I can't seem to move apps to my SD card. Very generic, I know.

[Chokywoky]

I know the internet is full of people having problems like these. However, I have tried every single solution I've seen online and I simply don't understand why I can't move apps to my SD card. There should be a button saying "move to SD card", right? Not always, of course, I understand not all apps support this feature. But NONE of my apps have this.
My SD card is my default location for installing apps, and I think large parts of the apps I download are moved to my SD card. For some reason though, a part always stays behind on my internal storage, and it's SUPER full. What I'm seeing just doesn't add up to that amount of GB's. I know the firmware takes up most of the space, but I'd like to just be able to move entire apps onto my SD card without a part of it staying behind. I've tried the 'force apps onto external' option in developer mode, but no button pops up anywhere for me to actually move any of the apps.
General info: My phone is a Huawei P8 lite (2017), model PRA-LX1 and I am using Android 8.0. My SD card is far from full (23 GB left). Internal storage: 16GB total, 803 MB free: Firmware 5.85 GB, apps 7.34 GB, images/videos/audio not even 12 MB, other 1.98 (no idea what 'other' is).
My question is, how can I still move apps to my SD card? The amount of GB from the apps doesn't seem to add up either... It would help if I could upload pictures. Please do ask me questions if you need to and thanks in advance!

 

[anon(10614692)]

If an app doesn't allow "move to SD Card", that is the way the app has been written and unfortunately this nothing you can do. Whilst 16GB storage was OK in the past, it is way too small nowadays and I'm afraid upgrading the phone to a newer one is your only solution.

 

[mustang7757]

Hi, welcome to AC!

I agree with Zoo, 16gb is too low storage for today , even if you could move apps to SD card its not recommended due to they can be corrupt, slower write speeds then internal.storage , can cause freezes etc..

Best you find a phone with at least 64gb, otherwise you need to delete some apps , keep photos and videos in the cloud .

Can use this app to determine what's using your current storage .

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.diskusage

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! If there's absolutely no way for you to upgrade your phone to one with more reasonable internal storage, then your only option would be to root the phone and use an app like Link2SD or App Mgr III, which I believe allows apps to be installed to the SD card. But as mentioned above, it's still not recommended, due to performance issues and the increased risk of system crashes and data loss.

 

[ManiacJoe]

For the apps using lots of storage (camera, maps, GPS, games, etc) check the settings in the individual apps. Many of the modern apps let you move their data to the SD card while leaving the app on the internal storage.

 

[Rukbat]

Even if you move an app to the SD card, a part of it has to remain in internal storage, because that's where Android looks for apps. (And there have to be links in internal storage to the parts moved to the SD card.)

As Galactic Zoo said, 16GB (that's total storage - about 8GB is used for Android) hasn't been sufficient since about 2014 or 2015. (So why did they sell a phone with 16GB in 2017? Because if they had put 32GB in it, it would have cost you another $200 or so.)

There may be another solution, if you don't use all your apps all the time. (There are some that I seldom use, but I keep them on the phone anyway.) Use an app like App Backup & Restore to back the apps you won't be using much up as .apk files, and move the .apk files to the card. (Don't use Move, though - copy an app, paste it to the card, then delete the original.) Then uninstall the apps you backed up. (This won't back up the app's data - you'd have to root to do that.)

If you're going to need a backed up app, restore it. Then use it. Then uninstall it.

You can probably get a few more years out of the phone that way. (Eventually, you're going to have to replace the phone. Apps keep getting larger, as devices do. 30 years ago, transferring a 500k file online was unthinkable - it would take the better part of a day. So people tended to make things smaller - apps, pictures, etc. Today? I download a 2GB file every month, and it takes a few minutes. I can also save it without thinking - no more 40MB drives.) When an app takes 10GB just to download, and it takes more space than that to install it, that phone will be useless.