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Android OS and ES File Explorer docs needed

erician

erician

Member
I need a solid foundation in Android architecture and management for my lg volt phone.

I was a total Android newbie several months ago - a Mac OS user of a few decades - so I have some experience under my belt but there are still some basic and critical things I don't yet understand

I've been trying to learn things using ES File Explorer but their documentation doesn't suit my needs

Current referrals to any help would be greatly appreciated!
 
What exactly do you want to know?
I'm not clear how Mac experience contributes to Android...or do you just mean technical experience in general?
 
bg4m3r said:
What exactly do you want to know?
I'm not clear how Mac experience contributes to Android...or do you just mean technical experience in general?
Click to expand...

I just meant technical experience in general

my first and immediate problem is that I believe there is data (e.g., photos and video) that is saving to the built in card - as opposed, of course, to the external card - and taking up precious space

I believe that I've looked at all the settings involved in order to save to the proper card...I think

regardless, any of the few tutorials and documentation I have yet to find for ES File Explorer haven't been thorough enough to meet my needs.

I'm even having problems using its search function: that should give some indication of how poor my working knowledge is!

shall we just take it from there?

thank you!
 
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Well, to fix your immediate problem of saving to the external SD, this is because in KitKat, only system apps are able to save to the external SD, because security. (No one likes it, and I've seen where that has been undone in Lollipop, lol) If you are using the stock camera, all you should need to do is set it to save to the external SD in its settings.

For any third party apps to save to the external SD, you will have to be rooted and patch the SD card permissions.
Here is a handy app for the patch.

If you are not rooted, you won't be able to access the files anyway (this may also be why you are having issues searching for anything), so really, that is going to be your first step.
Here is a fresh new guide to use to get rooted. (probably just ignore the iRoot bit...that seems to be a dead end)
 
Sir,

apparently, you rock!

as a newbie Android user, I've avoided getting involved in routing until such time as, 1, I developed a healthy interest in exploring routing or, 2, it became necessary: seems like both's time has come!

thanks for your interest, time and the Great link :-)
 
No problem. Once you get rooted and install that patch, any apps that allow you to set the save location will be able to save to the external SD. For others, there is a handy program you can use to redirect the save locations to anywhere you want. It's called Downloads2SD (there are others but this is the one I use), which is a part of the Xposed Framework. Install Xposed, then look through the Downloads section to find the module. Once it's installed, you can use it to override the default system save paths.

A word of caution, once rooted, you can very easily destroy your phone. When you get through the guide, I strongly suggest making a backup with the CWM recovery you will be installing. It will use about 3-4GB on your external SD, so keep that in mind. After that, proceed with caution...read instructions thoroughly and only move forward when you feel you understand what you are about to do. Check out the All Things Root subforum to see what all is going on with this phone.
 
Just a tip to add to above. I used ES File Explorer (not rooted) on Jelly Bean and could do as I pleased. I was shocked that I could no longer manipulate my files on the SD card on a KitKat phone. (It seems a goal of Android and LG to add new good features with new releases, but also necessary to kill off past good features - ie. file permissions on Android, and LG let you get rid on Qslide on KitKat, but forces you to keep that stupid, useless, annoying half-pie thing that pulls up whenever you swipe up from bottom so you hit it all the time. ARG!)

Anyway, off the rant. I found that the built in "File Manager" app that comes on your phone DOES allow you to manipulate the data on your SD card and it also has a Search feature on it.
 
Ahh, I see. Well maybe at least it will help him know what app to use if he needs to manually move files around.
 
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