Apps not really moving from device to SD card? What's this all about?

[ralbert20]

Roof dAddy was correct. The only thing that worked for me (Root, hyperdrive ROM, S4, Verizon) was to use FolderMount. Be sure you are linking the correct correct folder. The folder should also contain artwork folders, this is how I knew I was linking the correct folders. I could not successfully use either romtoolbox, or rootexplorer; both gave me a "some SD cards do not support..."

 

[Castor00]

Finally I am happy that Im not alone with this problem. I have been a little frustrated about this ever since I got my Note 3.

I have tried moving several apps like RealRacing3, GTA Vice City, etc to the SD card. Phone says they are in SD Card but when I check my SD Card, there is not 1byte of app data in there.

And my phone memory keeps getting eaten up by these Huge games! I really hope Samsung can fix this in the next udpate, or This will be my First and Last Samsung device.

 

[Felipe Valera]

Hello Bryant:

Computer programs sometimes use what I call tricks, if you delete a photo, never is deleted from the computer, if you remove and icon, for example from an app soft, you can remove or you can make it transparent, users don't see nothing but it is still in the app, maybe in this case the trick is too evident, you must know when you move an app to sd card , part of the app is in the internal memory, i think it is a problem of hardware and programming.

Good luck.

 

[sddabrow]

Peter is 100% correct.

I just got a Note 3 and it does the exact same thing.. saves apps to the internal memory. To explain it, Samsung phones likely have eMMC, which is basically an embedded SD card (actually soldered to the PCB) whereas we know the SD card we can input is replaceable.

When you move an app to the 'SD Card' it moves it to the phones internal eMMC memory... not the external SD card we have put in our phones.

After some research, it looks like the only way to fix this is through root as Roof Daddy and Ralbert stated. I am getting along without doing that and just using the SD card for pictures, files, and music. Everything else will just have to fit on the 32GB eMMC within the phone..

 

[Skyro]

Same problem here as the OP. I am desperate, there has to be a solution. Already regretting that I switched from iPhone.

 

[STSVA]

There seems to be a huge amount of confusion in this thread. If you have an Android version that allows moving apps to the external SD card, a portion of moveable apps does go to the SD card when you check that option for the app. As best I can tell, the entire app, including both the executable code and the app data, does not move, and it's mostly app data that moves. The people saying that nothing goes to the SD card are, in a word, wrong. If you make careful notes of phone storage info. before and after "moving" an app you can see that there's been a change. What actually happens when moving an app may not be what you expect from the concept of moving apps to the SD card, but it does reduce the data load on the phone's internal memory.

 

[Henning Knutsen]

There seems to be a huge amount of confusion in this thread. If you have an Android version that allows moving apps to the external SD card, a portion of moveable apps does go to the SD card when you check that option for the app. As best I can tell, the entire app, including both the executable code and the app data, does not move, and it's mostly app data that moves. The people saying that nothing goes to the SD card are, in a word, wrong. If you make careful notes of phone storage info. before and after "moving" an app you can see that there's been a change. What actually happens when moving an app may not be what you expect from the concept of moving apps to the SD card, but it does reduce the data load on the phone's internal memory.

I can't believe how arrogant you are stating that everyone who reports this error are wrong.
Seing as this problem definitly exists, the one persion contributing to the confusion is you.

I am on a stock, unrooted Samsung Galaxy S3 running Android 4.3, and am having the exact same issue as reported by several other users.
My phone recently updated from 4.1.2 to 4.3, and with it came the option to move apps to external SD.

I tried moving many apps, upon which my phone states they were transferred successfully, and reflected the change in the individual app's storage overview.
Observing that my free memory had not increased however, i used ES File Explorer to investigate.
I found that not a single byte had been written to the external SD (with one possible exception, see below), and all files remained on sdCard0, ie. the phone's internal memory.

I also noticed a new "partition" that I haven't seen before, named "emulated", which contained two folders with identical content and size, one named "legacy" and one named "0". They, in turn, are both identical to the sdCard0 "partition", meaning that for some reason, "emulated" displays the exact content of the phone's internal memory in two different folders.

Finally, I noticed that my LOST.dir folder on the external SD card seemed unusually large (9.1 GB!).
Seing as that folder is for corrupted data, I deleted its content.

Now, when I try and launch any of the moved apps, I get an error saying it has stopped working.
Allthewhile, the amount stored on the internal and external cards haven't changed, respectively.

 

[mrsmumbles]

I can't believe how arrogant you are stating that everyone who reports this error are wrong.
Seing as this problem definitly exists, the one persion contributing to the confusion is you.

I am on a stock, unrooted Samsung Galaxy S3 running Android 4.3, and am having the exact same issue as reported by several other users.
My phone recently updated from 4.1.2 to 4.3, and with it came the option to move apps to external SD.

I tried moving many apps, upon which my phone states they were transferred successfully, and reflected the change in the individual app's storage overview.
Observing that my free memory had not increased however, i used ES File Explorer to investigate.
I found that not a single byte had been written to the external SD (with one possible exception, see below), and all files remained on sdCard0, ie. the phone's internal memory.

I also noticed a new "partition" that I haven't seen before, named "emulated", which contained two folders with identical content and size, one named "legacy" and one named "0". They, in turn, are both identical to the sdCard0 "partition", meaning that for some reason, "emulated" displays the exact content of the phone's internal memory in two different folders.

Finally, I noticed that my LOST.dir folder on the external SD card seemed unusually large (9.1 GB!).
Seing as that folder is for corrupted data, I deleted its content.

Now, when I try and launch any of the moved apps, I get an error saying it has stopped working.
Allthewhile, the amount stored on the internal and external cards haven't changed, respectively.

It sounds like you confused your phone... As the person you're replying to said, some data gets written to the card but most of the apps stay where they are in the phone. If they're writing duplicates of themselves they're still staying where they originally were, but parts of their functions are being split off onto the external card. This is how I understand it, anyway. So, when you delete the part of them on the external card, the other part no longer works.

The best solution is to leave the apps alone. When the phone becomes too full you can always clear the caches and data of individual apps in Settings/ Manage Apps.

Keep your pictures, videos, music on the external card.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk 2

 

[STSVA]

I can't believe how arrogant you are stating that everyone who reports this error are wrong.
Seing as this problem definitly exists, the one persion contributing to the confusion is you.

I am on a stock, unrooted Samsung Galaxy S3 running Android 4.3, and am having the exact same issue as reported by several other users.
My phone recently updated from 4.1.2 to 4.3, and with it came the option to move apps to external SD.

I tried moving many apps, upon which my phone states they were transferred successfully, and reflected the change in the individual app's storage overview.
Observing that my free memory had not increased however, i used ES File Explorer to investigate.
I found that not a single byte had been written to the external SD (with one possible exception, see below), and all files remained on sdCard0, ie. the phone's internal memory.

I also noticed a new "partition" that I haven't seen before, named "emulated", which contained two folders with identical content and size, one named "legacy" and one named "0". They, in turn, are both identical to the sdCard0 "partition", meaning that for some reason, "emulated" displays the exact content of the phone's internal memory in two different folders.

Finally, I noticed that my LOST.dir folder on the external SD card seemed unusually large (9.1 GB!).
Seing as that folder is for corrupted data, I deleted its content.

Now, when I try and launch any of the moved apps, I get an error saying it has stopped working.
Allthewhile, the amount stored on the internal and external cards haven't changed, respectively.

You deleted 9.1 GB data from the external SD card but apparently did nothing else to change things, yet your "moved" apps stopped working - think there might be a connection? Actually, I don't think your app data is in the lost.dir folder, but I do think there is some on your external SD card if you have "moved" the apps. Using the DiskUsage app, I find that I have about 265MB of apps2SD data on my external SD card - here's a screen shot. I'm sure this is really the external SD card, because right above the Apps2SD section you'll note 44456MB for syncr, which is my 44GB or so of music stored on my external SD card; there's no room for that in internal phone memory. I think this external SD card app data may be "invisible" to some file management apps, which is probably why you're not seeing it.

 

[jnoake]

Found it:
How To Install Android Apps On External SD card: No Rooting Required from areacellphone.com

if the link goes dead, essentially, use adb and usb debugging to issue the following command:
(Android version 4.0 and lower)
adb shell pm setInstallLocation 2

(Android version 4.x and high)
adb shell pm set-install-location 2

adb shell pm set-install-location 0
puts it back to default.

 

[sparkfuzz]

Phone and OS: Samsung Galaxy S3 Straight Talk (SCH-S968C) running 4.1.2

So I purchased a Galaxy S3 from walmart and found that I could not put "movable" apps on my "external" sd card. I am very aware of the emulated drive. When I go to My Files/storage I see sdcard0 and extSdCard. It is really making me mad that all the App to SD apps I find can not move the apps to the actual sd card. In fact when I open AppMgr III and click "ON SD CARD" tab its says "the device does not have a real primary external storage, or the primary external storage is emulated. Moving app to SD function cannot be supported by this device" How annoying. So I did what jnoake suggested and installed ADB, put my phone in debugging mode and executed the 'adb shell pm set-install-location 2' into the phone. Well it did not help as I went to the Play Store and downloaded Spotify and as soon as it tried installing it gave me the following error, "Insufficient storage available." DARN! It must not allow to install on my SD card???? I dont understand how I cant find a solution for this as this phone is very well known. I have spent the whole afternoon trying to solve this problem but only to be disappointed. I appreciate any direction or help as I am new to the s3. I just cant figure out why i cant move "movable" Apps to the SD card. NOTE:I understand that some apps are movable and the ones that are movable only allow certain parts to go on the sd card. Lets try to keep the focus on the actual problem which is the inability to move apps and such onto the actual extSdCard (ACTUAL REMOVABLE CARD). I has an Optimus Showtime and I had no problems moving "movable apps" to my external SD card. With this phone I don't even get the option "move to SD card" in phone settings, whats up with that? Please offer reasonable insight and don't blab about non constructive issues. Henning Knutsen seems to be one really addressing the problem I am having. We bought the SD cards to consolidate space and as of now, its really not that possible. I can get my photos and media on my external SD but what if I want to download a lot of apps and some games that take up a lot of space???? To me this seems like a fixable problem or was the phone designed to do this? If my Optimus Showtime did it why cant the uber awesome Galaxy S3 do it??? Any insight would be appreciated... Oh and I really dont want to root my phone. I have done it in the past but I'm not chancing voiding my warranty on a 400 dollar phone.

 

[Solun]

I have read the whole thread and I have the same problem with Galaxy S4 I9500 on Android 4.3.

I had Samsung phones all my life and always loved the brand even in times when everyone had Nokia because I could see Samsung always had something better or nicer than competition. Now Samsung is a major player together with Apple.

Interesting thing is that I also had Samsung Wave with bada OS and it WAS possible to move huge games like Asphalt 5 or 6 (and all other huge games - but there haven't been many for this OS) onto an SD card and the data really moved. Now after purchasing S4 back in June (together with Samsung 64 GB SD card), I thought I finally have everything I need for my mobile needs. I was probably mistaken because since unboxing the phone until now (= 8 months), not a single firmware update resolved the issue and I don't think 4.4 update which is officially already released in two countries will fix that.

Recently I found a way how to reduce amount of data on internal storage for over 1GB but that was a Gallery issue, not SD card/game issue.

So even now I am only able to have very few real games (Asphalt 8, Real Racing 3 and then two small Rayman games). If I wanted to play Batman, I'd have to uninstall one big game before that. Turns out S4 is a multimedia machine, not a gaming machine.

I'm sorry about this because this is the second time Samsung disappointed me at something (first was abandoning amazing bada OS that had a huge potential).

I am really happy for those of you who will find happiness with the iPhone. I will have bigger problem - to find a phone for myself. I don't need SD card as long as the phone has at least 64 GB of storage - S4 in this variant is not sold anywhere I've been although it was announced. But I won't be getting the iPhone (my reasons: too small, no widgets, not so vibrant and lifelike colors, too few customization options, not possible to carry an extra battery and replace when it runs out) - I still extremely adore Apple but Samsung won my heart too many times in the past so I won't abandon it so easily.

 

[wcndave]

Seriously, this is freaking annoying. I have only got a few apps installed. Facebook, Skype, whatsapp and ebay. My phone was getting low on storage. I bought a 64GB SD card. moved all apps to SD card where developer allows it. It says they are on SD card. I just did an update as 9 apps needed updating, and it crashed on google search saying "not enough storage space". Come on, I have 62GB storage space! use it!

Did anyone actually solve this without rooting phone?

 

[Brian Phillips5]

Hi , I had the same problem, however I installed 'map.me' and in the settings it offered where to store the maps. I am very pleased with this app.

 

[killgore]

I have Galaxy Tab Pro with 4.4.2 and to sum up the exact problem is this:
You can use "Move to SD", but it moves only a small fraction of application (we are not talking about data) instead of most of it. It's 40-50 MB max (mostly visible with big apps).

Try downloading something bigger like Plants vs Zombies 2. I takes over 500 MB in Application section, not Data. If you use "Move to SD" it moves about 25 MB with 550 left on device. So it's point-blank useless.
Yet, the same game on my HTC phone after "Move to SD" leaves only 6 MB on device with 570 on SD card.

So it doesn't look like Google fault but rather Samsung half-assed implementation of "Move to SD".

There is also problem with apps like Real Racing 3 that were designed to download additional content to SD card. It has only 50 MB in Application section and almost 1,4 GB in "SD card data". On my phone it's really stored on SD card, but on Tab Pro it is of course not. It's on f**** internal SD card.

In fact it looks like Samsung did everything it could to prevent user from using SD card for applications. Good job.

 

[Torben Schou Jensen]

I have the same problem.

I just bought a new LG H440n phone, Android 5.0.1, 8 GB internal storage, 3.46GB available for user.
In addition I bought a 16GB SD card to have plenty of room for applications.
But not possible to move applications to external SD card.

Link2SD report storage to be

Internal storage
/data
Total 3.46GB

SD Card
/storage/emulated/legacy
Total 3.46GB

External SD
/storage/external_SD
Total 15GB

In Settings/Apps I can for application press "Move to SD card", but this just mean application move from Internal storage to SD card (on this phone emulated SD Card), after move application is still on internal storage.

An option can be to root phone and by use of Link2SD link applications to external SD Card second partition.
But by root you loose warranty on phone.

 

[Torben Schou Jensen]

Problem solved.

LG support asked for more info on problem, and requested me first to Factory Reset phone and see if this solved problem.
And yes, now it works.

Looks like Android on first start make special setup if you have external SD card in phone, and then you can move apps to external SD card.
I added my external SD after first start,

I still see emulated "SD Card" on phone, mapping same storage as "Internal storage".
But when I now move apps to SD card, they are moved to "External SD".

 

[irongamer]

Problem solved.

LG support asked for more info on problem, and requested me first to Factory Reset phone and see if this solved problem.
And yes, now it works.

Looks like Android on first start make special setup if you have external SD card in phone, and then you can move apps to external SD card.
I added my external SD after first start,

I still see emulated "SD Card" on phone, mapping same storage as "Internal storage".
But when I now move apps to SD card, they are moved to "External SD".

I noticed this behavior on my Moto E 2nd gen (Android 5.0.2). I installed the external sd card after setting up the phone the first time. When I "moved" apps it pushed them over to an emulated folder not the sd card. Going to give this a shot.

"Moving" app to the "sd card" would not change the space usage on the SD card at all, no usage difference in bytes. Phone storage usage remains the same after "moving" the app.

Waiting on phone updates atm... will be moving an app shortly. Will update....

Didn't change anything. Moving apps to the external SD card does nothing but put them in a different folder in primary storage. They need to stop advertising this feature, rename the button, or remove the button. What a bunch of garbage. I don't use the sd card for music or images... was hoping to use it for apps. Maybe android M will address this issue.

A few well made apps like OsmAnd (Open Street Maps) do allow you to install their maps to the external SD card. OsmAnd makes it very obvious that moving an app to "external" storage may not really be "external" storage. When selecting where to install maps I had 2 external storage options External 1 or External 2. Selecting External 1 showed the same free space as my phones primary storage. Selecting External 2 showed the free space of my external sd card.... thank you OsmAnd. The option to move apps from Settings > Apps is completely disingenuous.

 

[ToAsTy718]

@knight

Ive been having the same exact problem!

I mean come on one of the main reasons a person would purchase a memory card/ sd card is to free up space on there phone. And i agree @knight ive been trying to move all my games to my sd card it says that they were transferred but just as you said, there still taking up majority of my phone memory to the point were I cant download anything or even update existing apps. This is completely ridiculous. Someone please give me an answer or any kind of advice!

-Toasty ^__^

 

[keneche_dota]

Hi guys im glad im not the only one having this problem, i clickthe button move to sd card, but the truth is android is such a big fat lieeeer! That button is not working those apps still hugs spaces on your internal storage and doesnt really move to your sd card im moving to ios now this android such a piece of garbagee waste of money!!!