APPtoSD Not workiing

[charliem38]

Hello everyone,

This forum seems a good a place as any to post this. I did the firmware update from samsung on my S4 and I notice I was able to move apps to external storage(SD Card). Or so I thought. I went onto app manager and selected the app I wanted to move and I selected to move to sd button. I then did a factory reset. Ok so now I have my WiFi toggle ,but I don't have any apps on the SD. Has any one else seen this?:-\

Charlie

 

[skinut424]

Yes I just saw this as well. I think there are only a limited number of Apps that you are allowed to move to the card. From the main application manager screen, you can wipe left or right. You will see an "On SD Card" column with boxes. If you check a box, it appears that you can move the app to the SD card. But, it doesn't appear that all of the apps are on that particular list.

 

[tvouge]

Hello everyone,

This forum seems a good a place as any to post this. I did the firmware update from samsung on my S4 and I notice I was able to move apps to external storage(SD Card). Or so I thought. I went onto app manager and selected the app I wanted to move and I selected to move to sd button. I then did a factory reset. Ok so now I have my WiFi toggle ,but I don't have any apps on the SD. Has any one else seen this?:-\

Charlie

Well, you did a factory reset. It removes all apps from your phone and returns you to stock. Even the apps that you moved to the sd card.

Posted via Android Central App

 

[charliem38]

Thanks for the reply. Why does a factory reset erase the sd card? The whole point of saving the apps or anything there for that matter is to have them after a reset. I still have my contacts that I saved there.

 

[Mark_Venture]

Thanks for the reply. Why does a factory reset erase the sd card? The whole point of saving the apps or anything there for that matter is to have them after a reset. I still have my contacts that I saved there.

A factory reset takes you back to "default" setup, removing any apps/data/settings. It removes any knowledge the phone had that there were any "user installed apps". After a factory reset you need to reinstall all of your apps, sync any data, and change any settings back to the way you want them.

It doesn't erase the SD card. Your SD card should not be blank, its contents should still be intact, unless you either formatted your card, or had encryption enabled on the card before you did a factory reset.

And the idea of moving APPS to the SD card is to use as little of the internal memory as possible, to keep it free for more apps

 

[paintdrinkingpete]

Thanks for the reply. Why does a factory reset erase the sd card? The whole point of saving the apps or anything there for that matter is to have them after a reset. I still have my contacts that I saved there.

This is a common misconception when it comes to the whole idea of moving apps to the SD card.

The primary purpose behind moving apps to SD storage is to reduce the amount of data saved to the internal data partition. Even when moving apps to SD card, all you are really moving is the data used by the app, the apps itself still needs to be installed on phone, and configured with the correct symbolic links to know where to pull it's data from. It is not intended to serve as a "backup" for apps nor to allow you to "transfer" apps from one device to another by swapping SD cards...it simply will not work in this manner nor was ever intended to.

If you factory reset your phone, the app data you moved to SD card is technically still there...but the problem is that the phone has no idea that the apps are installed in the first place.

It would be similar to if I had a Windows computer with limited space on my C: drive where windows is installed, so I add a second hard drive, which is the D: drive. Now, when installing programs I can tell them to install to directories on this new D: drive to save space on my C: drive, but if I were re-format my C: drive and/or re-install Windows, those installation directories on my D: drive would be worthless, because Windows has no idea those apps were installed there or what to do those files.

Many folks have complained that the ~9GB available on the 16GB version of the S4 is insufficient, and for some that is a valid claim...especially if you run hi-def games that can take upwards of 2GB space for a single app. This feature of allowing apps to be moved to SD was provided solely to address this issue. *IF* you are not approaching your limits in terms on internal storage on your S4, then I'd highly recommend NOT moving any apps, since performance will be better if the apps are able to run in internal storage as designed.

 

[Richard Schuette]

Re: Galaxy Note II. I hope someone on this forum can help. I apparently deleted some files I shouldn't have, then reformated my 'factory' settings to wipe my device and SD card clean. Anything I need to reinstall to get my SD card back on line?