 (Froyo) or higher, you'll have the option to move some apps to the sd card.
Related
Some apps instruct to install in device and some other instruct to install in storage card. I wonder what's the difference? And if an app doesn't tell us where to install, where should we install it? Thanks.
Some apps will only run from your main memory, some run better from your main memory, thus the suggestions. These are often smaller, utility apps that will not soak up to much of your main memory. Your storage card (even if you use a small one, 2 or 4gb) is huge by comparison to your main memory. You can run most programs just fine from your storage card, so larger programs that require more storage are best installed there unless otherwise reccomended by the developer.
Basicly it is real simple. If the installation questions you where to install. the program files go to the location you point (there can always be files that will go to the windows directory wich is on your phone memory). When you put the installation on the SD you must remember that you can't run the program when you have pulled out your SD. Als SD might be faster or slower than the phone memory (these days it is mostly just the same) The biggest difference is when you install all your apps on phone memory it will be full very fast. Therefore I advice you to install as many apps as you can on the SD. Ofcouse there are also apps that only can be installed on Phone Memory for several reasens but than you will not be asked or it is in the manual of the app.
heres the rule i follow:
1. if the application is for the SYSTEM to use (some kind of alarm application, current ringtone, scheduled backup application, active theme/wallpaper, etc, etc), then i put it on the device memory.
2. if the application is a game or something i rarely use or something i can live without in case my sd card crashes or becomes unavailable, then i put it in the storage card.
NOTE: your sd card will DEFINITELY be UNAVAILABLE when you plug in your HD2 in "disk mode" to your pc. it will be accessible by your device once you close the "disk mode". it also remains fully accessible in "active sync" mode and in "internet sharing" mode. all the same, the sd card is "removable" storage so try not to install frequently used essential programs.
NOTE 2: ALL applications will run perfectly fine from device memory but SOME applications will NOT run fine from storage card. so another thumb rule is to try to put as much as you can on the device memory, and always remember to leave 10-20MB free for the system itself.
NOTE 3: device memory is generally faster than the fastest sd card, so your programs installed on device memory will generally LOAD faster.
NOTE 4: the HD2 has a LOT of free device memory compared to previous windows mobile phones. i usually select a few applications and have always installed everything but games to the device memory and have always had plenty of free memory, even when i followed this practice on my old kaiser that had much much less free device memory.
Hey there guys...
To start with i have my S3 two days now and i absolutely love this phone...:')
But,after installing lots of games my internal memory has gone full and i can't download any data in-game because i have low storage space...
My external sd on the other hand is around 10gb free but when i try to move the data to the same folder on the external the data isn't identified by the game and it asks me to download again?
It has become really frustrating,it seems i can't do anything about it...
Any suggestions to try?
Cheers,George
As the system now uses unified storage all apps will remain on internal memory; moving the data alone to an external SD card will have no use without altering the application to look for that location for its data. i.e. in the GS2 you had a move to SD option since the phone was partitioned. With the S3 however this option is not there which means that when an application is downloaded all of its information needs to be stored on the internal storage. When the "Move to SD" option was selected within the S2 or prior phones, it informs the application that its new location is within x folder rather than the folder it was originally downloaded too. Since this option is no longer there then the application has no way of being told where its new location is.
Maybe move to SD could be an add-on with a mod/hack but I am not sure if this is possible. Maybe check with a developer?
Have you got a prior Android phone? Maybe install the application on to it; use the "Move to SD" option and see if that will allow it? It's just a suggestion; if you don't have a different Android phone I can try it for you.
Edit: Just tried it; the phone itself doesn't even check for applications stored within an external SD. Sorry man - the only way around it would be a mod/custom/hack (if possible).
T__ said:
As the system now uses unified storage all apps will remain on internal memory; moving the data alone to an external SD card will have no use without altering the application to look for that location for its data. i.e. in the GS2 you had a move to SD option since the phone was partitioned. With the S3 however this option is not there which means that when an application is downloaded all of its information needs to be stored on the internal storage. When the "Move to SD" option was selected within the S2 or prior phones, it informs the application that its new location is within x folder rather than the folder it was originally downloaded too. Since this option is no longer there then the application has no way of being told where its new location is.
Maybe move to SD could be an add-on with a mod/hack but I am not sure if this is possible. Maybe check with a developer?
Have you got a prior Android phone? Maybe install the application on to it; use the "Move to SD" option and see if that will allow it? It's just a suggestion; if you don't have a different Android phone I can try it for you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank's for the answer...
In my galaxy s 1 i had no problem having the games data on the sd card,i havent moved and application to the sd but i had the data on sd and everything worked great...now...i don't get it....:/
nfsmw_gr said:
Thank's for the answer...
In my galaxy s 1 i had no problem having the games data on the sd card,i havent moved and application to the sd but i had the data on sd and everything worked great...now...i don't get it....:/
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Click to collapse
I did check for you; the S3 physically doesn't look for application data in the external SD (I edited original post after testing few things).. There probably are ways around it as mentioned but you would need to speak with developers for further insight.
If worst comes to worst application developers may have to implement a look in x location first, if no data found, look "here" in to their applications.
As the phone is unified storage you can store applications in the full ~12GB storage space (All the ones I have, have roughly 11.3GB after OS and all is on it) so have you used the phones storage itself for only applications; and the SD for media etc?
I am interested to know how you have managed to fill at least 11GB of space with applications; how many do you have? How is the performance of the phone with this many applications on it? Any lag navigating (I know there shouldn't be with quad core processor - but it's interesting to know if hundreds of applications cause lag between screen scrolling).
You can use an app called directory bind to link the game data on the SD to a mounting point on the internal SD. Search for it and you'll find it, not sure if I got it here or the play store.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda premium
Yup, there's directory topic on forum, as well as working 'gl to sd' app in play store. It is not just for gameloft games.
Sent from my SGH-I747M
Thank you all guys!!
Well i filled it with lots of games that's why i don't have much space available!
No the phone is flying,it doesn't lag at all!
I use Dragon Ics rom and Siyah Kernel...no oc....
I'll try directory bind and post back soon!
To put applications on the sdcard, you could use symlinking (confirmed this works myself).
Install the application, then go to /data/app and move the apk file to your sdcard (/mnt/extSdCard) or inside a folder on your sdcard.
Then type ln -s /mnt/extSdCard/your-apk.apk /data/app/your-apk.apk
Hi, I'm a total noob to Android phones, I admit it. I just got my first smartphone, and it's an old one - an HTC Aria. Thanks to a lot of info here in XDA-developers, I got it rooted with clockwork mod and am using the Cyanogen ROM with Android 2.3 (Gingerbread).
Well, it's such an old phone, I see that it only has ~185 mb internal storage. I added an 8GB SD card. Even though I move my apps to external storage, I can see that the data didn't get moved and is still quickly eating up all the phone's internal storage. I'm trying to use Madmack's "FolderMount" but am having trouble figuring it out. I think it might be an understanding of Android file/folder structure (I have very little). I'm considering buying the "pro" version (if it works for me), just so I can move the whole data folder at once and free up my internal memory again.
Here's my efforts at testing to see if it works. I'm trying to move the data from the "Plague, Inc." game to the external card (the app is already on the external card). So, when I choose source, it automatically starts me in the /mnt/sdcard/ but doesn't allow me to go "up" to any further root folders of that. So I found in the "Android" folder the "data" folder. I tried to FolderMount that but it gave me the error about the non-Pro version. So I tried the "com.miniclip.plagueinc" folder (knowing that it's currently using 15MB of data) and then using an app called SDCardManager (which I understand is supposed to make it easier for me to access my SD Card, like Windows Explorer or something), I made a folder with this path "/mnt/sdcard/foldermount" I think it should be the right path because it's also where my "android.tether" folder is that I know I created myself.
Anyway, when I pair those two folders in FolderMount, it copies stuff over, and the pin looks green, but it shows my internal memory hasn't changed, still almost entirely full. So what do I do to clear it up? I think my problem is in my understanding of the Android's file structure. I think on "source", I should be able to access some folder before "/mnt/sdcard", but I can't get there. Please give this noob help from anyone who can! Thanks!
Can anyone help me with this? Particularly the developer, madmack? I really need to find a way to move the app data to the external memory so I can clear up space. Even if someone could help me understand the file structure better, that'd be helpful. Thanks!
Hi there, noob speaking... (at least in terms of Android)
Let's start with the fact that I bought rooted phone with Cyanogenmod alredy installed which is my 1st Android device. That way I omitted few steps of learning how to root, how to flash it, etc. not to mention that I'm not a Linux guy, so even the way system handles folders and files is new for me. As the problem is more phone-related than system-related I'm posting it here, on XDA.
I'm trying to learn how to partition an "internal SD card" to make it work with Link2SD. I've found lots of tutorials how to do this with an external memory card, but there is not much info about doing the same with internal storage. I've found a tutorial for a diffrent phone, but I'm worried that droid devices seem to be very diffrent and simply retyping everything without understanding what I'm actually doing may cause more harm than good.
My biggest objection is the fact that I'm alredy using my internal SD and beside various media files (photos, music, etc.) there are lots of system, or app related stuff there. There are folders like .android_secure which as I guess store app-related files (or even parts of apps that I moved to SD with build-in feature). If this was Windows, I'd simply back up everything, format it, partition into "general storage" and "app memory" and put backed up files back directly onto new partition only worrying to keep correct letters assigned to new partitions. I'm preety sure that doing same in Android (by copying everything to PC and back to phone) would not work because all those permisions, or am I wrong?
Anyway - Any advice how to do this?
Additional question is related to accessing whole phone memory via PC connected by USB. I know that Android phones are made with security in mind and "system" partition is hidden when connecting USB, but there should be some other way than browsing everything from some phone apps with root permissions. I'd really like to browse my phone both for educational reasons and to check what really takes up space on my "system storage". I'm suspecting that some app went crazy eating lots of space, because once every time I uninstalled something my storage after few minutes was again at 20mb level and it continiued for some time.
BTW: Is there any reason why having about 200mb empty space for apps is not enough to install or update some small applications, while other install even when just 100mb is left?
Tl;dr:
-How to partition internal SD to make it work with link2sd while there are some system/app files on internal SD alredy?
-How to browse "system memory" from PC via USB?
-Why some apps don't install when there is still 200mb+ free space?
I'm not by any meaning a technology, software, programming expert, please forgive my beginner language.
I have the LG P769 20h
I have rooted my phone
I have partitioned my SD card
I have installed Link2SD and App2SD
I receive an error message when I try to move apps to my SD card using Link2SD "App2SD is not supported by your device. Because your device has primary external storage which is emulated from the internal storage. You can link the app in order to move its files to your SD card"
I have successfully "linked" apps to my SD card but that hasn't created any additional storage space. I still can't download apps due to insufficient storage.
Please help!! I'm reaching the end of my sanity in trying to figure this out! I'm about to just go buy a new phone, but this one isn't even a year old yet!
Also, please respond in layman's terms, since i'm not a guru in this arena.
THANK YOU!!!
ZanyAL711 said:
I'm not by any meaning a technology, software, programming expert, please forgive my beginner language.
I have the LG P769 20h
I have rooted my phone
I have partitioned my SD card
I have installed Link2SD and App2SD
I receive an error message when I try to move apps to my SD card using Link2SD "App2SD is not supported by your device. Because your device has primary external storage which is emulated from the internal storage. You can link the app in order to move its files to your SD card"
I have successfully "linked" apps to my SD card but that hasn't created any additional storage space. I still can't download apps due to insufficient storage.
Please help!! I'm reaching the end of my sanity in trying to figure this out! I'm about to just go buy a new phone, but this one isn't even a year old yet!
Also, please respond in layman's terms, since i'm not a guru in this arena.
THANK YOU!!!
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Click to collapse
Hi ZanyAL711
You've pretty much done the proper steps to try and get apps to work. The reason that it's not working is that the phone, android version (not supported after 4.0+), most of the downloaded user apps and device system apps, just really doesn't support this feature.
The L9 has only 4gb total memory, which most of that is used by the "/system" partition and leaves a very limited user usable internal memory on the "/data" partition of something only like 1.6gb to 1.8gb of user stirage. Which barely leaves any room for the user to store user apps and or data on the device.
To kind of break it down to you in simple terms...
As i mention above, in android there are 2 main partitions on the devices internal memory:
The "/system" partition - This is where the OS, system apps, etc... are stored. No user data is stored on this partition.
The "/data" partition - This is where all of the user data is stored on the device.
Inside the "/data"partition you have -
"/data/apps"
"/data/data"
"/data/apps" Is where Downloaded user apps are stored and intalled to.
"/data/data" This is where the user "System settings", things that you have changed on the device (ringtones, wallpaper etc) are stored.
Also there are a several other minor partitions on the device but these really have no use to the topic at hand.
Both of these main partitions "/system" and "/data" are on the internal nand flash memory or eMMC (Embedded MultiMedia Card)
The whole data partition is used for user apps and system data only. Which leaves no where for music, movies, photos, documents etc. to be stored on the device.
This is where the external SD card comes into play and allows you to store music, movies, docs etc. off of the devices internal memory. The problem here is that, eben though the L9 has an external/removable SD card, it also has a small internal nand flash memory and it doesn't allow for much user data to be stored in the device and is causing the problem that you have, which is really the phone's lack of internal memory.
So there's not very many more options for you to try other than maybe the following.
You could try the method where you edit the build prop and run a script that allows you to add the feature to move apps to the SD card in "settings/apps/" menu
This can allow you to move some apps to the SD card. Again thought it's not a solution to the problem, but might help.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2372172
Another option and probably the best one... Would be to install kuma82's stock modified ROM/backup. It's not custom ROM... It's slightly modified stock ROM and has extra apps, features and it's themed. Looks great too, way better than the complete stock ROM look. It also has an internal/external memory swapt script. You can read about it in the 2nd post of the ROM thread.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2468880
It's a simple process, doesn't require the bootloader to be unlocked and kuma has directions for what you need and how to install it, in the 2nd post.
I personally have kuma's ROM running on my wife's L9 and no way would I go back to 100% stock ROM after running his.
Anyway hope this helps!