You cannot move applications to the SD card. Move photos from main memory to the memory card. Transfer files to long-term storage

Now let’s figure out how to transfer/move an application to a map on Android microSD memory(flash drive) from internal memory phone or tablet. To do this, we will use the standard functionality of the system, and also consider the most popular app for transfer.

This article is suitable for all brands that produce phones on Android 9/8/7/6: Samsung, HTC, Lenovo, LG, Sony, ZTE, Huawei, Meizu, Fly, Alcatel, Xiaomi, Nokia and others. We are not responsible for your actions.

First of all, it is worth noting that not all applications can be moved to a memory card. More on this below in the text.

How to move an application on Android using standard system functionality

The system itself has everything you need. Next step by step actions, but some item names may vary slightly depending on the phone model and Android version. Just take a closer look at the names of the items, because... The logic will be the same everywhere.

• Settings
• Applications
• Application Manager
• Select the desired application to transfer from the list and click
• Memory
• Storage location - Change
• Select a memory card by its name

Visually it will look like this:

Increase

As a result, the application will be transferred to the memory card. However!

If you previously had the icon of this moved application displayed on your desktop, then after performing the transfer manipulations the icon will disappear or will become inactive. You will need to add it again from the menu.

Just in the “Menu” grab and hold it with your finger, and then release it in the desired part of the desktop.

And this is what an application that cannot be moved to a memory card looks like. Please note that it does not have the “Storage Location” item and the “Change” button. In this case, there is nothing to be done

Application for transferring to Android memory card

The most popular is the application (formerly called App 2 SD).

We launch it and it starts scanning your phone for installed applications.

Upon completion of the scan, a list of all installed applications is displayed, as well as tabs by location (for convenience).

Click on the application you need -> select “Move” -> see again standard functionality Android, which was discussed at the beginning of the article. Only now, thanks to AppMgr III, the time spent searching for the right program is significantly reduced.

There are many various programs on transfer Android applications to a memory card. They all work on the same principle and differ only in external design. I recommended to you what I use myself. Decide!

Most smartphones and tablets running operating Android systems have a relatively small amount of built-in physical memory, which does not allow storage on mobile device large files. This disadvantage is easily compensated for by installing external memory, usually represented by cards MicroSD format. However, photos, audio and videos are not the only type of content due to which users have to resort to expanding the internal memory of the device; games and applications can also fill it.

There are two ways out of this situation - either remove part software, or try transferring applications from your phone to a memory card. Why try? Because this procedure, although simple at first glance, can cause certain difficulties for a beginner. In addition, the method of transferring software from the internal memory of a mobile gadget may depend on the model and version of the operating system, however, these differences, if present, are not so significant. So, let's learn how to transfer apps to SD card in Android.

Moving applications using standard Android tools

Function of transferring applications to the card regular means appeared in Android 2.2 and was removed in version 4.4, but many firmware still have it. If you have the fourth version of the system, do the following. Go to Settings - Application Manager or Settings - Applications, select the desired program and click the “To SD card” button, if available.

If the button is missing or inactive, then you cannot transfer the application to the card using Android. This mainly concerns system applications, as well as programs, manipulations with which are not provided by the developer.

You can try to move applications from your phone to a memory card on Android up to 4.3 in this radical way. Go to the “My Files” folder, by default it is designated as sdcard0, select, and then cut out all its contents or folders of selected programs in Explorer and paste it into the location extSdCard, that is, on external memory SD cards. Everything that can be moved will move, system files will remain in place. You can use this method if the application transfer button is not active, however, there is no one hundred percent guarantee that everything will work perfectly after this.

As a rule, when using the standard function of transferring applications, not all data is transferred to the memory card, but only part of it. The cache, for example, may remain, and special utilities are required to transfer it.

Now let's see how to move applications to an SD card in Android 5.0 and 5.1. In Android 4.4 KitKat, due to improved security, the application transfer algorithm was changed, but soon many third-party developers adapted their applications to the new algorithms, thus making application transfer accessible. First of all, go to the section with third party applications and check if there is a corresponding button in their settings. If yes, use it, if not, proceed as follows.

Go to settings, select Memory - Main Memory, activate the “Memory card” radio button and click “Change”. After the reboot, the system will consider the SD card memory internal, and from now on all applications and games will be installed on it. The disadvantage of this method is that already installed applications may have to be reinstalled, since they will not be automatically transferred to the memory card.

In the sixth version, transferring applications from your phone to a memory card on Android has become a little easier, and the transfer function itself has been improved. Here is the simplest example. Having opened the settings, go to the “Applications” section, select the desired program, click Memory - Change and select “SD card” from the menu that appears. The application will be transferred.

Additionally, in Android 6.0 and above you can use new feature Adoptable Storage, which allows you to use a memory card, albeit with some restrictions, as part of internal storage. To use it, first create backup copy data on the card, go to your phone settings, select “Memory”, click on your SD card there and follow the chain of options Settings – Format as internal memory – Erase & Format.

Upon completion of the procedure, select the “Use as internal storage” option, click “Next” and reboot the gadget. After these manipulations, the application menu will appear new tab“Memory”, with which you can move applications from the internal memory of your smartphone to external memory.

Since the SD card will be encrypted for security, you will not be able to use it as a regular storage device, that is, read and write data to it from a PC.

Transferring applications to an SD card using special programs

Unfortunately, all of the above transfer methods, including the last one, cannot guarantee one hundred percent success. If the transfer is not supported by the firmware or its possibility is not provided by the developer specific application, it will not be possible to move the software using standard operating system tools. In such cases, special programs should be used, however, even they cannot promise that everything will go as expected. Here you need to try, if one program does not cope with the task, you should choose another, and so on. There are quite a lot of methods and programs invented and designed for these purposes, but we will limit ourselves to only three examples of transferring applications from a phone to a memory card on Android.

Method 1

To move applications to external memory, you can use free program AppMgr III (App 2 SD). It is extremely easy to use. The program automatically sorts all installed applications into three groups: On phone (transferable), On SD card (already transferred) and Phone only (not supporting transfer).

Clicking the icon of any application in the list brings up a menu where you can find the desired option. If available, the function of automatically transferring the application to the card when installing it will also be available.

Method 2

This method is more effective and reliable, but to use it, you will need root rights and two applications - Link2SD and any disk manager, since you will need to create two partitions on the memory card, preferably one in the FAT32 file system, the other in the Ext4 file system (for older versions of Android Ext3). To split the map into sections, you can use desktop programs like Paragon, and mobile, for example, Aparted.

After the partition is created, launch Link2SD and immediately select the file system of the second partition (Ext4), after which the program will ask you to reboot the device to mount the new volume. After rebooting, launch Link2SD again. This time you will see a list of applications installed on your smartphone. Everything else is simple. Through the main menu of the program, go to the “Memory” section, open the menu of the application being moved and click the “Send” button in the properties.

This method allows you to move almost any games and applications, including system ones, to a memory card, but we would not recommend transferring the latter unless absolutely necessary. The risk that after completing the procedure they will begin to work incorrectly, although not great, is still present. You should also be careful with the most frequently used applications, such as browsers and Internet instant messengers.

Method 3

The two examples above showed how to transfer applications from internal memory to an SD card on Android. The third method relates not so much to the programs themselves, but to their cache, the size of which, as is known, can significantly exceed the size of the application itself. To do this, you will again need root rights and a utility FolderMount. After launching this program, click on the right top corner plus icon, in the next window, in the “Name” field, enter the name of the application whose cache you are going to move, and in the “Source” field, specify the path to the directory with the cache files.

Cache folders are located at SD/Android/obb, the name of the folder you need will contain the name of the application. Finally, in the “Destination” field, you must specify the directory on the SD card to which the cached data will be transferred. Having configured the transfer settings in this way, first click the checkmark in the upper right corner of the screen, and then the pin button opposite the selected application. After a few seconds, the application cache will be moved to the memory card.

Owners mobile gadgets with insufficient internal memory, when installing utilities, they are forced to move them to an SD card. For beginners, this procedure can cause some difficulties. Therefore, below we will describe how to transfer the application to an external storage device in a standard way, as well as which programs from Google Play can simplify and automate this procedure.

Android has standard tools to transfer installed utilities on external storage. True, this is only available for those applications in which the described feature was provided by the developers. Moreover, only individual files are moved, and a certain amount of data still remains in the memory of the Android gadget. We will describe below how to transfer applications to a memory card:

If the corresponding element is not active, then this action is not provided for this program. Please also note that on some Chinese devices, in this way, files are transferred not to an external drive, but to the other half of the internal memory intended for multimedia.

Using the AppMgr III utility

You can transfer applications to an SD card using AppMgr III as described below:

Next will open standard window dispatcher, where in the usual way after tapping on the “Move to SD card” button, the corresponding action will be performed. Thus, AppMgr III acts only as an intermediary between the user and the system, facilitating the search for utilities that can migrate to an external drive.

AppMgr III also has useful feature. The fact is that some applications, after sending files to external card lose some of their functionality:

• Widgets may stop working;
• Utilities that schedule certain actions after a system reboot do not receive notification from the system that the boot is complete, which is why further work may be incorrect;
• The accounts created by the program stop working until the files are moved back to the internal memory.

Such utilities can be moved to an external drive, but their icon will show a crossed out card.

When performing this action, AppMgr III will first display a window that describes the functionality that is lost after migrating files.

In addition to the described functions, it is possible to hide unnecessary standard applications installed by the manufacturer, clear the cache, remove and move selected utilities in batch mode. It is important that if the described function is not provided by the device manufacturer, then AppMgr III will not be able to transfer any application to the memory card, since it uses standard methods for this.

Working with FolderMount on rooted devices

If you own a rooted device, it will be useful to take advantage of the features provided by FolderMount. With its help, you can significantly relieve internal memory by rewriting the entire cache to external media. Consequently, the program works with all games that clog up the gadget’s internal memory the most.

We will describe how to transfer applications to the card Android memory:

Note that the functionality of the applications does not change, and the large cache can be rewritten not only to SD, but also to any other external drive, including a flash drive and even HDD.

Moving a program to an external drive using Link2SD

Here you will also need root rights. Additionally, you will have to work with the flash drive, namely create a second primary partition for it. The first one must be formatted in FAT32, the second in ext2, ext3 or ext4. If you mix up the sequence, the computer will no longer be able to detect the flash drive.

Each transferred file will be stored in the second partition, and the first, as usual, will be reserved by the system for user data. Create additional section on the drive via a computer, using, for example, MiniTool Partition Wizard, Paragon and other tools for partitioning disks. Upon completion of preparation:

Almost all phones and tablets released in 2018 have a large amount of built-in memory, which can be expanded using microSD cards 32 GB or more (in mid-class and flagship models). But among owners of older and inexpensive devices with internal storage of 4 GB or less, the issue of shortage free space It’s especially acute on a smartphone. In this article, we will look in detail at all the ways to transfer applications to an SD memory card in Android.

The instructions are intended for both beginners and experienced users, therefore, it talks about transferring applications not only using standard means, but also using special programs, requiring root rights.

You can also free up space in the internal memory by deleting system applications.

How to transfer applications to a memory card using accessible means

Starting from the very earlier versions Android, the system had a function to transfer most installed applications to an SD card. Instead, in Android 6.0 Marshmallow, it became possible to use a memory card as an internal drive (this method is also described in the article).

Let's look at the function as an example Samsung phone under Android control 5.0:

Go to Settings and select Apps. Depending on the manufacturer and firmware, the item may be called “Application Manager”, “All Applications”.

Select the downloaded game or program. If the application can be moved, the “Move to SD card” button will be active. Click on it.

If the button does not work, the developer has prohibited installation of the application on the memory card and it will not be possible to move it using standard means.

AppMgr III (App 2 SD) for transferring applications

In order not to open the settings of each game or program and not see whether they can be transferred or not, use the AppMgr III (App 2 SD) utility - in it, the moved applications are collected in a separate tab.

Hold your finger on app cards to mark them. Select the ones you need and click on the folder icon at the top. In the new window, click on the red arrow, which will take you to the application details page. To go to the settings of the next selected program or game, press the Back button.

AppMgr III will also tell you which applications should not be installed in external memory so that all their functions work correctly.

Using an SD card as internal memory

This feature was introduced in Android 6.0 and works in Android 7 Nougat, Android 8 Oreo and Android 9 Pie. It allows you to use a memory card as a built-in storage device. Since SD replaces internal storage, it makes sense for the flash card to be larger than the internal memory. And for applications to work quickly, the SD card must have high speed records.

Data formatted as internal storage, memory cards will not be read if you install SD in another smartphone or tablet. To use the card in a new device, you will have to format it as portable storage.

After connecting, a message will appear in the notification shade that it has been detected. new map memory. Just click “Configure”, select “Internal memory” in the window that opens and follow further instructions. Don't forget to transfer files from the SD card to another storage device, as they will be deleted during the formatting process.

Detailed instructions for setting up the card:

1. Go to “Settings” → “Storage” (may be called “Storage and USB drives” or “Memory”).

2. Click on "SD Card".

3. In the upper right corner, open the menu, select “Settings” (in some firmware “Memory”).

4. Click Internal Storage.

5. A warning will appear on the screen that all data saved on the SD card will be deleted during the formatting process. Therefore, copy them first, and then click “Clean and Format”.

6. If your smartphone uses low-class SD (for example, microSD Class 6), a message will appear on the screen that the memory card is working slowly.

7. Before completing the formatting process, you will be prompted to transfer some files and applications to the SD card. Select the right option, click Next and then Transfer.

8. Finally, click “Done” and manually restart your phone.

Now open “Settings” → “Applications” → “Application details” (if this item is not there, proceed to the next step) and select installed program or a game.

Click “Storage” (may be called “Memory”), then click the “Change” button and select the SD card.

In the window that appears, click “Move” and wait for the transfer to complete.

Formatting a memory card as an internal drive using ADB

If your smartphone has Android 6, 7, 8 or 9 installed, and there is no option to format the SD card as internal storage in the settings menu, the manufacturer has not added such an option to the firmware. But users can format the memory card themselves using the utility.

To do this, activate on Android, connect your mobile device to your PC and launch ADB from command line either from Windows PowerShell, if one of the latest builds Windows 10: Type the following command and press Enter (in Windows PowerShell, add ./ before the command).

The console will launch and the “$” sign will appear in it. Type the command and click Enter:

The line below will display the view's SD card ID disk:NNN,NN. Replace NNN,NN to the value of the received identifier and run the command:

Wait for the command to complete. Then go to Settings → Storage and select SD card. Expand the list of options by clicking on the three dots at the top and click “Transfer Data.”

Select "Transfer" and wait for the process to complete. Finally, click “Done.”

How to move multiple apps to SD card in Android 8 Oreo and 9 Pie

To avoid performing the same steps to transfer applications separately, use the AppMgr III (App 2 SD) program, which was described at the beginning of the article. Only on Android 8 Oreo and Android 9 Pie you will have to give AppMgr III a couple of permissions.

Launch the application. A notification will appear that the program needs access to your usage history. Click Allow, select AppMgr III from the list of applications, activate the switch and return to the program. You can also configure access to your usage history by going to “Settings” → “Applications and notifications” → “Advanced settings” → “Special access” → “Access to usage history”.

Select the games and programs that you want to move to the flash card and click on the image of the folder with the arrow inside. In the "Move to Map" window, click on the red button below.

A message will pop up saying that AppMgr III needs permission to edit. system settings. Click on the switch and you will be taken to settings. Activate the toggle switch and return to the application. The options for this permission are located under Settings → Apps & notifications → Advanced settings → Special access → Change system settings.

You will then be prompted to allow AppMgr III to automatically perform actions without manual confirmation for each application. Click "YES", go to the " Accessibility", select "AppMgr III", switch the toggle switch to the "ON" position and confirm by clicking "OK". Then return to the program.

Application transfer will begin immediately. Just wait for it to complete.

At the end it will show that the applications have been moved to the memory card.

Transfer games to SD card in Android

Most of the user memory is occupied by the cache installed games. To move it, we will use the FolderMount program, which can mount directories from internal memory to external memory. It requires .

Download FolderMount from Google Play, launch it and provide Superuser rights.

In the “List of Pairs” tab at the top, click on “+”.

Come up with and enter the name of the folder pair in the first line.

Click on the second one, which will open the built-in file manager. The game cache is located in the “Android/obb” directory, and the application cache in “Android/data”. Go to the folder you want to mount and click on the checkmark.

The screen will ask if you want to create the destination folder automatically. Click "YES" if you agree. In this case, FolderMount will copy the path from the internal storage and create the same on the external drive. Click "NO" if you want to manually set the mount end point and select the folder where to move the files.

To start copying, click on the checkmark and confirm the transfer by selecting “YES” in the next window.

The process will be displayed in the notification panel.

Once copying is complete, switch the toggle switch in the “List of Pairs” tab to mount.

At the bottom there is a button with a pin image, clicking on which will mount all directories at once.

To move files back from the destination folder to the source folder, first unmount the pairs: to do this, turn off the toggle switch or click on the crossed out pin, then hold your finger on the pair and click on the trash can icon.

How to move apps using Link2SD

Link2SD is a program that can mount application data onto a memory card. In order for it to work, it is necessary to create an additional partition on the SD in the ext3/ext4 file system on the mobile device. Partitioning a memory card into sections is done in one of the following ways.

(!) Before you create new section, copy all the files located on the SD, as they will be deleted after partitioning the memory card.

Memory card partitioning on Android via TWRP

If installed on your smartphone, partition the SD card through it. To do this, click “Advanced”.

Select "Partition SD card".

Check "Micro SD card" and click "OK".

Select the file system of the ext-partition to be created and specify its size. For example, 2048 MB - this memory will become available for transferring applications and the volume of the SD card will be reduced by that amount. Leave the Swap partition size (paging file) equal to 0.

Drag the slider to begin SD marking.

At the end, click " Reboot System" and "Do Not Install" if you do not want to download official application TWRP.

The device will reboot. If you go to “Settings” → “Memory” (or “Storage” in the latest Android versions), you will see that the SD size has decreased. The second section “sees” only Link2SD, App 2 SD and similar applications.

Create a hidden partition on SD using AParted

The second way to split a memory card into 2 partitions if you have Superuser rights, but no TWRP:

Go to “Settings” → “Memory”, click “Disconnect memory card” and confirm the action.

Launch AParted and grant root access.

There are 2 bars in the Create tab: the top one will display the new partition, and the bottom one shows the current SD size and its file system.

Click "ADD" to create the first partition. It will be new size Memory cards where you can save photos, music, videos and other files. Leave the checkbox next to “Format”, the fat32 file system and select the size with the slider. To set it more precisely, click on the number next to MB, enter the desired value and click OK.

Click “ADD” again and create a second hidden partition to which games and applications will be transferred. Pull the slider all the way, leave “Format” checked and select the ext file system.

Click “APPLY” and select “OK” in the warning window that appears.

The SD partitioning process will start.

When completed, the second line will display 2 sections.

Now connect the memory card through “Settings” if this does not happen automatically. The new SD size should be displayed there.

Working with Link2SD

Open Link2SD and grant the program Superuser rights.

A window with a choice will immediately appear file system hidden section SD cards. Check suitable version ext and click OK. If the window does not appear, expand the menu on the left and click “Recreate mount script.”

Then click "Restart device" to mount the second partition of the memory card. The device will reboot.

After Android launcher go to Link2SD, click on the 3 dots in the top right corner and select "Multiple".

Check required applications and reopen the menu. Click "Send".

There is also a "Move to SD card" feature that moves apps standard method Android, inaccessible to users without Link2SD.

If you need to move one game or program, find it in the list, click on it and select “Send” or “Move to SD card”.

Many owners modern gadgets They are trying with all their might to expand the memory in their device. Unfortunately, 4-8 GB of internal memory is not enough for users to work comfortably. An SD card allows you to expand these boundaries. You can transfer music, video or text documents. But what can you do with games? How to move applications to a memory card? Now there are many ways to help you do this.

Standard means

As we have already found out, the built-in memory plays important role in using the device. Typically, about 1 gigabyte is allocated for operating system, 2 GB - for multimedia files. So what remains? Only 1 gigabyte is allocated for various applications. Of course, by modern standards this is very little. Nowadays there are Android applications that take up more than 2 GB. It doesn't matter how powerful you are mobile phone, because without memory you will not be able to install normal applications. It is because of this that many users are looking for a way out of this situation. Let's look at how to use standard means You can move applications to a memory card from Samsung, Asus and other well-known brands. Unfortunately, this method will not work for owners of Chinese phones.

The point is that in Chinese models developers separate internal memory for general use and memory for multimedia. When transferring, the files will simply move to the second half.

For more expensive models The developers have provided the ability to transfer applications to an external drive. This method does not require any third party utilities. If your phone supports this feature, then you can easily move necessary programs. How to move applications to an Android memory card?

First, let's go to the settings of your device.

Go to the “Applications” item.

In the list, find the application that needs to be moved and click on it.

In the new window, click on the “Move to USB drive” button.

Unfortunately, not all programs can be moved. If the developers have provided such an opportunity, then you will move the application in a few minutes. You also need to remember that not all files are moved to the SD card. Only large files are transferred, while others that are responsible for launching the application remain on the internal memory.

Additional software

How to move an application to a Lenovo memory card? This can be done automatically using additional programs. The most common one is App Mgr III. This utility is available to everyone. It's free and you can download it from Google Play. The program is quite simple, anyone can understand the functionality. When installing new program it will warn you that you can install the game on the SD card. Agree with it and wait for the game to install.

Using the App Mgr III program

How can I move applications to a memory card using additional software? If the game or program is already installed on the device, then you should follow the instructions to transfer the utility.

1. Open required application and select “Moveable” from the top. This will show you all the games that can be moved to the SD card. You can also view games and programs that have already been moved by selecting “On SD card”, and utilities that cannot be transferred.

3. Confirm the selected actions and wait for the set goal to be achieved.

Using FolderMount

FolderMount is a special program that performs its functions perfectly. It will help you move the application. Using this program, the Android memory card will be used as the main memory, since it allows you to move almost all files to an external drive. Unfortunately, FolderMount has a significant drawback: it requires ROOT rights. If you get superuser rights, then this utility will help you a lot. It transfers not only game files, but also their cache. It's great for gaming. You can also transfer applications not only to an SD card, but also to any other external storage device.

FolderMount operation

Transferring files using this utility is quite simple, but some users may encounter certain problems. How to move applications to a memory card?

Download the program from Google Play and install it.

Click on the button in the form of a plus sign, which is located in the upper right corner.

In the new window, first select “Name” and write the name of the game you want to move.

After this, select “Destination” where you want to move the game.

Confirm the action by clicking on the checkmark in the upper right corner. We wait for the application to move to the memory card. Then you can move on to other games.

Conclusion

How to move applications to a memory card? As you may have noticed, there is nothing complicated about this. If using standard tools you were unable to move the game or program, then you should install additional software. Of course, these programs will not be able to transfer all applications to the SD card, but this way you will still free up memory. The most effective utility is FolderMount, but it requires ROOT rights. When you get superuser rights, you take a risk, but it greatly expands the functionality of the phone as a whole and gives you many new features.