New Z1 Compact, old Sd card and Kitkat Update - What to do?

[Camnew]

Hi Guys,

I just received my Z1 Compact after doing abit of research on what to replace my Samsung Galaxy S2 with, it appears I didn't do enough research tho. And like a moron when I turned on my brand new phone and was offered to upgrade to Kitkat I did (with joy!, it was part of the reason I chose the Z1c), before doing any reading on what the consequence might be.

My S2 ran out of internal memory long ago and about the same time Android allowed moving Apps to SD without rooting, so naturally I moved everything I could to SD. Now I put this SD card into my new Z1c and no apps! Boo! I understand this issue isn't new to Sony Xperias with Kitkat? All my media which was saved to SD is there tho. Since I'm starting "fresh" I need your advice on what to do next, I see I have the following options:

1. Root - I could root the phone and use SDFix? Would this give me access to the apps already on the SD? Will this then act in the same way my S2 did with the "move to SD" and "On SD" storage section? I've tried using Towelroot but as I upgraded to Kitkat this doesn't work, whats the easiest option here? I don't want to get to deep into flashing ROMs etc, the easier the better.
2. Uninstall Apps and start over - If I put the SD back into the S2 and uninstall all the apps on the SD will this free up the space on the SD? I can then reinstall them on the Z1c's internal memory. However I'm worried I'll run out of space quickly? Is the SD card only good for storing media now?

Your help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! Moving an SD card from an old phone to a new phone will not suddenly make all of those apps available on the new phone. You have to reinstall the apps from Google Play. I'm not sure if the old app data on the SD card might cause conflicts, so unless it's really important to you, I'd delete all of the app data from SD card and reinstall the apps from Google Play. You can keep the media files on the SD card--those shouldn't cause any problems.

I'm not sure if the Z1 Compact allows moving apps to SD card. You can find out easily enough by selecting an app in Settings>Apps​, and seeing if there is a "Move to SD Card" option. Remember that this only moves a portion of the app over (and sometimes only a small portion).

 

[Camnew]

Thanks for the response B. Diddy, no the Z1 Compact doesn't allow moving to SD. Atleast not in Kitkat, did the previous version of android allow moving to SD on the Z1 Compact? Could someone confirm please, as it might be easier for me to rollback to Jelly Bean.

Sounds like my only option is to Root, or potential run out of storage.