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I have 2 questions I am fairly new to the a500 although I have had an evo 4g for years and I have been flashing roms for many more.
I know thebquestion has been asked is there a way to move apps to the sd card. I am wondering if darktremors app2sdgui might work for our tablets and if so how to ise it. I have been seeing threads where people are using 64gb sdxc cards but whats the point if you cant move apps. Im starting to think thosbtablet sucks half the games dont work and you cant freely moves apps.
Anyway my other question is if there is no way to use app2sdgui is there any roms available that allow you to move apps and still have all the tablets good features? I have searched and from what I can tell most roms dont really say they can do it.
Thanks from the bomb
Sent from my A500 using xda premium
adambomb_13 said:
I have 2 questions I am fairly new to the a500 although I have had an evo 4g for years and I have been flashing roms for many more.
I know thebquestion has been asked is there a way to move apps to the sd card. I am wondering if darktremors app2sdgui might work for our tablets and if so how to ise it. I have been seeing threads where people are using 64gb sdxc cards but whats the point if you cant move apps. Im starting to think thosbtablet sucks half the games dont work and you cant freely moves apps.
Anyway my other question is if there is no way to use app2sdgui is there any roms available that allow you to move apps and still have all the tablets good features? I have searched and from what I can tell most roms dont really say they can do it.
Thanks from the bomb
Sent from my A500 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wrong forum. This should be in the questions section.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
I don't have a full understanding of all this myself, but I *believe/think* that the A500 is already moving apps to the SD card -- the internal SD card. The 8, 16, or 32gb of memory that came with whatever model of A500 you purchased is considered the internal SD card, whereas the micro sd card slot is considered the external SD card. Your tablet has 1gb of RAM, which in phone terms is thought of as internal or system memory, like your (and my) EVO 4G has 512mb of RAM. Since the EVO doesn't have any internal SD card, in order to run the newer, larger footprint ROMs we have to use an apps2sd type utility to move as much as we can to the external micro SD card in the EVO 4G.
If you're running out of internal memory in your A500, you can move some data that seems to default there. This happens a lot with apps that aren't really designed for tablets because these apps think that your internal storage is your external micro SD card. I moved all my photos, music, and eBooks from internal storage (where they defaulted) to my external micro SD card. Now I'm only using around 4gb out of the total 16gb that came with my model of A500, and I have tons of apps, games, etc installed. Moving the data barely put a dent in my 32gb external micro SD card, which I mostly use for 720p movies/videos.
Anyone please feel free to correct me about Honeycomb tablet memory handling above!
It's a limitation of Honeycomb not the tablet. Hopefully ICS when it's released soon will solve this problem. I don't know why google designed the tablet specific OS Honeycomb like this it was stupid. There are several work around programs like GL to SD that work so so. I had GL to SD installed and it severely slowed down my tablet so I got rid of it. My first A500 I bought was the 8gb version which I returned a week later after buying the 32gb unit. The 8gb just didn't cut it without being able to take advantage of the sd card for game data.
internetpilot said:
I don't have a full understanding of all this myself, but I *believe/think* that the A500 is already moving apps to the SD card -- the internal SD card. The 8, 16, or 32gb of memory that came with whatever model of A500 you purchased is considered the internal SD card, whereas the micro sd card slot is considered the external SD card. Your tablet has 1gb of RAM, which in phone terms is thought of as internal or system memory, like your (and my) EVO 4G has 512mb of RAM. Since the EVO doesn't have any internal SD card, in order to run the newer, larger footprint ROMs we have to use an apps2sd type utility to move as much as we can to the external micro SD card in the EVO 4G.
If you're running out of internal memory in your A500, you can move some data that seems to default there. This happens a lot with apps that aren't really designed for tablets because these apps think that your internal storage is your external micro SD card. I moved all my photos, music, and eBooks from internal storage (where they defaulted) to my external micro SD card. Now I'm only using around 4gb out of the total 16gb that came with my model of A500, and I have tons of apps, games, etc installed. Moving the data barely put a dent in my 32gb external micro SD card, which I mostly use for 720p movies/videos.
No its not like this. The phones do have internal memory also. The ram has nothing to do with internal memory, even tho some advertise the ram and internal memory as greaterstorage
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Click to collapse
Thread belongs in q&a section not dev sorry all
Ok sorry but my testing with the gl to sd app...
the order of chaos game i used that app to move it.. The game took forever to load and ping times went so High you could not play the game..
I Have a pny class 10 16 gb sd card.. tested to get about 8.7 mb transfur rate. and that is about average on most so called 10 mb (class10 cards)
my tablet runs very smooth with no apps running in background.
so i DO NOT RECOMEND THESE APPS.. Just my openion dont bash me if yours is diffrent.. i also dont understand how people are filling up the 16 gb tablet.. that alone has to be slowing your tab down...
internetpilot said:
Your tablet has 1gb of RAM, which in phone terms is thought of as internal or system memory, like your (and my) EVO 4G has 512mb of RAM. Since the EVO doesn't have any internal SD card, in order to run the newer, larger footprint ROMs we have to use an apps2sd type utility to move as much as we can to the external micro SD card in the EVO 4G.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're confusing RAM and FLASH storage. Many older Android devices have a very small area reserved for applications and ROMs, it has nothing to do with RAM. RAM is memory where applications are loaded when you wish to execute them and gets erased every time you power off the device, flash storage is where the applications are stored and loaded from.
---------- Post added at 06:35 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:32 PM ----------
erica_renee said:
i also dont understand how people are filling up the 16 gb tablet.. that alone has to be slowing your tab down...
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Click to collapse
I've got the 32GB version + 16GB microSDHC and it's already filled to the brim. I just happen to consume lots of media, including comics, movies, music and books.
Also, the tablet doesn't specifically slow down by the amount of files on it, the process of indexing everything can temporarily slow it down but after indexing is done it doesn't consume resources anymore. Using some sort of an application that just loads everything to memory and doesn't care about trying to watch how it uses the memory is has reserved however can and will slow the tablet down, but that's an application issue, not a filesystem or OS issue per se.
So if the internal memory is like is primary I can't see why it wouldnt be easy to make the external micro sd and ext of the internal. Is that possable?
Sent from my A500 using xda premium
I found this post online for switching internal to external in honeycomb. I'm getting a 64gb sdxc for my 16gb a500 so it should come in handy.
I have had a mod to voold.fstab under previous Android versions so the OS looked at the physical MicroSD as the external card, not the internal 8 gigs in the Adam. Handy because some programs always wants to look for files on the external card. It was quite easy to do the same thing to Honeycomb, and in case anybody else needs it, here's the full code for the file (which is under \ETC, you need Root Explorer or simalar to edit/replace it):
Code:
## Vold 2.0 NVIDIA Harmony fstab
####################### ## Regular device mount ## ## Format: dev_mount <label> <mount_point> <part> <sysfs_path1...> ## label - Label for the volume ## mount_point - Where the volume will be mounted ## part - Partition # (1 based), or 'auto' for first usable par tition. ## <sysfs_path> - List of sysfs paths to source devices ######################
dev_mount microsd /mnt/sdcard auto /devices/platform/tegra-sdhci.2/mmc_ host/mmc1 # todo: the secondary sdcard seems to confuse vold badly dev_mount sdreader /mnt/external_sd auto /devices/platform/tegra-sdhci. 3/mmc_host/mmc2 dev_mount usbdisk1 /mnt/usb_storage auto /devices/platform/tegra-ehci
So the actual changes are in the fourth and third lines from the bottom, changing around a few numbers. You'll see the difference if you open the original. I have saved a copy of it on the SD card, so if (or rather when) the next update comes I can simply copy it to the \ETC directory with Root Explorer and do a reboot, and it's back where I want it.
Sent from my A500 using xda premium
richierich118 said:
No its not like this. The phones do have internal memory also. The ram has nothing to do with internal memory, even tho some advertise the ram and internal memory as greaterstorage
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Click to collapse
WereCatf said:
You're confusing RAM and FLASH storage. Many older Android devices have a very small area reserved for applications and ROMs, it has nothing to do with RAM. RAM is memory where applications are loaded when you wish to execute them and gets erased every time you power off the device, flash storage is where the applications are stored and loaded from.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep, makes sense now that you both mentioned it. Sorry about that. So, it would seem to me that HC actually isn't using any A2SD solution, it's just that tablets typically have significantly greater internal storage and Google didn't expect anyone to really need it. If that's the case then it at least makes a little sense to me that HC doesn't have that built-in and than not many devs seem to be working on this type of project, especially for an A500 which can so easily use external USB storage for the usual storage hogs like media files.
i cannot see why people are so hellbent on apps2sd. seriously, i cannot. well, okay. i admit that it /does/ free up space on your internal apps partition.... but i can't see the point of wasting space on your external SD card.
the apps partition on the iconia tab is roughly 1GB. that's not too bad, unless you've got HD games and crap. i remember Sonic CD and Gameloft's NOVA 2 download stuff to the internal storage; which doesn't clutter up your app partition (the game is like 5mb for sonic cd and like 20mb for nova 2 on the apps partition, the rest is loaded from internal SD).
also, the tablet doesn't suck, if you're having issues with games, they aren't optimised for the advanced hardware that is used in the Iconia Tab. this is tablet hardware, not a smartphone logic board with a few addons and a sexy HD screen. the app developer hasn't taken the time to develop for tablets, most likely.
i guess less is more for me, but w/e.
How does apps2sd actually work? I haven't paid any attention to what filesystem format the internal SD is, but wouldn't just symlinking files work? Or does the Android kernel support loopback filesystems? I'm just wondering, perhaps I'll dig some details myself just for the sake of curiosity and see if I can come up with a solution.
Apps2SD works by moving programs residing in /data/app to the SD card. This can be accomplished in two ways:
1. Classic Apps2SD - This form is mainly used for Android units prior to Froyo, but can be used on Froyo and Gingerbread (and I presume Honeycomb and ICS, but I have never tested it with those Android platforms). By using a Linux partition that is formatted on your external SD card, the /data/app directory is symlinked to that partition. This tricks Android into thinking it is still storing applications in your Internal memory when, in reality, the programs are being stored on your SD card. The upside to this format is that any program can be moved over (and it is done automatically). The down side is that you will need to create two partitions on your SD card (one Linux partition for Apps2SD and one FAT32 partition for SD card storage) and your kernel must be able to run scripts on boot.
2. Secure Apps2SD - Starting with Froyo, Google implemented their version of Apps2SD. Their version moves your programs to a secured area of your SD Card and creates binding mounts to the actual programs themselves so that Android can run them off the FAT32 SD Card. The advantage of this is that no special formatting or programming is needed to implement this, as it is part of Android. The downside to this is that, without special programs, not ever application can be moved to the SD card (the program must be recompiled using at least the Froyo SDK...however, this issue is becoming less noticeable as more programs are being compiled using either the Froyo SDK or Gingerbread SDK).
The Acer Iconia A500 uses neither of these methods. The tablet is equipped with 8, 16 or 32GB of internal storage. Your applications are still stored on the /data partition, but your SD Card is nothing more than a FUSE mount to /data/media, which means both data and apps have access to the full 8, 16 or 32GB of internal storage, so there's no compelling reason that I can think of that you would need Apps2SD on this tablet. If you want your tablet to treat the external SD card as the actual SD card rather than internal storage, you would be better off changing the symlink to /sdcard from /mnt/sdcard to /mnt/external_sd (note that, when you do that, you won't be able to move files from your computer to the tablet by simply mounting the SD card, as the FUSE mount is not pointed to the external SD card, but to internal memory...you will either need a creative solution to change the FUSE mount to /mnt/external_sd on boot or you'll need to use ADB).
WereCatf said:
How does apps2sd actually work? I haven't paid any attention to what filesystem format the internal SD is, but wouldn't just symlinking files work? Or does the Android kernel support loopback filesystems? I'm just wondering, perhaps I'll dig some details myself just for the sake of curiosity and see if I can come up with a solution.
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Click to collapse
I was wondering if anybody could help answer a few questions about the Sprint S4 for me.
Currently I have an HTC Evo 3D, the internal storage is so small that I have made a 4gb ext3 partition on my SD card using Link2SD just to alleviate some of this annoyance. The 32GB counting the 4GB partition is actually almost full.
First of all, is there any word on a 32GB version? I saw some forum threads a while ago about Sprint supposedly not carring the 32+GB versions, but I saw no official word, if there has been one.
And also, how does the 16GB of internal work? The first time I saw a phone with large internal memory was the original Droid RAZR. And it basically partitioned off the majority of the space like a virtual SD card. Most to all apps on it saved to here instead of the actual SD card assuming it was an actual external storage. Does the S4 do this too, or is the entire 16GB (minus obviously what the system partitions take up) used as internal?
The reason I am asking is because I have many apps and games which download anywhere from 50MB to 3 gigs of additional data, and they almost never ask you where to download it, and just use the first "external" space they find, and many are hard-coded to only use that space. Like I said, my 32GB card on my Evo 3D is practically full, I do NOT not want those apps to install that data on the internal memory and fill it up, I want that space to keep the apps installed on, while photos, music, and video, as well as that app additional data, will be on the real SD card. I am planning to get a 64GB card for the S4.
Cyber Akuma said:
I was wondering if anybody could help answer a few questions about the Sprint S4 for me.
Currently I have an HTC Evo 3D, the internal storage is so small that I have made a 4gb ext3 partition on my SD card using Link2SD just to alleviate some of this annoyance. The 32GB counting the 4GB partition is actually almost full.
First of all, is there any word on a 32GB version? I saw some forum threads a while ago about Sprint supposedly not carring the 32+GB versions, but I saw no official word, if there has been one.
And also, how does the 16GB of internal work? The first time I saw a phone with large internal memory was the original Droid RAZR. And it basically partitioned off the majority of the space like a virtual SD card. Most to all apps on it saved to here instead of the actual SD card assuming it was an actual external storage. Does the S4 do this too, or is the entire 16GB (minus obviously what the system partitions take up) used as internal?
The reason I am asking is because I have many apps and games which download anywhere from 50MB to 3 gigs of additional data, and they almost never ask you where to download it, and just use the first "external" space they find, and many are hard-coded to only use that space. Like I said, my 32GB card on my Evo 3D is practically full, I do NOT not want those apps to install that data on the internal memory and fill it up, I want that space to keep the apps installed on, while photos, music, and video, as well as that app additional data, will be on the real SD card. I am planning to get a 64GB card for the S4.
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Click to collapse
The way samsung does it is actually very anoying. First thing they do is cut off 8.5 gigs of storage, thats your "internal memory" for system stuff. That's untouchable. You then have 9gigs give or take left for apps and the like which is EMULATED external storage. This emulated bit confuses android and so your real external sd card is only usable for movies and music. The only way to put apps on it would be to root your phone and use folder mount (which for some reason isn't working for me yet). So to sum it up:
16gb +ext sd card (lets say 32 gb)
8ish gb- system internal
9ish gb-apps EMULATED external
32 gb- movies, music, books/media BUT NO APPS UNLESS YOU ROOT REAL external
AAAAUUUUGGGHHHHH!</CharlieBrown>
Wow, I can not possibly think of a worse way for Samsung to handle it. The low internal memory giving me problems installing and updating apps was a major reason for wanting to upgrade. With this, it means I actually have less space for apps than my current phone, since I can't actually install to SD and the apps that download hundreds of megs to gigs of additonal data will be downlioading it to the internal instead of external.
I... honestly have no idea which phone to get now.
I know the Sprint S4 is unlocked, is there any way to use rooted tools or a custom rom to just make the memory internal and make it mount a SD as an actual SD? I am worried that unofficial roms might be lacking in features or glitchy.
Cyber Akuma said:
AAAAUUUUGGGHHHHH!</CharlieBrown>
Wow, I can not possibly think of a worse way for Samsung to handle it. The low internal memory giving me problems installing and updating apps was a major reason for wanting to upgrade. With this, it means I actually have less space for apps than my current phone, since I can't actually install to SD and the apps that download hundreds of megs to gigs of additonal data will be downlioading it to the internal instead of external.
I... honestly have no idea which phone to get now.
I know the Sprint S4 is unlocked, is there any way to use rooted tools or a custom rom to just make the memory internal and make it mount a SD as an actual SD? I am worried that unofficial roms might be lacking in features or glitchy.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well this is an issue with all honeycomb plus android phones. Google is trying to phase out the external sd card while increasing the internal memory. Well that's all good and fine EXCEPT that we are right in the middle of the phase out process where the sd cards are too small for that. 2-3 years from now googles plan will work, but samsung has to be on board for that to happen. For now the only thing you can do is use folder mount or wait for ext2intSD script. It will swap it so your external sdcard works as your internal and vice versa. However, we will have to wait for that to be released.
I don't get what phasing out the SD slot has to do with emulating the external SD storage when all apps can work on internal storage anyway.
What is folder-mount? And I tried link2sd on my evo 3d and its kinda problematic, I wanted to get AWAY from these problems by upgrading.
Cyber Akuma said:
I don't get what phasing out the SD slot has to do with emulating the external SD storage when all apps can work on internal storage anyway.
What is folder-mount? And I tried link2sd on my evo 3d and its kinda problematic, I wanted to get AWAY from these problems by upgrading.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The reason why is that android its self, the code that google supplies, has to create partitions in order for it to work with only one internal sdcard so that the average user does not corrupt the system somehow. The emulated external storage is what google expects you to use so that you can't mess up. However, samsung just adds in an sdcard without changing anything which means its not set up correctly. This is a problem with all new sd card phones and finally think of folder mount as a better link2sd
But aren't the system partition and the internal storage partition separate partitions? I don't understand why the rest of the memory outside of the system partition needs to be an emulated external instead of just being an internal storage partition like on phones that do not have a large amount of internal memory.
Also, why do we have to link folders or use link2sd scripts and other such work-arounds? Can't we re-partition the internal memory with a custom recovery or through the bootloader?
not work brother
Sent from my ST18i using xda app-developers app
deadger said:
not work brother
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
.... what? I have no idea what that means.
So, can the phone be repartitioned if you have root access? And is only the Sprint version partitioned like this, or all of them?
Hi everyone,
I just bought a Micro SD evo+ (Samsung 64 GB) for my moto G plus. I formatted it as an internal storage. I moved few of my apps. However, I dont know how to move music and photos. There is no option for that. In the SD card menu, when I click on migrate data, it says "There was an error in estimating the data to be moved".
I was wondering if anyone can help me please.
Kind regards
I'm seeing that same error message when I try to migrate data on my G4. Has anyone any idea what's causing this and how to fix?
It's due to the security features of Marshmallow.
There is no permission for direct write access to sd card by default.
I had to format my SD card as a portable storage in order to migrate my photos and music. However, in that case, App data cannot be saved on the sd card. As an internal storage, the Apps can be saved on sd card but I could not migrate my photos and music. It is posdible that it has something to do with the Marshmallow security. I have also heard that such issue exists for 64 FB cards. I d be certain if one could try a 32 GB sd card.
Cheers
Kambiz983 said:
I had to format my SD card as a portable storage in order to migrate my photos and music. However, in that case, App data cannot be saved on the sd card. As an internal storage, the Apps can be saved on sd card but I could not migrate my photos and music. It is posdible that it has something to do with the Marshmallow security. I have also heard that such issue exists for 64 FB cards. I d be certain if one could try a 32 GB sd card.
Cheers
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For the same reason Azal3a mentioned above, that's the way it works.
Sent using XDA-Developers Mobile App
I have exactly the same issue with my 128gb Samsung Evo card, but I also tried SanDisk 32gb and this didn't work
AZAL3A said:
It's due to the security features of Marshmallow.
There is no permission for direct write access to sd card by default.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But is there a solution? How do you actually make it work?
When you format the SD as "internal storage" you don't have a SD anymore, it's all one big storage space.
If you format the SD normal, then the photo and video app (and other apps like maps) might let you save on the SD - will be inside each app settings. But the apps cannot be moved on SD.
My experience with it is same as above. If you format it as internal it makes it added as virtual drive space. Kinda like adding an external drive to an Xbox. It make it virtual hard drive. Formating at removable makes it slower but an be used as raw storage standalone and removable.
SoNic67 said:
When you format the SD as "internal storage" you don't have a SD anymore, it's all one big storage space.
If you format the SD normal, then the photo and video app (and other apps like maps) might let you save on the SD - will be inside each app settings. But the apps cannot be moved on SD.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LOL, this has been discussed dozens of times on XDA going back to the Moto G3. Even with it used as internal, there is actually very little space it will save you when you discount system apps and the apps that developers block from installing to the SD.
Actually people don't realize that they need a premium SD to even come close of the speed that internal storage has. They buy crappy SD from eBay and expect to launch apps from that... ridiculous. That's why MM imposed those restrictions.
To be used as adopted storage, the SD needs to be at least "UHS I, class 3", with 90MB/s read and write speeds.
Thanks for the useless reply. While it is true that performance will be better with faster cards there's no definite reason other cards should not be able to be used and your reply does nothing to address the original posters question. Has anyone found a solution or shall I look into wiping my phone and installing ubuntu?
Kambiz983 said:
Hi everyone,
I just bought a Micro SD evo+ (Samsung 64 GB) for my moto G plus. I formatted it as an internal storage. I moved few of my apps. However, I dont know how to move music and photos. There is no option for that. In the SD card menu, when I click on migrate data, it says "There was an error in estimating the data to be moved".
I was wondering if anyone can help me please.
Kind regards
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try clearing cache and then migrate.
As an experiment I stuck a 16 Gbyte microSD in my new Fire HD 8 tablet (2018 version, now on 6.3.1.2), and said ok to format as internal storage expansion.
As far as I can tell, no pre-installed apps or their data files were automatically moved to the microSD storage, and I haven't specifically told Fire OS to move anything, except for one thing: I was experimenting with side-loading Netflix from apk just to verify that it still won't support Chromecast on Fire tablet (it doesn't), and I noted that the Netflix app was eligible to move to external memory, so I did that. When I look under Settings/Storage, I see a summary that there is one app on the microSD card. but Fire OS won't tell me which app that it is. There is also 52 Mbytes of data simply labeled "Other". No idea what that is.
I wanted to try upgrading this to a 64-Gbyte microSD card, but as far as I can find online, there is no upgrade procedure. In fact there isn't even a downgrade procedure to remove the microSD card once used as internal storage. If it ever fails and you need to replace it, or you want to use the card for something else, or you want to use the microSD slot for data transfer via card, or you want to upgrade the card, the advice seems to be "factory reset the tablet, because there's no other way"!
That leads me to wonder if I should be doing this at all, given that it's so fragile and limited.
Knowing that Netflix was the one app I transferred, I can individually more it back to internal storage, and after that Settings/Storage agrees that there are no apps on the microSD card. There is still the mysterious unidentified 52 Mbytes "Other". Is it safe to remove the old microSD card now? Should I do that and forget about the whole "format as internal" option?
Out of curiosity, how do you know anything was moved to the SD card?
When formatted as internal storage, you should only see the device internal + the SD card as one whole internal memory pool. That's the point of formatting it as internal memory. It shouldn't know where device memory ends and SD memory starts.
If you can, please post a screen shot of the "Storage" page from "Settings".
I've attached a screen shot at the end of this post of mine with my SD card formatted as "external". Just curious how it shows this page when the SD card is set as "internal"
One other thing, I think it's not a good idea to format an SD card as internal - ever.
Except if you have extremely low device memory to begin with - like 16GB or less. 32 is barely passable, but for now, that's the most that the HD8s get. I'm getting by with it for now, but I don't use my tablet for all that much.
Also, here was Amazon's Help site information on dealing with SD cards in the HD8 8th gen (2018). The 7th gens are different in that formatting external as exFAT is an option. Not on the 2018 models. Amazon apparently didn't want to pay Microsoft for the license anymore - so, no more 4GB or bigger files on the SD card.
Insert and Manage a MicroSD Card
You can install, download, or store certain content on an external microSD card to expand your 8th Generation Fire HD 8 tablet's storage space.
Note: The following are the directions for Fire HD 8 (8th Generation) devices. If you have a 4th - 7th Generation Fire tablet, go to Insert and Manage an SD Card. Not sure which Fire tablet you have? Go to Which Fire Tablet do I have?
When you insert a microSD card for the first time, you can designate the card as internal or portable storage. If you designate the card as internal storage, you don't need to manually move content to the card or manage your download preferences. However, microSD cards that are designated as internal storage are not intended for removal from the device. If you do remove an SD card that you've designated as internal storage, you see a persistent pop-up message. To dismiss this message, either reinsert the SD card, or select "Forget" to remove any content associated with the SD card. If you remove a microSD card that is designated as internal storage your downloaded content may not work correctly.
Before you start:
You need to decide if you want to format your microSD card as internal storage or portable storage. If you designate your microSD card as internal storage, do not remove it from the device. If you do remove the microSD card, you must either reinsert the card immediately or select "Forget SD Card" from the pop up message that appears. If you select "Forget SD Card" then you lose all the data on your microSD card.
Your tablet supports FAT32 formatted microSD cards for portable storage. If your microSD card uses a different format (such as exFAT), it is reformatted during the setup process, and any information stored on the card is lost.
You can use all classes of Ultra High Speed (UHS) microSD cards up to 400 GB in size. For non-UHS microSD cards, Amazon recommends Class 10 microSD cards for optimal performance. Class 2 microSD cards may not perform enough to support video playback or capturing burst mode photos.
If you're using a Fire Kid's Edition tablet, make sure that you are in the adult profile before inserting the microSD card. You cannot set up a microSD card from a child profile.
To insert a microSD card:
Hold your Fire tablet vertically, with the front-facing camera in the top center. The microSD card slot is on the upper right side of your device.
Open the microSD card cover and turn it slightly to show the microSD card slot.
Push gently until it locks into place.
To remove your microSD card:
Swipe down from the top of the screen and tap the Settings (gear) icon.
Tap Storage. Tap Safely Remove SD Card, and then tap OK.
Open the microSD card cover and gently press on the microSD card to remove it.
If you designate a microSD card as portable storage, you can manage what content is installed, downloaded, or stored on your microSD card. Not all content types can be saved to portable storage.
To manage your preferences (for microSD cards designated as portable storage):
Swipe down from the top of the screen, tap the Settings (gear) icon, and then tap Storage.
Under SD Card, tap a switch next to a content category to turn microSD card support on or off. By default, all supported content categories are downloaded to the microSD card.
Tap SD Card Storage and then tap a content category to manage content stored on the microSD card.
Note: If you have multiple profiles on your device, content downloaded to the microSD card is restricted to the profile that downloaded it.
To move content to the microSD card:
Music:
Tap Music from the Home screen.
Tap the Menu icon or swipe in from the left side of the screen, and then tap Settings.
Tap Transfer All Offline Music, then tap Transfer All to SD Card.
Prime Videos, books and periodicals, and photos and personal videos: Delete the content from your device, then re download it after you have inserted a microSD card, designated the card as removable storage, and selected the option to save these content types to the card.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I say this was on Amazon's help site, because this is no longer there - not in any form that resembles the above at all. What I copied was the cached version from a couple months ago. Now, Amazon's help is overly simplified and totally useless.
Screen shot below...
DJames1 said:
As an experiment I stuck a 16 Gbyte microSD in my new Fire HD 8 tablet (2018 version, now on 6.3.1.2), and said ok to format as internal storage expansion.
As far as I can tell, no pre-installed apps or their data files were automatically moved to the microSD storage, and I haven't specifically told Fire OS to move anything, except for one thing: I was experimenting with side-loading Netflix from apk just to verify that it still won't support Chromecast on Fire tablet (it doesn't), and I noted that the Netflix app was eligible to move to external memory, so I did that. When I look under Settings/Storage, I see a summary that there is one app on the microSD card. but Fire OS won't tell me which app that it is. There is also 52 Mbytes of data simply labeled "Other". No idea what that is.
I wanted to try upgrading this to a 64-Gbyte microSD card, but as far as I can find online, there is no upgrade procedure. In fact there isn't even a downgrade procedure to remove the microSD card once used as internal storage. If it ever fails and you need to replace it, or you want to use the card for something else, or you want to use the microSD slot for data transfer via card, or you want to upgrade the card, the advice seems to be "factory reset the tablet, because there's no other way"!
That leads me to wonder if I should be doing this at all, given that it's so fragile and limited.
Knowing that Netflix was the one app I transferred, I can individually more it back to internal storage, and after that Settings/Storage agrees that there are no apps on the microSD card. There is still the mysterious unidentified 52 Mbytes "Other". Is it safe to remove the old microSD card now? Should I do that and forget about the whole "format as internal" option?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can considered to backup your SD card contents to your PC or tablet's internal storage when you formatted as an internal storage.
You must be select Use as portable storage.
joeldf said:
Out of curiosity, how do you know anything was moved to the SD card?
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Click to collapse
My Fired HD 8 tablet is the 16 Gbyte model, so it doesn't have much memory. After initial setup it reported 7.x Gbytes free, presumably after accounting for the OS and Amazon bloatware.
After inserting a 16 Gbyte microSD card and formatting it as Internal, the tablet still only shows 7.x Gbytes free, so I'm not sure what's going on there. I've installed a couple of apps, but no more than a few hundred Mbytes. Yes, it was definitely formatted as Internal.
Under Storage it still distinguishes between the internal memory and the microSD card in the details, and I can drill down to see contents of the microSD card. It says the card contains one app and 52 Mbytes labeled "Other". I know that the app is Netflix, because it was the only app that offered a Move to SD option - none of the Amazon apps do. And when I move Netflix back to internal memory, the "one app" disappears from the SD card.
Don't ask me to explain it - this is what it shows.
DJames1 said:
My Fired HD 8 tablet is the 16 Gbyte model, so it doesn't have much memory. After initial setup it reported 7.x Gbytes free, presumably after accounting for the OS and Amazon bloatware.
After inserting a 16 Gbyte microSD card and formatting it as Internal, the tablet still only shows 7.x Gbytes free, so I'm not sure what's going on there. I've installed a couple of apps, but no more than a few hundred Mbytes. Yes, it was definitely formatted as Internal.
Under Storage it still distinguishes between the internal memory and the microSD card in the details, and I can drill down to see contents of the microSD card. It says the card contains one app and 52 Mbytes labeled "Other". I know that the app is Netflix, because it was the only app that offered a Move to SD option - none of the Amazon apps do. And when I move Netflix back to internal memory, the "one app" disappears from the SD card.
Don't ask me to explain it - this is what it shows.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't really understand why you are doing all that.
7 GB is more than enough space to install plenty of apps. Use your SD card to save your music and movies on it. Netflix, YouTube, Deezer, Google Music and probably every other video/audio app let's you save files to your SD card
DJames1 said:
My Fired HD 8 tablet is the 16 Gbyte model, so it doesn't have much memory. After initial setup it reported 7.x Gbytes free, presumably after accounting for the OS and Amazon bloatware.
After inserting a 16 Gbyte microSD card and formatting it as Internal, the tablet still only shows 7.x Gbytes free, so I'm not sure what's going on there. I've installed a couple of apps, but no more than a few hundred Mbytes. Yes, it was definitely formatted as Internal.
Under Storage it still distinguishes between the internal memory and the microSD card in the details, and I can drill down to see contents of the microSD card. It says the card contains one app and 52 Mbytes labeled "Other". I know that the app is Netflix, because it was the only app that offered a Move to SD option - none of the Amazon apps do. And when I move Netflix back to internal memory, the "one app" disappears from the SD card.
Don't ask me to explain it - this is what it shows.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It sounds like it ended up formatting as external "portable" storage after all. That's certainly how it seems like it's reading it.
I'm stumped.
Noter2017 said:
I don't really understand why you are doing all that.
7 GB is more than enough space to install plenty of apps. Use your SD card to save your music and movies on it. Netflix, YouTube, Deezer, Google Music and probably every other video/audio app let's you save files to your SD card
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not really. And I can understand the need for space if the tablet is the 16GB version. We have 3 HD8s in my house. My wife and son have the 2017 model and I have the 2018 model. All are the 32GB versions. My son is already getting close to his limit with about 2GB left after all the games and books he has on it using the Kids FreeTime side.
My tablet is already using just under 7GB of apps now. And I do have a 128GB SD card on it for music, and anything that can be offloaded from the main memory. If I had a 16GB model, I'd be in trouble.
Noter2017 said:
I don't really understand why you are doing all that.
7 GB is more than enough space to install plenty of apps. Use your SD card to save your music and movies on it. Netflix, YouTube, Deezer, Google Music and probably every other video/audio app let's you save files to your SD card
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's really not enough space. I have two 16 Gbyte phones, and I'm constantly deleting and restoring apps to make space, or getting the "not enough space to update" message. My other tablet with 32 Gbytes is fine.
I'm just not sure I want to experiment with this given the warning that there is no way to "undo" once you start using an SD card for internal memory extension, other than a factory reset of the Fire tablet. Another half-baked Android feature from Google...
joeldf said:
It sounds like it ended up formatting as external "portable" storage after all. That's certainly how it seems like it's reading it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nope, definitely formatted as internal storage. It seems that Amazon has been fiddling with the use of the SD card for storage in FireOS 6.3 compared to earlier versions.
When I look under Settings - Storage, I see the Internal Storage and the SD Card capacity and available memory listed separately.
There is an option for the SD card "Format as portable storage", which warns that I will lose access to any apps and data on the SD card if I proceed. There is no longer an option to format as internal storage as there was originally, which I selected when I installed the card.
I have option buttons to Move Apps and Move Data to the SD card. There is no automatic use of the SD card as an automatic extension to internal memory.
Only one app is eligible to Move to SD Card, and that app is not identified. But I know it is side-loaded Netfilx, which indeed can be moved to the SD card. None of the built-in Amazon apps are eligible. I have the option to move that app back to internal memory. I have not checked whether I can move data to the internal-storage-format SD card and then move it back because I don't want to bork the Fire tablet if it doesn't work.
Noter2017 said:
I don't really understand why you are doing all that.
7 GB is more than enough space to install plenty of apps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ha! Obviously you don't play PAD, Hearthstone, etc. Or have database apps.
ldeveraux said:
Ha! Obviously you don't play PAD, Hearthstone, etc. Or have database apps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't play, sorry.
Isn't there a Magisk module to move .obb files to external SD? That would help with games at least
Noter2017 said:
I don't play, sorry.
Isn't there a Magisk module to move .obb files to external SD? That would help with games at least
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Or he could, you know, do exactly what he asked about.
FireOS lack the permission in etc/permissions/platform.xml to allow applications to write to external storage on most of not all versions of the OS. Without that permission, you have to add it and factory reset or use an app like apps2sd to format the external card as internal 'for real aka adoptable storage' to be honest, I don't know if FireOS actually does this or just tells you it does.
the problem with adoptable storage is the Micro SD will only work on that device and if the device ever stops working all that data is lost so I just use root options to move apps to the Micro SD. also you can change the card to a different card without a factory reset but it will unlink the old Micro SD permanently losing all of the data on it and will reformat the new one
Hello,
I tried using https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/...-15-1-8-1-0_r48-j730gm-fm-f-03-11-18.3751681/ but for some reason it wouldn't detect my Sim Cards, so it was a useless approach. I ended up getting the ROM stock through SamFirm and was able to install it and I have my Galaxy working again.
Now, the original issue remains > I have no freaking space on my phone. It only has 16GB internal storage and 70% of it is used by god knows what.
I have 2 possible solutions:
- install custom ROM > if you have any links please let me know. Either Pixel Experience, or whatever, I just need something with decently clear steps to follow
- use my SD Card as internal storage. For some bizzarre reason it's turned off on Samsung, how could I enable it?
Thanks!
The bandwidth of the SD card interface is too slow for use as internal storage. Use it as a data drive instead.
Only apps, DCIM and the download folders should be on internal memory. The DCIM can be safely moved to the SD card. Leave a couple gbs of headroom on internal memory at all times.
Otherwise it sounds like you have outgrown the phone. My dual drive N10+ setup doesn't have many large 3rd party apps loaded. Even so 60gb is my typical usage. Since the available storage is many times larger than this, no worries. I typically use this large volume of unused storage for "scratch" storage. More is always better...
blackhawk said:
The bandwidth of the SD card interface is too slow for use as internal storage. Use it as a data drive instead.
Only apps, DCIM and the download folders should be on internal memory. The DCIM can be safely moved to the SD card. Leave a couple gbs of headroom on internal memory at all times.
Otherwise it sounds like you have outgrown the phone. My dual drive N10+ setup doesn't have many large 3rd party apps loaded. Even so 60gb is my typical usage. Since the available storage is many times larger than this, no worries. I typically use this large volume of unused storage for "scratch" storage. More is always better...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I only have 2GB of Apps and my Storage is at 11.8/16. That's my problem. I can't even move the apps that I want to the SD Card because most apps don't allow it. I'm talking about apps that I rarely use, can't even move them.
It's not like the phone is filled with Images or Videos, I don't care about that and I always delete whatsapp crap.
Something is using the space. Keep all social media trash apps (which is all of them) off the phone. Logon through browser only, it adds another layer of protection.
Try clearing the system cache. If you can't sort it out factory reset then carefully reload. Do Not use SmartSwitch as its a known troublemaker.
Using the SD card as the data drive you should be able to come up with a somewhat workable compromise. Consider an upgrade to a used or new N10+, you won't have this issue again.