How do I install/use the android ADB Command Line

[ricen444]

I am new to this whole android command line thing, but a friend of mine told me I can use the ADB command line to make an SD card my default storage on my phone. They told me the things to download, but I think I did something wrong because nothing I try will bring the ADB command line up. Any help is appreciated.
Thanks

 

[Daniel Fernandes]

How to use ADB on Windows 10/8/8.1/7 (and maybe the older versions...)

- Download Minimal "ADB and Fastboot":
https://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2317790

- Connect your phone to your computer using a USB cable...

- Then download the ADB driver for your device:
http://adbdriver.com/downloads/

(It might also get downloaded through Windows Update, but that didn't work for me...)

- Enable Developer Options by going to About Phone and tapping "Software version" multiple times, until you get a toast message "You are now a developer".

- Goto Settings >> Developer Options and enable "USB Debugging"

- Now, when you had installed Minimal ADB and Fastboot, you might have already got a desktop shortcut. If not, you will have to go to the folder where Minimal ADB was installed, and double click on "CMD here" to launch ADB.

Now, you should get this srceen:

- Type the following command to test if your device is detected or not:

adb devices

- If your device gets detected, you will see something like this:

- Which indicates that you have successfully installed ADB...!

 

[lunatic59]

... a friend of mine told me I can use the ADB command line to make an SD card my default storage on my phone.

Thanks @Daniel Fernandes for explaining ADB (Android Debug Bridge).

I'm going to address the reason why you shouldn't bother. A long long time ago, in a cell phone far far away you could use adb commands to set the default install path to your sd card. This was prior to Android 4.0. around 2010 (Yes, almost 8 years ago). In the early days, phones had little internal memory and required a real SD card for expansion. You could move an app to the SD card under specific circumstances which would free up *SOME* internal memory, but it never moved the complete app and some apps couldn't (or shouldn't) be moved from internal memory.

As phones started showing up with more than 4GB of memory, an internal partition called '/sdcard' was placed in internal memory. This was the mount point for external cards in the past, but android didn't know the difference ... or care. That partition is on virtually every phone made since.

What the adb command your friend suggested would do would make /sdcard the default installation location for apps, which since 2010 has already been part of internal memory. Additionally, with Android 4.1, the system and user partitions have been virtualized so they can dynamically adjust to accommodate more efficient app installation.

So, while you can still do it (and it certainly won't harm anything). It's pretty pointless as your apps will all end up in the same place.