Transfer apps installed on SD card??

[hedera]

I used to have a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2, which is dying. Believe me it is. I just bought a Samsung Galaxy Tab S2, which I want to set up. On the old tablet, I set most of the non-bloatware apps to install on the 28GB SD card. I also have data on the card, which I've backed up. My question is: can I just plug the SD card into the new tablet or do I need to format it on the new machine? The sales person at BestBuy thought that it would pick up the apps installed on the card and update them, but I want a second opinion. If that would work it'd be very useful but my too-good-to-be-true alarm is going off.

 

[nahoku]

too-good-to-be-true alarm is going off

And, for good reason! I doubt very much the apps will work. Google (Android) disallowed apps from being installed directly to the SD card in Kitkat. More than likely your new S2 will be running LP. I'm not saying that all your apps won't run as it also depends on whether or not the app developer has enabled the app to run from SD. However, after KK, moving apps to SD normally moves only a portion of the app, while leaving most of the app still in internal memory. It will certainly be interesting if your apps will work like the BestBuy guy says it will.

As far as formatting the SD, I would think the S2 will read it fine without having to be formatted inside the tablet. Being 28gb it's probably at fat32 which any tablet should read. All you can do is try it.

 

[hedera]

I wanted to thank you for your advice. Thinking about it, I decided to try SmartSwitch - which moved almost everything, including the stuff on the SD card, over to the new tablet. I then installed the SD card in the new tablet and as you predicted, it read it immediately. So I'm pretty well set up, and it's much better!

 

[nahoku]

Much of my "advice" is just what I've learned and passed along, but I'm glad you got everything going. Take care!