Which apps should I move to my SD card?

[Android Central Question]

I have a Samsung Galaxy A3 2017 which is a fantastic phone for me; great value for money HOWEVER Samsung have gave it exceptionally poor storage (like they do with many of their low-end/mid-range phones) and then filled it full of bloatware leaving me with very little storage to play with. As a result I have to rely on ‘App 2 SD’ to move as many apps as possible to my SD card.

Many apps are ‘Movable’ but very few can be moved without reducing the app’s capabilities. Capabilities that ‘App 2 SD’ often warns me I’ll lose include: ‘ - **Listening for “boot completed” event:** the app won’t be notified after the system has finished booting - **Device administrators:** all the administration capabilities will be disabled - **Account Managers:** your accounts created with AccountManager will disappear until external storage is remounted.'

My question is which of these capabilities do I really need for the app to work (and that I should therefore keep on my internal storage) and which of these capabilities aren’t so important and therefore I can move the app without really noticing any difference in the apps behaviour.

Any responses greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

[Rukbat]

My question is which of these capabilities do I really need for the app to work (and that I should therefore keep on my internal storage) and which of these capabilities aren’t so important and therefore I can move the app without really noticing any difference in the apps behaviour.

That depends on the app. Some apps need some functions, some need others. The real problems are:

1. Not all apps will work if moved, which is why not all apps can be moved. (If the developer knows that his app won't run from the SD card, he'll remove your ability to move it.) And there's no way to tell, except by moving the app and then finding that it doesn't work.

2. Android apps have to keep their current state stored all the time. With some apps, that means constantly writing to storage. eMMC storage (the storage in the phone) is designed for that, SD storage isn't - it has a much more limited lifetime (measured in number of writes). An app that writes constantly, and is moved to the SD card so that the part that does the writing is on the card, and just writes to "here", not to a specific path, will write to the SD card, destroying it pretty quickly.

Along with that, when the SD card fails, all the apps that were moved to it are inaccessible. Most of the time they can be uninstalled, then reinstalled (which happens to internal storage - Android doesn't install to SD cards) - but if it can't be, you have to back up everything else, reflash the ROM, restore everything (replacing the dead SD card, of course), then move all your apps to the card again. (Which, again, is going to fail sooner than it should.)

The actual solutions are:

a) Buy a phone with sufficient internal storage for your needs until you replace the phone, or

b) Use the SD card to keep the apk files for the apps you use, then uninstall an app you're not currently using and install one you need. Reading doesn't affect a card's life much.