Unable to move Apps to SD Card Samsung A20 on Android 10.

[Richb01]

New phone and new SD.

I just added an SD card to my A20. I formatted the SD. I have transferred files (varying types - videos, images, pdf, etc) to the SD. I can see the files if I connect the phone to my laptop. (My point here is that I'm pretty sure the SD card is OK.)

Now I'm trying to move some apps to the SD. I have an app called APPtoSD. It shows a list of apps that are movable. When I try to move the app, I get a message to click the Storage page of the app info. There is no way to change the storage from internal to external.

Before installing Apps2SD (on previous phones), I used to "manually" move apps by using settings and storage. I was given an option to move the app.

Update - I've replaced the SD with a new one, and I get the same indications.

Can anyone point me in the right direction? Thanks!!

Edit: I just watched the following video and I do NOT have the Change button in the Storage section. Is this a permissions thing? I'm pretty confused right now. lol
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIkvOCWz7_o

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! Do these steps work? https://www.sammobile.com/news/how-to-move-apps-to-sd-card-on-galaxy-s9

 

[Richb01]

Thanks!

Sadly, no. When I'm in the Storage page, I do not get the Change option. I think that's the root of my problem - on my other phone (Samsung J7) I get the Change button.

BTW - I'm a big MST3K fan!

 

[B. Diddy]

Hmm, I'm not sure if Samsung took the feature away in a recent update. From what I recall, App2SD may require root in order to be fully functional.

Always good to see another MST3K fan here! I've also gotten into Rifftrax as well, and love their Twitch channel. It's a great experience -- people essentially join in on the riffing via chat, and there are some extremely funny people there! (MST3K has its own channel as well, but there are too many ads on it.)

 

[Rukbat]

1. Android was NEVER designed to run apps from the SD card. Google used to warn about that, then they gave up because everyone ignored it.

2. Samsung finally removed even the possibility of doing it.

3. Installation (and updating, which just installs the new version without changing the data) is to internal storage - you can't change that without redoing Android itself. So if you manage to move an app to the card (and App2SD is almost as old as Android itself), every time the app updates, you have to move it again.

One problem - if the card ever goes bad (and even the best ones do when used for apps), you have to reset the phone. Android shows the app installed, so you can't install it to the new card, but it's not on the new card, so you can't uninstall it. A full reset is the only option. (That's only one of the least important reasons to not put apps on the card.) Always get a phone with enough internal storage for at least twice the space you think you'll ever need. Then you'll need a new phone when you exceed that. (It might be 5 years, but you will eventually need more than 512GB of internal storage in a phone.)

 

[VidJunky]

Rukbat brought up some of the points I was thinking. I'm not sure about the NEVER, but App2SD is old. I think the first time I heard about it was FroYo maybe Gingerbread. Anyway the last I heard about it was when devices stopped allowing SD cards to be formatted as internal memory. I didn't even think it was still a thing.

I will say that one of the last times I did hear about it Rukbat's number 3 point was what the discussion was. The post may have been something like, Why do my apps on SD keep moving back to internal memory? This probably goes back to the speed of the SD. You can get really fast SD cards these days if you're willing to spend the money but they still don't equate to the bond between the processor and internal memory.

I didn't watch much of the video you posted but from your comments it sounds like moving apps is featured. I would check the speed of your SD. If the speed isn't fast enough that could be why it won't give you the option. Aside from that the only thing that I can imagine would be that they disabled this feature but then that makes me wonder why they didn't take the button altogether instead of leaving it greyed out?

 

[Sam 8]

Not sure why no one has mentioned this solution anywhere, but it's soo simple. Go to developer options, and simply enable "force allow apps on external", that's it. Don't know why people like to overcomplicate things.

 

[Lonecore]

using Samsung A20 Android 10. had very bad experience moving Apps to sd card. apps bloat in size after moving to sd because apps run from internal. internal memory became fuller the more I moved to sd and could not update apps. restored phone to factory settings, downloaded apps again and now phone works great. lots of free internal memory. bad idea to move apps to sd card, messes up the whole memory system. sd card best for files, photos, videos.

 

[ahnaf2009]

Move apps to SD card using Samsung's Device care

Though I got the point for Samsung galaxy A20s, I think it will also be similarly applicable for Samsung galaxy A20.

After inserting or mounting an SD card, a notification comes which says that SD card has been inserted. If you you tap on that notification, it will redirect you to a page of device care app that has options to either move your content to SD card or move apps to SD card . If you tap on "move apps to SD card", there you can see apps that can be used to SD card and by turning the switch of the desired apps on you can transfer specific app to SD card or you can turn the option for new app to be save in SD card on. But unfortunately I didn't find that page in settings or device care. So you can try it from the notification that comes in the notification tool after an SD card has been inserted.
thank you

 

[policy]

using Samsung A20 Android 10. had very bad experience moving Apps to sd card. apps bloat in size after moving to sd because apps run from internal. internal memory became fuller the more I moved to sd and could not update apps. restored phone to factory settings, downloaded apps again and now phone works great. lots of free internal memory. bad idea to move apps to sd card, messes up the whole memory system. sd card best for files, photos, videos.

I spent a lot of time trying to figure out where like 10GB of space was missing on my a20 and was moving apps to SD for a while and doing everything I could to free up space and it works, at first... but like you say eventually10gb of internal storage space became missing or just gone from the device until i factory restored it after some time of doing this. There is little to no mention of this specific problem from a technical point on the net too. It's as if the file system forgets the names of app data when moved but still allocates the space to this missing data on internal memory or something.. Even the device total space listed was 22GB when I reset it and got the 32GB of internal space to show again.