Question Transferred SD to new phone. Want to eliminate residue apps from SD card.

ezandro

Active member
Sep 20, 2013
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The previous phone had low internal memory. I installed most apps on SD memory. Most data (jpg, pdf,...) was / is on SD.
Bought new phone with lots of internal memory. Never installed App on SD.
I want to remove the app-related files on/from SD, remove nothing else. How to do this?
File managers tend to show some App stuff, without indication where installed. Also I don't really know whether the unused app files on SD are recognized.
I am trying to avoid formatting SD as there are 1000s of files on. Backing up SD would include the stuff I want to eliminate. I may trying something more sensible.
HOW?
 
Any app-related data would be in the /Android/data directory of the SD card. If you're just using the SD card for your own discrete files (e.g., documents, photos, media, etc.), you could just delete the /Android directory (but make sure it's the one on the SD card that you're deleting, and not the one on Internal Storage).

Before you do this, you may want to go through your apps' settings to make sure none of them defaulted to saving files/downloads to the SD card when you inserted it -- this would be mostly media apps like e-readers and media streaming apps.
 
B. Diddy
Re: /Android/data directory of the SD card.
I removed the SD card after switching off the phone. Using WIN10 I checked the file order. I could not see the "/Android/data directory of the SD card." I took screen shots of the card root. In the picture upper frame you can see the stuff which I guess I can remove / delete. My used folders are not shown on the picture. The lower frame shows data which I think the system needs.
Can you confirm? Exceptions? Prechecks?
Thanks
 

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Those aren't the typical Android folders I expect to see. The ones that get automatically created by the system on any SD card are Alarms, Android, Audiobooks, DCIM, Documents, Download, LOST.DIR, Movies, Music, Notifications, Pictures, Podcasts, Recordings, and Ringtones.

Was this card formatted as Internal Storage or Portable Storage?
 
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Since you mentioned your previous phone used the apps data to SD card I would format it possibly cannot use in new phone due to putting another phones app data, you should already be backing up your SD card to another source since SD cards can freeze/slow performance/crashing and corrupt.
 
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