How do I use SD card?

[Android Central Question]

I have an Alcatel TCL LX, with 8.1.0 Android operating system. I have a SanDisk 32GB, 3 speed microSD card.

I have already formatted and equiped the SD card as portable storage, and there is no option to equipe as internal storage. I can not seem to use SD card for much of anything? I can not use it to store apps, it does not seem to store app caches, despite the system automatically making file folders for them on the SD card. There are no options to move Apps, APKs, and Caches, in the Android menu, but only options to move picture and audio files. 3rd party apps do not appear to work, and whereas file explorer type apps do work to move some data, other data such as APKs do not seem to move despite me clicking the options such as "Send", "Move", "Cut", "Copy" and etc.

I do not want to have to root this phone, any help is appreciated!

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! If the phone doesn't give you the option to format the card as Internal Storage, then it doesn't support Adoptable Storage. Therefore, you can only use the card to store things like media files (videos, music, photos) and documents. Some apps will recognize that you have an SD card and give you the option to save data to the card. This is historically what the SD card has been most useful for; moving apps to SD is a good way to make your apps slower (since SD card read/write speeds are typically slower than onboard memory), and SD cards are also prone to failure, which will cause data loss.

If you really want to use the card for app installation, you'd have to root the phone and use an app like App Mgr III or Link2SD.