Moving apps to microSD: "format as internal" vs manual partitioning and Link2SD?

[seanspotatobusiness]

I would like to maximise the amount of space for apps on a rooted Moto G (3rd Generation) running stock Android 6. I took the option to format the microSD card as internal memory using Android's built-in tools and then used the option it provided to transfer some stuff but this made no difference at all (in-fact, I think it might have consumed some more internal memory). I tried using Link2SD to move apps (or parts of apps?) to the microSD card but this failed. Would it be better to manually partition the microSD card to use Link2SD or should Link2SD have been able to move apps onto a microSD card that is "formatted as internal"?

 

[lunatic59]

While using an SD card as internal memory will use a little more of it due to overhead and encryption, it should still have given you most of the SD card's capacity. For example in you have a 16GB device with 12 GB free and you pop in a 32GB SD card and format it as internal, you should see ~40GB free, no?