Can't save (or move) apps to SD card

[mking2673]

I just sold my S4 and got a note 3. With the S4 I had no trouble saving (or moving) apps to an sd card. My large games like NFS Most wanted or dead trigger would be mostly held on the sd card. Also my spotify music would save to the sd card.
With the note 3 nothing except photos get saved to the sd card. The sd card is working fine, the device just doesn't choose to save to it. Even when I click "move to SD card" it doesn't move. It says it is moved, but it doesn't actually move. The "moved" files do stay on the device and continue to work fine.
Aggravating. Some kind of software bug or is there something else I can do?

 

[rusty502]

I just sold my S4 and got a note 3. With the S4 I had no trouble saving (or moving) apps to an sd card. My large games like NFS Most wanted or dead trigger would be mostly held on the sd card. Also my spotify music would save to the sd card.
With the note 3 nothing except photos get saved to the sd card. The sd card is working fine, the device just doesn't choose to save to it. Even when I click "move to SD card" it doesn't move. It says it is moved, but it doesn't actually move. The "moved" files do stay on the device and continue to work fine.
Aggravating. Some kind of software bug or is there something else I can do?

The App developer has to enable the ability to move an app to your SD card, Google no longer supports it, so few do it any more. If it's other data you are trying to move, I've had no problems, make sure you're moving to EXTERNAL SD , internal storage is also referred to as an SD .

 

[rivencap]

As stated above, as long as the developer supports the App to go to the external sd card, it will. Just go to applications manger, go to the game and the button will be available to move to external sd if allowed. Coming from an S3, I have had no problem on my Note 3 and love it!

Palm Treo line > BlackBerry line > Samsung Galaxy S line > NOW the awesome & powerful Samsung Galaxy Note 3!

 

[mking2673]

Thanks for the reply. These are all apps that ran on the SD of my s4. I attached a few Picts to show that the phone is saying that they are on SD even though they are not.

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[mking2673]

Sorry, updated picture of the first screen. There were some music files that were deleted after the first pic.

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[rusty502]

Sorry, updated picture of the first screen. There were some music files that were deleted after the first pic.

http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/02/23/ajadymup.jpg

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Even apps that you CAN move to the external SD card will only move SOME of the data, parts of the app has to reside in system storage, it may be the App had updated and no longer supports it, or maybe the file manager reports it in a different way, but really, it was only with older, low space devices, that it was much of an advantage, also, external storage is much slower than internal, some apps just can't run properly any more, and Samsung is one of the few manufactures that even support external storage any more, Google dropped support a long time ago.

 

[rivencap]

Your Spotify screen shot looks good. But I see what you're saying about the external sd memory card usage. That doesn't necessarily look right. Hmmmm...

Palm Treo line > BlackBerry line > Samsung Galaxy S line > NOW the awesome & powerful Samsung Galaxy Note 3!

 

[rivencap]

What does the game MC4 show? Can you take a screen shot of that? Thanks. Here's a few of mine. I have music & pics on my card too, but it only adds up to about 5gb. Rest is games & apps.

Palm Treo line > BlackBerry line > Samsung Galaxy S line > NOW the awesome & powerful Samsung Galaxy Note 3!

 

[rivencap]

I hate to make you do this, but your external sd card might not be reading right? Maybe it needs to be reformatted. Back anything up on your computer, reformat & see if that helps. From my experience, you never have the whole card capacity at your disposal. Like I can only use 60gb of a 64gb card. I see on your screen shots you can use the whole thing, just about. Maybe that's where the problem is coming in? Just a suggestion...

Palm Treo line > BlackBerry line > Samsung Galaxy S line > NOW the awesome & powerful Samsung Galaxy Note 3!

 

[rivencap]

It's like your phone recognizes the external sd card but not letting you write to it. Make sure you didn't lock your external sd card either. You won't be able to write things to it.

Palm Treo line > BlackBerry line > Samsung Galaxy S line > NOW the awesome & powerful Samsung Galaxy Note 3!

 

[mking2673]

Thanks again for the reply. I just bit the bullet and did a factory reset on the phone because it really seemed like some sort of bug. It does work properly now after the factory reset. Who knows what was going on.

 

[mking2673]

Sorry to bring this back up again, but I guess I spoke too soon. Spotify is now saving on the sd card, but other apps are not. They are all saved on the device- in Android/Data or Android/obb. If I try to just move them to the android/data or android/obb folders on the sd card, the apps do start up but then they try to re download all the data that has been moved to the sd card. Obviously it isn’t really looking in the right place. It seems like for some reason there is a directory error being written somewhere. Basically it isn’t writing the instruction to actually look on the SD card or write on the SD card, with the exception being Spotify which is functioning correctly. Instead it is writing on the device and then if I hit "move to SD card" it then re writes itself to say that the device IS now the sd card.
Seems like a straight up os software bug at this point. Is there any way to update a software build? And why would I have this bug but others wouldn't?

One more odd item is that if I have an app is installed on the device I can see its normal icon if I move it to the home screen. BUT if I move the app to the SD card, the homescreen icon goes gray and it is a little android rectangle with and micro SD card over it. Basically it seems to be showing that it thinks that the icon image should be on the sd card but it can't find it.

 

[Sixto P]

Can't save (or move) apps to SD card

 

[carljtw]

it doesn't mean others aren't having this problem. I can't "Move to SD Card" either. I get "Unable to move app" messages every time. I even formatted the card and still no luck.

 

[SEC_SAM]

Check this link out. I used his script on a Note 2 and it worked great.

[MOD]App2SD Script! - Use 64GB microSD for App Data on Note 10.1! - XDA Forum

 

[Jngohel]

You can move by it's stock file manager and you won't be able to do with third part any file managers like solid explorer and so on. Try it.

 

[OliverNetwork]

i totaly agree with you. i got Galaxy S5 3G. rom 4.4.2 . and everything move perfectly.

there two Options:
1.is sd card damaged
2. he dosnt understand that in Samsung kitktat. 60% of the app moves. not 90% as on gingerbread..
4.you need to understand and tell him. this "some app2sd. moves only app , and some moves only data, and some moves both"
3.the normal way it should be:


SO GUESS HE DOSNT UNDERSTAND THAT!

HOPE I HELPED

 

[besnoopagain]

Not sure if people are still dealing with this but I have the problem on galaxy S5. Has anyone noticed that even if the files move to the SDcard-android-data-(corresponding app) folder, they don't necessarily get deleted from the device storage-android-data-(corresponding app) folder. I experimented and simply erased the folders of the apps I knew I had moved. This cut the data stored on my device in half, seemingly without affecting the apps performance. Since then, I've noticed that each time the app updates, I have to repeat the process. Does anyone with android knowledge understand what's happening there? I read somewhere about android maintaining a link between the two folders, but haven't been able to find that post or anything similar since.

 

[Alyssa Hammond]

Okok I'm having a little trouble with my new phone. It won't store anything to my sd card, only my phone storage. It's a brand new cricket zte Android, its really frustrating me. I've read and tried everything nothing seems to work. It's a 32 gb memory card so there's definitely space on it lol. Although I've had it in my past three phones, could that be a reason for it to malfunction?

 

[LadyPotsy]

You have to apply a fix in platform.xml. I had the same problem. Now it's working.

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