I'm new here and don't know a whole lot about the way these phones work, so try to bare with me. My old phone ran on 2.3 gingerbread. I had an app that supposedly moved apps form my phone to my sd card. I moved a couple of apps and when I took the card out the apps were gone from my phone, and when I put it back in they showed up again, so I figured it worked. I have a new phone now that runs on 4.4.2 kitkat, and when I put the card in there it shows that there's nothing on it. I can't figure out how to actually view what's on the sd card, it just shows me that I have full space left, so nothing is on it. Can anyone just tell me if I'm doing something wrong, or if there even is a way to transfer apps with kitkat?
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SD Card Help?
- Thread starter anm11
- Start date
Medion
Android Expert
Answer: Taking an SD Cards with apps installed to it, and moving it to another phone will not transfer those apps over. You need to reinstall those apps manually.
Why and How: When you move an app to SD, you didn't actually move the application to the SD card. You moved the "body" of data, but the core application (the "head) is still inside the phone's internal storage. This piece tells the phone, "Hey, I'm installed, but the rest of my body is on the SD card!" And if the card is removed, the system won't see the app.
By putting the card inside another phone, you still have the body of the application, but the head is still on the other device. There is nothing on the new phone to say, "Hey phone, there's more of me on the SD card!"
Also, be aware: Starting with Android 4.0 or 4.1 (I forget which), Google stopped supporting the ability to move applications to the SD card. Most newer phones do not support this feature anymore, though many OEMs still do (many Samsung devices support it, as well as the Moto G LTE and the Moto E). So, depending on the model of your new phone, you may or may not even be able to do this anymore.
^^
What he said ... and for a little history and why it is the way it is now.
Android was always designed to put app data on the "SD Card" when available. When the first Android phones hit the market, they had very little internal memory and a slot for a Micro SD card. You *could* use one without an SD card but you'd run out of available user memory very quickly.
Fast forward a year and you start seeing phones with 4, 8 and even 12 GB of internal memory instead of 512 MB. In order for Android to see the memory it had to be partitioned into system, user data and app data spaces. These are hard fixed partitions. The system took between 768 MB and a gigabyte. User data was 1 to 2 GB and what's left was partitioned to mount at /sdcard. This became the SD card to Android. If a phone had an external SD card slot too, it could not also be mounted on /sdcard.
Therein lies the problem. The path to external storage within Android is /sdcard so apps that are installed to external storage will be there, which is the internal sd partition, not the removable sd card. Since there is no default path for a physical SD card if there is an /sdcard partition, it was up to the manufacturer to set the mount point. (using my devices as examples) On the Captivate the path to the removable sd card is /sdcard/sd_external, on my SGS2 it's /sdcard/external_sd and on my Transformer is /Removable/Microsd. My Nexus 4 has no SD card slot.
Fast forward again to Jelly Bean. With the trend in Android phones having larger internal memory and no SD card slots, Android changed the way it mounted volumes. Instead of static partitions, Android 4.1 dynamically allocates the partitions giving the user access to pretty much all internal memory for apps and data, rendering the ability to "move" apps to the sd card moot. That's why the option is gone.
SD memory is slower and less reliable than internal memory and it's much less desirable to have continuous read/write processes which will both slow performance of your phone and shorten the life of the card.
Let me know at what point you nodded off and I'll repeat from there.
What he said ... and for a little history and why it is the way it is now.
Android was always designed to put app data on the "SD Card" when available. When the first Android phones hit the market, they had very little internal memory and a slot for a Micro SD card. You *could* use one without an SD card but you'd run out of available user memory very quickly.
Fast forward a year and you start seeing phones with 4, 8 and even 12 GB of internal memory instead of 512 MB. In order for Android to see the memory it had to be partitioned into system, user data and app data spaces. These are hard fixed partitions. The system took between 768 MB and a gigabyte. User data was 1 to 2 GB and what's left was partitioned to mount at /sdcard. This became the SD card to Android. If a phone had an external SD card slot too, it could not also be mounted on /sdcard.
Therein lies the problem. The path to external storage within Android is /sdcard so apps that are installed to external storage will be there, which is the internal sd partition, not the removable sd card. Since there is no default path for a physical SD card if there is an /sdcard partition, it was up to the manufacturer to set the mount point. (using my devices as examples) On the Captivate the path to the removable sd card is /sdcard/sd_external, on my SGS2 it's /sdcard/external_sd and on my Transformer is /Removable/Microsd. My Nexus 4 has no SD card slot.
Fast forward again to Jelly Bean. With the trend in Android phones having larger internal memory and no SD card slots, Android changed the way it mounted volumes. Instead of static partitions, Android 4.1 dynamically allocates the partitions giving the user access to pretty much all internal memory for apps and data, rendering the ability to "move" apps to the sd card moot. That's why the option is gone.
SD memory is slower and less reliable than internal memory and it's much less desirable to have continuous read/write processes which will both slow performance of your phone and shorten the life of the card.
Let me know at what point you nodded off and I'll repeat from there.
I have reinstalled the apps. For example, I moved candy crush from my old phone to the sd card. I put the sd card in my new phone, but I went to the play store and installed candy crush also. But when I play candy crush, it starts me at level one. I just thought that since my old game was on the sd card I wouldn't have to start over.
When you installed the game on the new phone, it created a new data folder in /sdcard if it's a free game. Paid games will put their data in protected memory. When you put your old SD card in your new phone, the game isn't looking at that folder. If you could copy the contents of the old folder into the new one, you might be able to restore your game, however if the game stores levels in a protected database, it might not be possible. For this sort of thing, it's best to ask the developer.
chanchan05
The Doctor
In relation to candy crush, just log in your Facebook account from inside the game and it will sync across devices. However, for the rest, if they don't offer cloud backup you have to root to get the app data.