Why am I getting an 'insufficient storage' message

[AC Question]

I have a T-Mobile HTC One M9 with 32g internal storage and I have added a Samsung 128g sd card. I have used 18 of 32g internal and 2 of 120g external. I have moved many of my apps to external storage, however today I received a message when trying to move an app that I have 'not enough storage space' on the drive. Since receiving that message, I have moved other apps to external storage and the apps that I've moved seem to be functioning normally. Does anyone have an idea? Thanks.

 

[Rukbat]

1. When you "move an app to external", you're actually moving small (sometimes tiny) pieces of the app, one at a time (it depends on how the app was written). Each piece leaves a link in internal storage. And if the piece you move is smaller than a link, you've decreased the amount of free storage.

2. Look to see how much storage is allocated for apps. Some phones allocate almost all (they have to save some space for the recovery partition and the download partition, or you'd have no recovery or no download), but some phones reserve a lot of space for Android, even though the current version doesn't need it - leaving you with less space. So you might not have as much free storage as you think.

3. And remember, some apps just won't run from the SD card, so always buy a phone with enough internal storage as you'll need. (Widgets, for example - which are apps - won't run from the SD card.)