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How to move FILES to SD card

  • Thread starter Thread starter Member2047631
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But you've seen yourself that /sdcard has the same contents as the internal storage. It's just a different file path to the same thing. Test it if you like: add or remove a file from the internal and watch the same thing happen with /sdcard. So if your tablet is redirecting the external storage path back to that then that's either a problem in itself or a symptom of one.
 
Oh, hang on, I think I just spotted something in your video:

When you touched the little menu icon when viewing it one of the options was "format as portable". So have you formatted it as internal storage? That could explain why it's not visible as a separate device to the file explorer, and possibly why the external storage path was pointing back to the emulated card.

Every word I've written in this thread has been on the assumption that the SD card was being used as removable storage, so if it's formatted as internal ("adopted") that's very different. Unfortunately it's also something I've never done, so have no way of investigating the behaviour of that.
 
I created a folder and then saw it appear in /sdcard , then deleted it in internal, and sure enough you are right.
 
No, I'm not telling you to format it. I'm just saying that if the card is being used as internal storage then how you address it will be different, and that probably explains other things like the file managers being unable to see it.

Unfortunately it also means I've no direct experience of this setup, so don't know how to tell it to place files on a card that is being used that way rather than in the internal storage. Maybe it doesn't matter - maybe in that respect it does treat them as if they are all one storage volume (though the fact that you can choose the locations of apps says that some part of the system distinguishes). We really need someone who has experience of adoptive storage to comment: I've read about the principles, but have never actually used it.
 
I'm going to try to format it anyway, just because I need this to work already, and there's really nothing to lose.
 
The problem with formatting, is that it will delete everything on the SD card, so I have to pain stakingly move everything to internal storage temporarily...
 
Why doesn't it allow you to move apps and files? It's so annoying
 
I formatted it back, and this time I chose to move existing files to it, and now the SD card is like internal storage and can have everything internal could but what's the point if it only works on this device?
 
The point of formatting a card as internal is to expand the storage of the device. The cost of that is that it really does behave like internal storage rather than a removable card.

When formatted as fat32 you can use it as a media store, but because of the limitations of that filesystem you can't do everything you can when formatted as internal (which not only encrypts but also changes the filesystem to a Linux native format). But it is portable. So you have options, but you have to choose.

BTW not all manufacturers give you the option of formatting as internal.
 
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I just wanted to move the important file that is 1 and a half gigabytes to the SD card to keep it safe so I can move the SD card to other things but I'm just confused
 
What is this 1.5GB file? If it's a video then really should be ok with fat32 (removable). If it's some app's data file it's less clear.

If you have access to a computer you should be able to back up over USB either way.
 
The file contains all of my files from my school account's Google drive, which included animations and documents and the reason I downloaded them is just in case they delete my school account
 
And my SD card doesn't fit into my computer if it's small or large
 
OK, so the file is either a folder or something like a tape archive (.tar). I can't see any reason that couldn't be stored on a fat32-formatted SD. Or uploaded to Google Drive, or copied over USB (though I don't use Windows with my phone, which may do something silly I don't know about).

As for the size of the card, you can buy very inexpensive USB microSD card readers, or adapters that allow you to insert it into a fully-sized SD slot. I've used both to copy stuff to/from a computer from/to a microSD.
 
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