How to install apps on your SD card? - Xperia Z1 Compact Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hello all,
Since the introduction of 4.1/4.2 on xperia phones it seems impossible to install apps on the SD card, even with root. I mean 16GB is quite the amount but high end games these days are large (some games like beards tale are >3GB). So yes 16GB of storage is easily filled even when you can get all your movies and music/pictures on an external SD card.
I have searched and searched but it seems impossible to install apps on your SD card with Sony phones, did not manage to get it working on my Z1 and seems just as impossible on my Z1C. Any one any ideas on this? This really seems a limitation of Sony phones.
Also see, where they got a 'working' solution which did not work for me:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=42398581

madlive said:
Hello all,
Since the introduction of 4.1/4.2 on xperia phones it seems impossible to install apps on the SD card, even with root. I mean 16GB is quite the amount but high end games these days are large (some games like beards tale are >3GB). So yes 16GB of storage is easily filled even when you can get all your movies and music/pictures on an external SD card.
I have searched and searched but it seems impossible to install apps on your SD card with Sony phones, did not manage to get it working on my Z1 and seems just as impossible on my Z1C. Any one any ideas on this? This really seems a limitation of Sony phones.
Also see, where they got a 'working' solution which did not work for me:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=42398581
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
try folder mount, works like a charm to move app data to sdcard1. need root though.
look here!

Related

Low on space - Phone Storage space is getting low

Somehow my space on my phone is very low. I started getting the messages this morning. I wouldn't say that I have a load of applications. No more than I had on my HTC Magic...Is this too much for it to handle?
Here goes;
2010 World Cup
Air Control
AppAware
Astro
Barcode Scanner
BBC News
BeebPlayer
DishPointer Pro
Droidbox Free
Earth
Engadget
F1Android 2010
Facebook
Foursquare
Fring
Gesture Search
Google Sky Map
Hoccer
iGo
KeePassDroid
Listen
Lookout
MapDroyd
Maps
Nimbuzz
Pkt Auctions eBay
Qik
Shareprice
Shazaam
Sky News
Soccer Livescores
Torrent-fu
Twitroid
UK TV Guide
Wave Secure
Zedge
What are my options?
1. Clear cache;
2. Remove some apps;
3. Wait for root + custom ROMs with APPS2SD
I am now wondering ... What is this "cache" ?
Do we really need to clean it periodically?
It would be nice if there is a widget to clean this.
And honestly, I am not impressed with the storage ... 512 RAM seems a lot, but actually it is NOT
I have removed Google earth as it was taking up nearly 22MB which in the grand scheme of things seems to be load of space....
I never understand why they don't a minimum of 1gb internal storage on these devices for apps.
Jabbypants said:
I never understand why they don't a minimum of 1gb internal storage on these devices for apps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
...or just allow for apps to be installed on a memory card from the first place
Seems like that they [Android OS] have realised that without doing so, they will not be able to have storage hungry things such as games to be installed.
36 as I counted, is normal IMO. But yeah, I really hope that you will be able to install applications on your SD card in the future. Not that I want more apps, but I want BETTER apps (which means they will be more MB's). I remember downloading games for the iPod touch that were over 100 MB. They were also off very high quality.
About not allowing installing apps to SD card: I think the reason why it is not allowed is the following.. if you can install something to your SD card, you can easily share it with other over the internet, right? That will mean people will start downloading apps the 'dirty' way! That's the only reason I see.
But Google is very smart and so far keeps giving everybody what they want. I am sure they will find a solution!
gogol said:
I am now wondering ... What is this "cache" ?
Do we really need to clean it periodically?
It would be nice if there is a widget to clean this.
And honestly, I am not impressed with the storage ... 512 RAM seems a lot, but actually it is NOT
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When you use apps, it stores some files in memory for quicker access later. Downside of it is that it takes-up space. Normally you would not want to clear cache that often, but if you're running out of space it helps.
Unfortunately you can only clear cache for each app one-by-one, but here's an app that might make the process easier http://www.appbrain.com/app/com.cerisierbleu.qac
You can not store any apps on your memory card!
I did not know this
I have low space as well!
I have a game which is 20MB, i do not want to delete it beacuse it is the best game I have.
Is there no way to put it on your memory card?
Raminder1992 said:
You can not store any apps on your memory card!
I did not know this
I have low space as well!
I have a game which is 20MB, i do not want to delete it beacuse it is the best game I have.
Is there no way to put it on your memory card?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, you can't put apps on memory card until we have root and get to use cool ROMs like CyanogenMod.
Or until Google adds official support for apps2sd, but I can bet you that root will come first.
the reason why google doesnt allow apps etc to be installed on SD cards is because of security of the system, meaning that through this it would be probably easier to root or hack the device and they re working on some kind of encryption for this, and it will be included in the future update,
someone from this forum posted it somewhere here in this section
I also got low memory on my G1 with Apps2sd. That's because every app stores stuff on the internal memory, the browser cache, google maps cache and so on. My experience showed me that these things are the real memory killer.
cez10 said:
the reason why google doesnt allow apps etc to be installed on SD cards is because of security of the system, meaning that through this it would be probably easier to root or hack the device and they re working on some kind of encryption for this, and it will be included in the future update,
someone from this forum posted it somewhere here in this section
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Google will encrypt that partition of the sdcard so it is secure. IIRC, support for something with the sd card was checked in recently, along with the support for the LED (for the nexus one). I imagine apps2sd is something all android devices will be seeing soon.
Personally, I would be screwed if I couldn't install apps to my sd card on my phone...as stated above, google earth takes up way too much space. Tack on a couple games and a dozen apps? Forget it.
deprecate said:
Google will encrypt that partition of the sdcard so it is secure. IIRC, support for something with the sd card was checked in recently, along with the support for the LED (for the nexus one). I imagine apps2sd is something all android devices will be seeing soon.
Personally, I would be screwed if I couldn't install apps to my sd card on my phone...as stated above, google earth takes up way too much space. Tack on a couple games and a dozen apps? Forget it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
right. does that mean we wont be able to replace the sd cards unless we 'install' some additional files onto it?
and I think if google wont do this pretty quickly, droid might loose a vast amount of clients, because this is one of the reasons why iphone is so popular.
My mate just told me today he's willing to buy a new phone soon, and when I asked him what phone, he obviously said an iphone why do people always follow the crowd and buy anything that's most advertised :|
cez10 said:
the reason why google doesnt allow apps etc to be installed on SD cards is because of security of the system, meaning that through this it would be probably easier to root or hack the device and they re working on some kind of encryption for this, and it will be included in the future update,
someone from this forum posted it somewhere here in this section
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I thought it was due to the fact that the paid apps wouldn't be secure on the sd card, opening the gate further for app piracy and thus they were working on a solution to allow copy protection on the sd card.
I think this issue just turned me off the Desire and now I'm leaning towards the Nexus 1. I like to install plenty of apps so this could be a real issue for me
All android phones are the same, its just a matter of time before its sorted you can still get plenty of apps on, personally i can't see how anyone would need more than 10.
cez10 said:
right. does that mean we wont be able to replace the sd cards unless we 'install' some additional files onto it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
not sure to be honest. I would assume that you will be able to mount your sd card and copy all of the contents off the secured/encrypted partition if your machine recognizes that partition type...then again, maybe you won't be able to.
If you upgrade sd cards, you may have to start all over with installing to the sd card. Good question.
and I think if google wont do this pretty quickly, droid might loose a vast amount of clients, because this is one of the reasons why iphone is so popular.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the iphone is popular for lots of reasons; app support being at the top...but I would imagine the viral advertising and the "everyone has it" thing doesn't hurt.
Funnily enough, Android is almost on as many mobile devices as iphoneOS (according to an admob metric report). So the "everyone has it" argument is about to become a moot point.
My mate just told me today he's willing to buy a new phone soon, and when I asked him what phone, he obviously said an iphone why do people always follow the crowd and buy anything that's most advertised :|
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
people want what they know, what they see, what they hear is the best...apple has done an amazing job doing this with their products.
Jabbypants said:
All android phones are the same, its just a matter of time before its sorted you can still get plenty of apps on, personally i can't see how anyone would need more than 10.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
more than 10 apps? Are you trolling?
Don't think i have even got 10 on mine atm and can't think i ever had more on any Android i had so far, hero/milestone.

Google Earth

I tried to install google earth the nexus one version on the desire, as they are the same insides i thought this would not be a problem.
I get an error message that: not enough memory to install, but i have over 2gig free on the sd card?
I also tried to install the text to voice data same error not enough memory.
So my question is are we limited to installing apps on to the memory that is on the hard wired into the phone?
I thought we could load as many appz as we wanted because we have sd cards?
Rod
Rod,
On unmodified Android phones, apps *never* install on the SD card, but to the internal memory of the phone. The only way (currently) to get apps on the SD card is to install a custom ROM that includes "APPS2SD" functionality. Right now, there are no such ROMs available for the Desire.
John
Thats a real bummer, as we are limited to how many appz to install by the phones memory? unlike the iphone, but the iphone i had did have 32 gig of memory, i think this is a real weak point with android. what a shame.
something i noted is that when i install appz and uninstall them i dont get the full memory back is this normal?
Forget pinkness and not being able to see the screen in strong daylight. The only real weakness of the HTC Desire is not being able to install apps. onto the SD card. Hopefully this facility will be added shortly by HTC, if not we will have to rely on the genius of the "XDA Developers" to come up with a way of implementing it.
yeah for me this is the major / biggest problem right now.

Low space on internal storage

I have had the htc desire now for about 4days and only have a handfull of apps
360 live
batman soundboard
better keyboard
engadget
facebook
gallery
handcent sms
homerun 3d
imusic
last fm
monkey kickoff
voice search
had a few other games wich i delete but now i have no space left only got 16mb left where has all my memory gone any help would be nice
do you have a memory card in your phone they come with a 4 GB card i have around 50 apps and about 40 books and still have 3.6GB on the card and 50% of my phone memory see if your card is in right
Homerun 3d takes 20mb anyway, pretty big.
Also if you were installing the apps while the phone was connected to the PC it may have dismounted your SD card and installed everything on the phone memory?? Just a guess.
my memory card is in right i did have 48mb free installed asphalt 5 and idracula didnt like them unistalled them now i only have 20mb so strange desire need to get rooted asap
alginon1977 said:
do you have a memory card in your phone they come with a 4 GB card i have around 50 apps and about 40 books and still have 3.6GB on the card and 50% of my phone memory see if your card is in right
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can you share with us how do you manage to install apps on sdcard ?
the phone is superb much better than iphone imho but just makes me angry having to factory reset every time i run out off memory hopefully gets sorted soon
Yea okay this is really annoying me now, i barely have any apps on my device besides google maps, facebook, aircontrol etc all under a couple of mb. I install raging thunder 2 which takes up more than 20mb of my internal storage and that's it, don't have room for anything else. This is REALLY stupid.
It is a massive issue for me as its a really great device, but you can only install a few apps at a time??? WTF????
It would be nice to install more than 1 3d game......
I noticed the same thing as the guys above. Can someone tell us how to install the APPs on the SD card that's in the phone??
From what I understand, apps2sd requires root access, which requires a root ;-)
funny or not, but i had more free mem to install aps on my old nokia e50 phone and all this talk about this issue here or basically on the net, it's just bad pr for google/andorid platform.
it's a lame limitation that at the end will be removed by google itself or by rooting the phone.
and for now... install astro file manager and backup unused apps on sd card. thanks to that you can have some apps installed in phone memory, ready for quick use, and many more backed up on sd card available with few clicks.
pelotasplus said:
funny or not, but i had more free mem to install aps on my old nokia e50 phone and all this talk about this issue here or basically on the net, it's just back pr for google/andorid platform.
it just a lame limitation that at the end will be removed by google itself or by rooting the phone.
and for now... install astro file manager and backup your unused apps on sd card. thanks to that you can have X apps installed in phone memory, ready for quick use, and many more backed up on sd card available with few clicks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
how is this possible ? if you back them up are they going to be usable ??? i thought that you must restore them for been usable so you are where you were before!
lambrospower said:
how is this possible ? if you back them up are they going to be usable ??? i thought that you must restore them for been usable so you are where you were before!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yep, you have to restore them, mentioned "few clicks". it's just a workaround till... tomorrow, as there are rumours that root for desire is comming (-;
pelotasplus said:
yep, you have to restore them, mentioned "few clicks". it's just a workaround till... tomorrow, as there are rumours that root for desire is comming (-;
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Coming apparently its here, were just awaiting the destructions now ))
Maybe a mass android users petition or something to google?
seems to me the only major downfall of this otherwise amazing device

SD card as external vs sd-ext

Advantages and disadvamtages? What are they?
Thanks
Niall
Sent from my R800i using XDA App
From my days on Desire, I found D2EXT much better cos ALL of the app was moved and the system was tricked into thinking the EXT part of the memory card was actually the internal memory (NAND). For some strange reason there was only few roms that had it (hence why i was on MIUI on my desire).
Don't understand the Xperia Play forum, very disorganised, gonna use http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1374061 to move my apps to SD card. Defo want more apps, hate this running out of space!!!!
Nhialor said:
Advantages and disadvamtages? What are they?
Thanks
Niall
Sent from my R800i using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Basically the use of having an ext partition in your sdcard in the 1st place is our device's very poor internal storage(400mb) and the system is already taking up about half of it.
If you notice other devices with high internal storage as default (8gb, 16, 32gb like Galaxy S, SII, Note, Etc.,) doesnt even bother having it, even though its still possible.
If youre installing some user apps and its frustrating because you cant move it to SD card via settings menu, its because the app wants you to install it to the internal memory,
as they “believe” the app wouldn’t work in your SD card. If youre using a higher internal storage smartphone this isn’t much an issue to you, but if youre struggling for space,
this is quite annoying.
So the use of an ext-partition in your sd card is needed for those apps unmovable via the “normal way”.
Some 3rd party apps such as Link2sd(my personal favourite), Simple2Ext(CM7 rom), Apps2Sd, and many more out there will make use of this partition
These tools will “fool” your system in linking those user apps to your internal memory where in reality they’re moving it into your ext-partition, which is basically to your sd card also.
Take note that some apps though(well, not much) are not functional if they’re in the ext partition. In my experience only 2 apps failed to work, Beautiful Widgets and Minecraft pocket edition. I don’t know about others since
almost all apps seem to function well in the ext partition.
Not only that, some apps also(such as titanium backup) can convert a system app to a user app, so you can move it to your sd card using Link2Sd! But I wouldn’t recommend it though, I’m reading a lot of threads here
which system apps are safe to transfer/freeze/delete, so I have some system apps converted to user and now on my ext partition. Sweet.
Hope Ive helped.
Can I second noojster on Link2SD. Both minecraft and beautiful widgets work fine for me. Jelly Defense doesn't seem to like it though. Only one I have found so far.

[Q] Apps to SD Card?

So my tablet is getting pretty full(its an 8gb), and I want to move some of my apps to my 16gb sd card, but I dont know how, I tried the Apps2SD app, but it doesnt seem to work. Can anyone help me out?
No, none of the Froyo/Gingerbread utilities work with Honeycomb due to the different memory arrangement. Here is some more discussion:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1415472
Ugh okay, so I can only delete apps to make room for others?
You can back up your apps to .apks on your external sd card, using either ES File Manager or Astro. That makes it easy to delete them and later re-install them.
shadowskater555 said:
Ugh okay, so I can only delete apps to make room for others?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its been discussed pretty heavily in other threads, (using search will find them) just moving the app won't do a whole lot for you since the data for the app is still stored in the internal memory. I created a internal to external memory swap found in the development section to help with this problem but using a 16gb external card won't be a whole lot of extra space (although it'll still be better than the 5.7gb of space that the internal memory has for storage).
While it wont help with apps, most often its the apps data that is a problem not the app itself so I use the app GL to SD from the market
https://market.android.com/details?...t=W251bGwsMSwyLDEsImNvbS5zbGYuTGlzdGdsQXBwIl0.
You have to be rooted but I find it works great. Its designed to store game data for Gameloft games on your SD card instead of your internal memory since most of them take in the neighborhood of 800MB a piece (or more) but it works for seemingly anything.
So far it has also successfully worked for every game I have used it on including GTAIII, Sonic CD, and Galaxy on Fire 2 to name a few.
It also lets you specify custom mount points for those apps that store their data in a weird space.

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