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Move apps entirely to SD card

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xezs

Lurker
Hi,

I'm new to Android and to this forum. I bet you veterans have seen similar topics many times, but this will be a bit different I guess.

So the basic problem is the well known issue: applications cannot be entirely moved to SD card. I tried this with a 380 MB app and it moved a ridiculously 20 MB to the SD card and the device had the guts to say it's completed... Yeah, completed 5% of the task I requested for. This is just unaccaptable.

So I checked google and tried apps like AppMgr III and App Manager but they're crap. It's important that my phone (Samsung Duos2) is not rooted and never will be.

So I have 2 questions:

- Do you know if Android will support this very basic feature sometime? I can't believe I don't have the "right" to install my stuff wherever I want to.

- Is there any workaround without rooting the device?

Thank you for your responses in advance.
 
This is not possible with any OS, not just Android. In any OS, app system files must be installed in correct places to function. Only non-system files can be moved to SD. Rooting will not help since it can't change OS design.
 
Thanks to the answer. So we can say that all smartphone OS are crap? There was no such limitation ever on any Desktop PC OS. I'm totally disappointed now, this is just totally illogical behaviour.
 
It's true of all OS - mobile or desktop, Windows, Linux, iOS - all systems require some files to be installed in specific locations to operate.
 
I wouldn't say the OS is crap. More that some phones still have crappy app storage :beer:
I'm sure there are some very logical reasons behind the "limitation"
 
Crashdamage said:
It's true of all OS - mobile or desktop, Windows, Linux, iOS - all systems require some files to be installed in specific locations to operate.
Click to expand...

Yes but the amount of "unmovable" data is different on Desktop PCs. In my case, I was able to move 20 megs out of the 380 megs total. Normally it should be the opposite and on desktop PCs it's working fine.

Anyways, thanks for the answers. Much appreciated.
 
funkylogik said:
I wouldn't say the OS is crap. More that some phones still have crappy app storage :beer:
I'm sure there are some very logical reasons behind the "limitation"
Click to expand...

Well, one thing is true for programming: you can create an undefinite number of reasons why you don't fix something or why you don't implement a feature. The only question is that if you really want to fix that or not. Nothing is impossible, you just need to commit yourself to the goal.

To me this problem we're talking about is simply lazyness from the OS developer's side, and I'm sure they can create tons of reasons why this cannot be solved. But in the end, people - or let's call them users - don't care about the reasons, they do care about the solution itself.
 
One thing this so-called 'limitation' is not is laziness by developers. That is utterly unfair to say. It is simply following logical, reasonable, long established standard design principles.

Clearly, you have no idea what a can of worms would be opened by allowing app installation as you desire. It is no simple thing. Not impossible, but not easy or, in the end, desirable.
 
xezs said:
Explain please. I'm really interested in your explanation.
Click to expand...
This is actually a very big question which can into a long discussion that I have no interest in having. Do some reading about system libraries (DLL files in Windows-speak) and how software developers must depend on them being installed in certain places, among but not limited to, reasons of app interactivity, file size reduction, simplicity and standardization. Just that will keep you busy quite a while.
 
What android version are you on OP? the ability to move apps to sd at all has actually been removed from android in later versions.
In earlier versions where part of an app could be moved, im no expert but if the whole app could be moved, wouldnt that leave the ecosystem wide open to piracy? (I honestly dont know) :thumbup:
I definitely dont think this is an error or sloppy coding lol, it is the way it is by design
 
Thanks to the answers guys. In the meantime I realized there are some apps that are more well designed, e.g. I was able to move 48 megs to the SD card from a 50 megs total app. This is something I can live with, so maybe I'm too harsh when I say Android OS coders are lazy, maybe the app developers are lazy instead :)
 
funkylogik said:
What android version are you on OP? the ability to move apps to sd at all has actually been removed from android in later versions.
In earlier versions where part of an app could be moved, im no expert but if the whole app could be moved, wouldnt that leave the ecosystem wide open to piracy? (I honestly dont know) :thumbup:
Click to expand...
I think the piracy thing is the reason the app (or parts of it that were moved) was moved to a hidden "secure" area on the SD card. Of course nothing's uncrackable, but without root access you'd not be able to access the apk there.

Funky's question about android versions is a relevant one. When the move to sd function was first introduced (in 2.1 or 2.2?) it just moved the apk (the app installer). In 2.3 it moved the library element as well, if the app contained one.

Other resources were not moved. In some cases this might be a trivial amount of space, in others large, depending on how the app was designed. Then there's the "dalvik cache" element, used by the actual android runtime environment (android apps are run in a Java-based virtual machine called "dalvik"), which is usually a bit smaller than the apk. This always remains in internal storage.

In 4.x the facility has been removed (and 3.x was for tablets only). TBH I think it was only ever introduced as a workaround for the limitations of early Android devices, which frequently had miniscule amounts of internal storage (e.g. my old HTC Desire had a whole 147MB available for user apps and all app data, and that was a 2010 flagship device).

Maybe you should look at it this way: why was the app designed so that most of it could not be moved? After all, the app designer would know how the OS worked. But to be honest, since this hasn't been a feature of Android for a couple of years (and really was only a feature for a short time) the app designer probably has little incentive to write with this in mind.

(As a footnote, I note that it was put back into some Samsung devices. But there are rumours this will not remain the case for much longer).

Edit: Ah, I see that you've spotted that it depends on the app structure :).
 
I'm just going to weigh in on this. I skimmed the thread, so I apologize if some of this has been addressed.

Back in the 2.x days of Android, Google added official support for moving apps to the SD card. However, in order for this to work, the app developer had to support it, and only a portion of the app could be moved. For the sake of integrity, key parts of the app had to remain within the internal storage.

During the Android 4.x days, this feature was removed as Google was preparing a shakeup for MicroSD usage. In fact, the stock version of Android 3.x didn't allow the user to manage the SD card in the same way as in the past, but many OEMs skirted this rule. Samsung has continued to allow the moving of apps to SD when available in most of their phones. My Galaxy S2 retained this feature during its 4.1.x updates, and the Galaxy S4 Touchwiz model gained this ability in a software update within months of launch (the Google Play Edition, running stock Android, cannot do this unrooted).

However, Google changed the rules with MicroSD usage with KitKat. For many users, like me, this became an issue. We can't use file managers anymore. However, Samsung is still slightly skirting this rule on their devices (apps require heavy modification to partially work). But with Google's new rules, apps can natively offload to the SD card within a specific folder only. When I first got KitKat, only a few Google apps did this and my MicroSD went largely un-utilized. However, developers are keying in on this and now roughly a third of my apps are offloading their data onto the SD card.

This is a change that I am not a huge fan of as a power user. But for casual users (IE, those who are less likely to root), this will become a huge benefit as more phones move to KitKat and beyond, and more developers utilize this feature.

Bottom line is that once you have a phone with KitKat, the system will begin to utilize the MicroSD in a more native fashion. I know this doesn't help you now, but I figured I'd at least pass this information along.
 
So you guys are saying that moving apps to the SD card is not an option anymore except for Samsung devices? Now that's something new to me. Is there any reason why Google doesn't want to support this option? I've never seen a desktop application installer in my entire life which didn't ask me for the installation destination. I think having the option to choose where to install the app (or in terms of Android - parts of the app) is a basic requirement and all OS should support this. Do you agree or disagree guys?

I'm thinking the way I'm thinking when I'm using my desktop: a small partition for system files and a large partition for applications, movies & music. I had the option too choose "where to install" in my entire life including my MS-DOS era (where "installation" does not have the same meaning as we use it today).

I'm a bit upset because as far as I see mobile OS developers want to remove an option we always had in the information technology environment.

Edit: Just found this now: http://www.androidcentral.com/kitkat-sdcard-changes
 
You're probably right mate but in my personal experience, as long as I have a device with ample internal storage (16+gb) and now that it's a big, less partitioned space I can put anything in, it just isn't a problem for me.
Even the changes in 4.4 haven't affected me. I just haven't noticed a difference (in my use)
 
xezs said:
So you guys are saying that moving apps to the SD card is not an option anymore except for Samsung devices? Now that's something new to me. Is there any reason why Google doesn't want to support this option?
Click to expand...

The idea is transparency to the user. For example:

Old method - user selects settings, navigates to apps, clicks on each app to see if eligible to move to SD, then moves the app to SD. This is archaic.

New method (4.4 and forward) - App developer determines if any data can be moved externally. Android OS detects external SD card and smartly allocates the app data as needed.

The new method is better for MOST people.

And now, apps can have the option of letting the user choose where the data is stored from with the app's settings, and not the sytem's settings menu, example, Google Music now allows you to cache your collection via MicroSD.
 
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