Help Storage

[Mike Stone]

I know there are probably a plethora of questions and answers out there somewhere about these items.....forgive me. I am a senior citizen with new android devices. The questions:

With space on the phone at a premium, I have added an SD card in all my devices. What can be stored on them, can applications be loaded on them, and what is the process for a dense old man like me to get data, information, or programs, if possible, from the phone to the SD card...? The ability to have more storage seems great but the best way too make use of it is confusing to me. Thanks for any help!

 

[Hadron]

Unfortunately before anyone can answer that in detail they'd first need to ask "what android version are you running?". Because different android versions have different capabilities/restrictions with what you can do with an SD card. Indeed we might even need to ask "what device?", because sometimes that can make a difference too.

For example, generically the answer to "can applications be loaded on them" is "no". In more detail though, it was possible in 2.2 and 2.3 (though it only moved a part of the app anyway), deprecated in 4.0, but some manufacturers have added it back for some of their devices. So if you want to be sure, go to Settings > Apps > Downloaded, then pick an app you downloaded and click on it. Amongst the other stuff, is there a button labelled "move to SD" or similar? If so, your phone does have that capability. But it's also up to the developer whether they allow it, so the button may be greyed-out if they did not, in which case you can't move that one. Pre-installed apps can't be moved whether your device supports moving to SD or not, but as they live in a different partition you'd not gain any space if you could move them.

As for data, depends what sort and what OS version. You can't move an app's internal data - unless you are rooted you can't even see that, but some apps which store a lot of data let you choose (via their settings) where they store it. As for moving stuff that's already there, prior to 4.4 you could just use a file manager app to move things around. But with 4.4 there was a security feature introduced which means that one app can't write to a folder that was created by another app, so even stuff like moving music using a file manager became harder with 4.4. Paradoxically it's supposed to be easier in 5.0, but as I don't have an SD card I can't test this.

So as I say, tell us more about your devices and what you want to do and someone will be able to offer more specific advice.

 

[Mike Stone]

Thank you....with your help and info, I was able to figure out the answers to my questions and method to use. I know these questions (same) must appear a lot without searching the database....thank you for your patience with me asking again. Glad to know there is such quick help for relative beginners like me. Mike

Unfortunately before anyone can answer that in detail they'd first need to ask "what android version are you running?". Because different android versions have different capabilities/restrictions with what you can do with an SD card. Indeed we might even need to ask "what device?", because sometimes that can make a difference too.

For example, generically the answer to "can applications be loaded on them" is "no". In more detail though, it was possible in 2.2 and 2.3 (though it only moved a part of the app anyway), deprecated in 4.0, but some manufacturers have added it back for some of their devices. So if you want to be sure, go to Settings > Apps > Downloaded, then pick an app you downloaded and click on it. Amongst the other stuff, is there a button labelled "move to SD" or similar? If so, your phone does have that capability. But it's also up to the developer whether they allow it, so the button may be greyed-out if they did not, in which case you can't move that one. Pre-installed apps can't be moved whether your device supports moving to SD or not, but as they live in a different partition you'd not gain any space if you could move them.

As for data, depends what sort and what OS version. You can't move an app's internal data - unless you are rooted you can't even see that, but some apps which store a lot of data let you choose (via their settings) where they store it. As for moving stuff that's already there, prior to 4.4 you could just use a file manager app to move things around. But with 4.4 there was a security feature introduced which means that one app can't write to a folder that was created by another app, so even stuff like moving music using a file manager became harder with 4.4. Paradoxically it's supposed to be easier in 5.0, but as I don't have an SD card I can't test this.

So as I say, tell us more about your devices and what you want to do and someone will be able to offer more specific advice.

Unfortunately before anyone can answer that in detail they'd first need to ask "what android version are you running?". Because different android versions have different capabilities/restrictions with what you can do with an SD card. Indeed we might even need to ask "what device?", because sometimes that can make a difference too.

For example, generically the answer to "can applications be loaded on them" is "no". In more detail though, it was possible in 2.2 and 2.3 (though it only moved a part of the app anyway), deprecated in 4.0, but some manufacturers have added it back for some of their devices. So if you want to be sure, go to Settings > Apps > Downloaded, then pick an app you downloaded and click on it. Amongst the other stuff, is there a button labelled "move to SD" or similar? If so, your phone does have that capability. But it's also up to the developer whether they allow it, so the button may be greyed-out if they did not, in which case you can't move that one. Pre-installed apps can't be moved whether your device supports moving to SD or not, but as they live in a different partition you'd not gain any space if you could move them.

As for data, depends what sort and what OS version. You can't move an app's internal data - unless you are rooted you can't even see that, but some apps which store a lot of data let you choose (via their settings) where they store it. As for moving stuff that's already there, prior to 4.4 you could just use a file manager app to move things around. But with 4.4 there was a security feature introduced which means that one app can't write to a folder that was created by another app, so even stuff like moving music using a file manager became harder with 4.4. Paradoxically it's supposed to be easier in 5.0, but as I don't have an SD card I can't test this.

So as I say, tell us more about your devices and what you want to do and someone will be able to offer more specific advice.

 

[Hadron]

Well I'm glad that was helpful, even though I'm not sure what bit was .

Anyway, we all started out new to this, and I know I speak for a lot of members when I say that a lot of what I do know (and there's a lot I don't!) I learned from here, so it's never a problem to answer questions for others.