Apps to SD card

[HankAtrix]

Hello forum - I am trying to find out if moving apps to my SD Card (not internal SD). When I use Apps2SD app, it says it has moved the apps over to the card, but in fact it has moved them over to the internal SD memory. A few people on the AtrixForum reported the same thing (it looks like it is part of the design). Are there ways around this to actually move apps to the card?

Thanks

 

[HankAtrix]

Hello forum - I am trying to find out if moving apps to my SD Card (not internal SD). When I use Apps2SD app, it says it has moved the apps over to the card, but in fact it has moved them over to the internal SD memory. A few people on the AtrixForum reported the same thing (it looks like it is part of the design). Are there ways around this to actually move apps to the card?

Thanks

One more thought... I will try anything to do this (I have over 100 apps downloaded so really need the space)

 

[lunatic59]

Hello forum - I am trying to find out if moving apps to my SD Card (not internal SD). When I use Apps2SD app, it says it has moved the apps over to the card, but in fact it has moved them over to the internal SD memory. A few people on the AtrixForum reported the same thing (it looks like it is part of the design). Are there ways around this to actually move apps to the card?

Thanks

Hiya Hank, I can explain it but I don't have a solution for you. Android has specific rules for where it installs apps. If the app has a specified location, that takes priority. If it is not specified in the app, then the default install location is used. Android has 3 identifiers for app storage location:

0 = Internal
1 = Auto
2 = External (sd card)

If 0 is set in the app, then it can only be installed on the internal storage regardless of the default install location. Widgets, services and apps that periodically poll need to be in the internal storage to run correctly.

Similarly the phone itself can have a default install location set so if the app is set to 1 (Auto) then it will direct the app where to be installed. The only thing you must remember is that 1 is not an option for a phones default location. If the app were set to Auto location and the phone was to, it wouldn't know what the default was.

Out of the box, all Android devices come with the default location set to 0, so if a widget or service was set to Auto, it would go in the right place. Apps that could be moved can always be moved to the sd card manually. You can always change the default to the sd card manually, which is what apps2sd does for you. Ask me if you'd like to know how.

Anyway, newer phones that include large amounts (by current mobile standards) Like the Atrix (and my other phone, the Captivate) often partition them so that you don't have a huge amount of system memory that wouldn't be accessible for file storage. On the Captivate (and I am assuming it's similar with the Atrix) Samsung has a 2 GB partition for the system and the remaining 14 GB partitioned and recognized as an sd card by making its mount point /sdcard.

Therein lies the problem. The path to external storage within Android is /sdcard so apps that are installed to external storage will be there, which is the internal sd partition, not the removable sd card. On the Captivate the path to the removable sd card is /sdcard/sd_external.

It may be possible to redirect the external location to the actual removable sd card, but it would involve editing the init.rc executable script file which may be incredibly dangerous (or not, I frankly don't know). Or, you could actually change the mount points of these devices so the removable sd card was mounted as default external storage, but that would probably require a custom rom to do.

Like I said earlier, an explanation but no solution. If I may ask, why do you want to use the removable card for apps if there's room on the internal partition?

 

[HankAtrix]

I have over 100 apps installed on the Atrix (and planning to download more). With SD set to internal memory, I only have about 2gb left of the internal 10gb. I am also trying to free up my internal memory so that I have more run to run any memory intensive apps.

 

[lunatic59]

I have over 100 apps installed on the Atrix (and planning to download more). With SD set to internal memory, I only have about 2gb left of the internal 10gb. I am also trying to free up my internal memory so that I have more run to run any memory intensive apps.

If you don't use all 100 on a regular basis, you could use Titanium Backup to backup the .apk files to the removable sd card and then uninstall the app. You can reinstall from the .apk should you want to use it again as as long as you didn't delete the apps folder on the internal sd partition, you should still have your settings and data.

Usually it's the data and media files that eat up space like that. The average Android app is 1 MB ~ 2 MB with the monsters being Google earth (23 MB), Maps (10 MB) and Facebook (~6MB) so even if all 100 of your apps were in the top range you should still have 90% of your sd partition free.

 

[HankAtrix]

If you don't use all 100 on a regular basis, you could use Titanium Backup to backup the .apk files to the removable sd card and then uninstall the app. You can reinstall from the .apk should you want to use it again as as long as you didn't delete the apps folder on the internal sd partition, you should still have your settings and data.

Usually it's the data and media files that eat up space like that. The average Android app is 1 MB ~ 2 MB with the monsters being Google earth (23 MB), Maps (10 MB) and Facebook (~6MB) so even if all 100 of your apps were in the top range you should still have 90% of your sd partition free.

FYI I've opted not to root my phone so Titanium won't work. I would also like to keep the apps on the phone/sd card (as soon as I figure out how to get them there!)

That is true on data files with the apps. That is another reason I am working to move the apps to my SD Card.