SD Card Not Showing in Explorer after selecting as Internal Storage

[Android Central Question]

I bought a new SD card today. When I inserted it into my phone, it showed to options:
- to use it as internal storage
- to use it as portable storage
When I selected former one, it allowed me to move apps from my phone's internal storage to SD card. Then I opened File Explorer, and it was not showing SD card in the list, but only Internal Storage. Nor connecting to PC is helping, it only shows Internal Storage. But in Settings>Storage, it shows both SD card and Internal Storage. How can I move files now from internal to SD card?
When I formatted it as portable, I was able to move the files but not apps.
Is there any way to do both?

 

[methodman89]

They give a confusing choice, of which the former does not apply or work.
I use App Manager III to scan and give me a list of apps that are movable to the SD card.
There is an additional setting within Android that allows you to force apps over. Many warn and you will lose certain functionality doing so.
I recommend you keep apps internal, and choose the SD card as the storage for pics and videos only, unless you have an old phone and just simply need the space.

 

[Rukbat]

When you choose to use the card as internal storage, you have 2 situations.

1. Physically you have eMMC storage in the phone and an SD card mounted in the phone.

2. Logically you have only one storage location - which is treated as internal storage. So a file manager will not show an external card, but it will show more available storage.

If you want increased internal storage - at the cost of losing everything on the card when it fails (and using it as internal storage will cause it to fail sooner) - use it as internal storage. If you want a logical SD card, use it as external storage.

Using the card as internal storage is meant as a stopgap measure for a phone with a small amount of internal storage just until you can get a phone with more internal storage. It's not meant as a long-term solution.

As methodman said, use the card to store files, but don't use it as internal storage (and don't "move apps" to it - you're only moving small pieces of an app, and leaving a link to that piece in internal storage. Even if the app is huge, you aren't going to save much space, because the link and the piece saved are usually about the same size. (Moving apps to the SD card is something that just happens to be possible, but Google didn't design Android for it. IN fact, they used to warn us to not move widgets to the card because not all apps will run from the card, and almost no widgets will.) Also, when you lose the card (it's not "if", it's "when"), you can't uninstall the app, because parts of it are missing, but you can't install it because it';s already installed. All you can do at that point is reflash the ROM and start again.