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Help Help with making phone recognize apps on SD Card?

Z

zackca

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As my title says, I recently had to buy a new Triumph due to the charging port being broken, and I saved a lot of my apps on my SD card, but I don't know how to reach the apps on the memory card. When I open the menu of all my apps, it only sees what has been installed on the phone, does anyone know how I get it to recognize the apps on my memory card? Any help is very well appreciated, I'd love to get everything back, especially my games, as I am a Tiny Tower addict, and I'd hate to restart everything, and all my other games. All the data is there, I'm just scared to try re-installing the app on sd card or phone, as I'm worried it might override the previous files.

Thank you for any help!

- Zack
 
Welcome to the forums, Zack!
Once you install the SD Card, it won't automatically install those apps. You'll have to do it one by one. You can pick up any free file explorer from the Play Store like ES Explorer or Astro. From there, (and this works very much like Windows Explorer) you can install each app.
Unless you used something like Titanium Backup for each app, I don't know if it will restore your app data. Has the Play Store restored any of those games/apps?
 
Thanks for the welcoming! :D

Once I download the file explorer, would i have to move it to the phone and back to the memory card for it to realize its there? I'm not quite sure what you mean.

The only app it restored as of right now was my Minecraft game, but whats confusing is that the data was on my previous phones internal memory, when i opened it on my new phone, the game saves were there. I hope thats the restoring you spoke of. I'm just worried if it'll do the same for the rest of my games or not. I'm afraid I will unintentionally save over my previous data on my memory card if i try to install, then move to the memory card.
 
I downloaded Astro, but I do not know how to go about doing this. Could you tell me what to do? I don't know where to begin, and which folders hold the applications. My phone is stock, right off the shelf, so its not rooted, or anything similar, so all the system folders are where they should be, I just don't know where to start and what to do.
 
When you load up Astro, select All Files and then SD Card. You should see all the apps there. Once you click on it, select Open App Manager. From there it'll give you the option to install.
Still not sure about whether or not app data was preserved.
 
I can see the SD Card usage menu, I assume that would be the correct menu, as you named it differently. I can see the files and different folders, but I can't tell which is an app or system data. Some of the folders have the apps name on them, but I am not sure if it is the correct folders. I am not too sure if it is correct or not.

The app data should be there. Before my old phone died, i moved all of my applications to the memory card, so the apps are there, i just don't know where they were put.
 
Zack, I know you don't want to hear this, but I don't think that is going to work.

You're going to have to reinstall the apps that you installed to SD. When you move an app to SD, most of its data is moved, but some of it remains on the internal storage of your phone.

Hopefully they will recognize the data you have saved and pick it up.
Installing to SD is not the same as backing up to SD.
For future reference, you should use Titanium backup, or one of the many other utilities that allow you to backup your apps, regardless of where they were installed, so you can *restore* them from SD after a phone swap or other catastrophic failure.
 
Ah, well, its a shame it won't, but to be honest i only care about one game of mine. I just need to find the save data, and hope I can just drop it in the correct saves folder so i can keep playing the same file. The rest I can just re-install and start over. The one I want to save, I've spent many hours on. I'm sure it could be found, As i found the save data for other games. I just need to find the file for it. Do you think that method would work correctly? (in case it doesn't work, I'll back the data on my computer, and find another way)

Okay, thank you! I shall use that app to back up my data.
 
Another worry is just the fact that I may be deleting important information if i delete what is on my memory card. Should I just wipe it clean of everything besides my media? (pictures, videos, music)
 
I really can't be sure, but I tend to think that your game should pick up on your saved files. If you could possibly find them on the SD, and make a copy in a different directory as a fail safe, install the game, and if it deletes the save data, you would have it to copy it back to the original directory.

Also, I don't see any need to wipe your SD card.

Titanium Backup requires root access, but if you don't want to root, there are several less flexible utilities that can do simple app backups, as one of their functions.

edit:
btw, what game is it? Maybe I can help find the data, or more than likely someone here will already know.
 
Ah, okay. I hope it does, but right now its having issues connecting to the internet. Apparently I have a bad network connection, whatever I do. I'll keep trying with it, maybe it was a bad update for the game. Ah, yes, that makes sense.

I just thought wiping it clean would be less issues, and more space.

Ah, I worry about rooting, afraid I may mess the phone up.

Tiny Tower. I love that game, and all the time I've spent would be a real shame to loose it all.
 
zackca said:
Tiny Tower. I love that game, and all the time I've spent would be a real shame to loose it all.
Click to expand...

That game can be played across devices, so I'm sure the data is on the network.
Just so you use your same user name/password, you should pick right up where you left off.
Good luck
 
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