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Is there an option where I can choose between saving apps or photos into either the USB storage or device memory partition?
bumping this thread
I'm interested in this as well. I've moved media files to the external sd card and the phone doesn't see them. System info widget is only showing 1.67 GB internal storage while I know that can't be right. Still trying to figure out storage on this device. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
GadgetMonger said:
I'm interested in this as well. I've moved media files to the external sd card and the phone doesn't see them. System info widget is only showing 1.67 GB internal storage while I know that can't be right. Still trying to figure out storage on this device. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For me, after I unplug the USB cable, it goes through a "Media Scan," and items that I had on the external SD Card are imported (at least ringers and notifications)... But I can't seem to get it to actually DO anything with the REAL SD Card... The phone thinks that the SD Card is the internal storage on the phone (the PHONE partition).
I copied some movie files over to the sd card to play them with Moobo, but there doesn't seem to be a way to navigate to them. I had to copy them to the PHONE partition.
Dalmus said:
For me, after I unplug the USB cable, it goes through a "Media Scan," and items that I had on the external SD Card are imported (at least ringers and notifications)... But I can't seem to get it to actually DO anything with the REAL SD Card... The phone thinks that the SD Card is the internal storage on the phone (the PHONE partition).
I copied some movie files over to the sd card to play them with Moobo, but there doesn't seem to be a way to navigate to them. I had to copy them to the PHONE partition.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmmm... I don't think my device is working that way if it's supposed to. I put my ringers and pictures on the external sd, but they didn't get imported. They weren't there when I tried setting a ringtone and the pics weren't in my gallery. I did get the media scan. I just assumed that it was an antivirus app? And my phone definitely isn't seeing my sd card as internal storage. My card is practically empty yet I'm only showing 1.67 GB internal storage. Of course that could be a problem with the widget, but it does drop if I install anything from the market.
GadgetMonger said:
Hmmm... I don't think my device is working that way if it's supposed to. I put my ringers and pictures on the external sd, but they didn't get imported. They weren't there when I tried setting a ringtone and the pics weren't in my gallery. I did get the media scan. I just assumed that it was an antivirus app? And my phone definitely isn't seeing my sd card as internal storage. My card is practically empty yet I'm only showing 1.67 GB internal storage. Of course that could be a problem with the widget, but it does drop if I install anything from the market.
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Click to collapse
On your SD card, do you have the ringers and notifications in the proper directory tree? Its got to be /media/audio/ringers or /media/audio/notifications
As for free space, when you go to SETTINGS ->STORAGE you should see THREE subsections... The first is your physical SD card, the second is "USB storage" which is the internal space you get to play with, and the third is "Device" storage, which is apparently 2GB instead of the 1GB as advertised.
Mine is working as expected.
SD card = 14.92 Total Available 11.68 GB (have a lot of photos, music videos and songs)
USB or Internal = 11.50 Total Available = 11.38 CB
Device Memory = 1.60 GB
The difference between actual and stated is for the hidden system files I guess.
does anyone have an answer to my original question?
Dalmus said:
On your SD card, do you have the ringers and notifications in the proper directory tree? Its got to be /media/audio/ringers or /media/audio/notifications
As for free space, when you go to SETTINGS ->STORAGE you should see THREE subsections... The first is your physical SD card, the second is "USB storage" which is the internal space you get to play with, and the third is "Device" storage, which is apparently 2GB instead of the 1GB as advertised.
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Click to collapse
As for the ringers, yup. The phone recognizes them when they're on the root of the card, just not in external sd.
And yes I did find storage in settings. Nothing matches up with what the widget shows so... That makes 2 or three apps that I regularly use that aren't working right on this phone.
The internal memory still seems low to me though. In settings it's showing 1.77 GB. I guess the problem here is that I'm not understanding how to use the storage available. On my 3d I have internal phone which is at almost 6 GB with around 100 apps installed. Never have used app to sd applications. My sd card is a 16 GB and its loaded down to about 7 GB free. Music, pics and ringtones all go to the SD card and the phone reads the files and uses them accordingly.
My GSII has about 50 apps and is showing 1.77 GB free, but that drops whenever I download a new app. So it seems as though if I approach 100 apps I'll run out of internal memory. No? That means I have no choice but to use an app to sd application?
GadgetMonger said:
My GSII has about 50 apps and is showing 1.77 GB free, but that drops whenever I download a new app. So it seems as though if I approach 100 apps I'll run out of internal memory. No? That means I have no choice but to use an app to sd application?
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Click to collapse
I believe there's 16gb of total storage on the phone.
2gb is reserved for apps.
14gb is reserved for OS and "other" such as photos, media, etc...
If you go into Settings-> Applications -> Manage Applications and select an App that you downloaded, you'll get the option to move the App to the SD card. You might try that.
Cheers
maxspiderx said:
Is there an option where I can choose between saving apps or photos into either the USB storage or device memory partition?
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Click to collapse
Apps go to your 2gb partition and photos and music will go to the usb partition. You can move stuff from the usb partition to your as card. I downloaded ringtones and moved them to my as card and they work fine. As far as apps go if u download apps2sd supposidly u can move an apps to usb storage that way if u run out of your 2gb.
The Evo3D Killer!!!
musclehead84 said:
Apps go to your 2gb partition and photos and music will go to the usb partition. You can move stuff from the usb partition to your as card. I downloaded ringtones and moved them to my as card and they work fine. As far as apps go if u download apps2sd supposidly u can move an apps to usb storage that way if u run out of your 2gb.
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Click to collapse
The problem is that once you move things to the SD card, you can't access them anymore, at least not from inside any apps that I've seen.
I'd love to put a bunch of MP3's and .AVI's on the SD card so I can play them, but none of the movie apps have an option to look at the SD card... Or rather, the CLAIM they look at the SD card, but really they're looking at the internal memory of the phone, not the actual SD card.
I have all of my media (mp3s and videos) on my external SD and they are being read just fine. Most apps will let you specify what location your media is stored. I use Mobo player and it lets you choose where the media directory is, even multiple directories. I use my external SD card so i point to: /mnt/sdcard/externa_sd/what ever folder name you want
Dalmus said:
The problem is that once you move things to the SD card, you can't access them anymore, at least not from inside any apps that I've seen.
I'd love to put a bunch of MP3's and .AVI's on the SD card so I can play them, but none of the movie apps have an option to look at the SD card... Or rather, the CLAIM they look at the SD card, but really they're looking at the internal memory of the phone, not the actual SD card.
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Click to collapse
hi,
I have just installed my first custom ROM - PyramidMod007_v10... thanks to all the great resources on these forums that helped me get away from the Official Gingerbread.
I have a question about the APPS2SD feature... I don't really understand how it works. I created a 512mb ext3 partition on my SD Card and installed the new ROM.
My question is... Do the apps automatically get installed to the Ext partition now... therefore do I not need to move to SD Card? It seems when i do move to SD card as an experiment - sometime the APPS2SD storage goes up and sometimes the Internal Storage goes up??
I'm confused - owing mainly to the fact that I have no idea how this all works!
This is the data from Quick System Info:
SD Storage - 6.92GB Free: 6.19GB
A2SD - Total: 504MB Free: 213MB
Internal - Total 148MB Free 122MB
System Storage - Total 250MB Free: 13.12MB
System Cache - Total 220MB Free: 202MB
Thanks
Its a script that runs at start up (/system/etc/init.d/)
The a2sd script symbolically links /data/app (where your apps are installed) to /sd-ext/app. This means any app in /data/app is "moved" by the script to /sd-ext/app.
However an app is more than the apk in data/app. It also has /data/data/ and in there are libs, preferences and data for each app. Also there is /data/dalvik-cache. This is usally also symlinked (to /sd-ext/dalvik-cache/)
Using "move to SD" uses googles own implementation. Historically, this literally moved the apk to /sdcard/.android_secure/ however now in Gingerbread it also moves the libs (if an app has libs).
"move to SD" moves more in GB than in Froyo but still not more than a2sd+ (if dalvik is moved) however, you will find as it moves the libs, if you combine both, even more space is spared but to me this is far too reliant on the SD card
app2sd
Hello XDA!!
i am just giving the some information here for my fellow android mates!!
here's all u need to know about Ext2,Ext3,Ext4 app2sd
Ok, so here's the deal, in a very longwinded way that should hopefully explain everything and answer ALL questions.
You have an SD card in your phone and, a bit like normal PC Hard Drives, you can "partition" them (split them into two or more sections of different filesystems). Normally, your SD card is just one big FAT32 partition, which is fine for storing your pics, messages, emails, etc.
Now, other then your Phone's SD card, your phone will have its own internal flash memory (or "NAND") storage. Tradditionally with Android, you could only install applications to this NAND storage, you cannot install them onto your SD card. So if you have an empty 32GB SD card, but only 5Mb of internal phone storage, you still wont be able to install many apps, if any at all.
This was done to protect the apps from things like piracy - it's not easy to access the location where apps are installed on your phone's internal storage (normally impossible without root), so you can't for example buy an app, copy it, refund it, then install it again.
Still, this is no good for those of us who like to install lots and lots of apps, legitimately, as we run out of internal storage very quickly.
So Google came up with a way to install apps to the SD card. A folder is created called something like .android_secure and this stores (I believe) encrypted versions of applications, but there's a few catches:
1) Apps aren't automatically stored here, you have to manually "move" them
2) Not all apps are capable of being moved, in fact most apps aren't, the developer needs to update their app and allow it. Some apps aren't and wont be updated and some developers may not want to allow it for whatever reason.
3) Not all app data is moved, most of it is but some data is left on your phone so many people still run out of internal storage quickly.
4) You can force ALL apps to be moved to this area by default, but it breaks incompatible ones - such as Widgets, which are unable to load due to the SD card not being "prepared".
So that's Froyo's version. Before Froyo existed, some very clever people came up with a thing called "Apps2SD". Remember I said that your SD card normally is one big FAT32 partition? Well, Apps2SD works by having your SD card patitioned into TWO filesystems. A normal FAT32 partition for your usual stuff and a secondary "EXT" partition. EXT is just a filesystem, like FAT32 or NTFS, but it's the filesystem used by Android internally. The SD card is normally FAT32 because it's a "universal" filesystem, that just about any machine will be able to read, whereas EXT filesystems are generally Linux only, but I digress.
EXT has several different versions. The most common one you'll see is ext3. The main difference between ext2 and ext3 is "journaling", which is just a fancy way of saying that should an operation (such as copying, writing or reading) be interrupted unexpectedly (say, by you turning your phone off), then no data should be lost or corrupted. You know how when you turn your phone on, it says "preparing SD card"? It takes a few minutes, but what it's actually doing is checking that the FAT32 partition hasn't been damaged, because FAT does NOT have journaling. If you used a computer back in the Windows 98 days, you may remember that lovely blue "Scandisk" screen that had to run every time you didn't shut your computer down correctly - that's the same thing. But then Windows 2000/XP came along with NTFS, which also has journaling, meaning you had less chance of loosing data. But I digress once more.
So you have your SD card partitioned into EXT and FAT32. Generally it doesn't matter if it's ext3 or ext4, but you don't get any real advantage with ext4 over ext3 in this instance. Apps2SD then runs a special script on your phone which "symbolically links" the folder from your phone's internal storage where your apps are normally stored, to the ext partition on your SD card. A symbolic link is a bit like a shortcut for folders, except it's transparent to the OS: In other words, Android doesn't know that when it's installing it's apps to the internal phone storage, it's actually being stored on the SD card. This effectively boosts your internal phone memory from the previous 5mb that you had in my example above, up to whatever size you made the ext partition on your SD card (often 512Mb or 1Gb, but it depends on how many apps you install).
Plus, because it's "journaled", it doesn't need to be "prepared", meaning it's ready to go as soon as the phone starts - so your widgets and apps work immediately (unlike "forced" Froyo Apps2SD, where widgets disappear).
The catch with Apps2SD is that whatever space the ext partition takes up is taken away from the SD card. So if you have a 4Gb card (with something like 3.5Gb of actual storage) and you make a 512Mb ext partition, your SD card will "shrink" to 3Gb. The space isn't actually lost, it's just being used by the ext partition. If you reformat your card, you'll get it back.
Finally, there's a difference between "Apps2SD" and "Apps2SD+". Remember I said that your apps are stored on a special folder inside your Phone's NAND storage? Well, that was a bit of a lie. It's actually stored in TWO places. There's a second area which is called the Davlik Cache. You don't really need to worry about what this is for (Hint: IT's to do with the Java runetime your phone uses to run apps), all you need to know is that apps use it to store data, which also eats up internal phone memory. Apps2SD+ moves davlik cache to the ext partition on your SD card as well, freeing up even more space. Some people believe that this may come at the cost of performance, as the internal NAND memory should be faster than your SD card (Which is why you also get people arguing over which "class" SD card is better for Apps2SD - the logic being that a faster SD card means less impact from this move), but the truth of the matter is that your applications will be running from your Phone's RAM anyway, so performance isn't really impacted at all. Since most apps are only a few hundred Kb's in size, or a couple of MB at the most, it's a non-issue.
Finally, any recent version of Apps2SD/Apps2SD+ should work with an SD card that is or isn't formatted with an ext partition. It'll check for this partition when your phone first boots and if it's not there, just use internal phone storage.
Having an ext partition WITHOUT Apps2SD+ shouldn't cause any issues, either, so you can format your SD card whenever you're ready.
So in summary:
Apps2SD "fakes" your phone's internal memory and puts it all on a hidden section of your SD card.
Apps2SD+ pushes even more content to the SD card, freeing up even more space on the phone itself.
"Froyo" Apps2SD has various limitations that "old" apps2SD does not, but is much easier to handle as it doesn't involve any kind of "partitioning"
Hello AlAxe
Thanks for great discription of How A2SD works. I have a question:
AlAxe said:
Hello XDA!!
i am just giving the some information here for my fellow android mates!!
here's all u need to know about Ext2,Ext3,Ext4 app2sd
....
.....
So in summary:
Apps2SD "fakes" your phone's internal memory and puts it all on a hidden section of your SD card.
Apps2SD+ pushes even more content to the SD card, freeing up even more space on the phone itself.
"Froyo" Apps2SD has various limitations that "old" apps2SD does not, but is much easier to handle as it doesn't involve any kind of "partitioning"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is this www.beginnerstech.co.uk/apps2sd-for-rooted-androids APP2SD+ you mention above? or there are another link you have?
Also, between above app and this one [Script] App2sd which one do you prefer? thanks again...
Regards
That script you posted is very old, a lot of custom Roms have their own scripts built in so you don't have to worry about this any more
If you really want to use that one, read the differences in that post to find out which you prefer. Depends on how many apps you have and how fast your sdcard is.
Personally I think there are better / easier methods, some use apps or flashable zips to make installation much easier and don't require a full wipe. Search for mount2sd, or cronmod int2ext for instance. Whichever one you choose, it doesn't matter too much in the end, whatever 'name' they give it, they all do similar things in slightly different ways, but ultimately the objective is so you can install more apps.
Oh and if you're partitioning for Desire, use 4EXT recovery or gparted, not clockworkmod recovery
So, I got my device s-off and rooted, was pretty excited when I had those stuff done.
But now,
Internal memory is still an issue, I read on xda like, removing the bundled or stock software comes with the phone won't make the internal memory get increased because those files are stored somewhere else that won't effect the total usable internal memory. Plus removing stock apps will stop using OTA updates.
So is there a trick that I can increase the internal memory of my phone? I already use the default save location setted to sd card, and moving apps to sd but it always leaves some files at internal memory.
I read somewhere like, I can make phone use my sd card's some part as internal memory, I saw a rom offering that but except that is there any program offering this without flashing rom?
And I have some knowledge about Linux, so I was wondering do I have a chance to use symlink command (symbolic link) to link my internal memory to sd card ?
Best way is to use a ROM with Darktremor Apps2SD preinstalled. I don't know whether it will work if you install it now.
The best alternative, in my opinion, is to format a partition of your SD card to ext3 with this guide and then use Link2SD.The partition can be as big as you want, but I believe that 500 MB should be enough.
It will earn you some space but not as much as the Darktremor Apps2SD will.
Thanks for the answer, I used the guide and Link2SD, but i am a bit confused here, I also use apps 2 sd program,
So for using less possible internal memory of my phone,
Should I install apps to phone memory and then link to sd card with link2sd
or
Install app in sd card (or move it with link2sd to sd card) then link?
Right now one of apps shown as Linked -> SD card. So is this the best scenario?
Because when I choose move to SD in Apps 2 SD, Link2SD says move to SD also, so it kinda like they conflict
To tell you the truth I'm not completely sure for what is better, but what I did was to first link all of them (application, dalvik & library if possible) and then move them to sd card with App2SD. I think there was a slight difference to the free space but nothing noticeable. Sorry, but I'm no expert, so everything I did was by trial and error!
Any way to truly move apps to the external SD card?
I have just recnetly learned that moving apps "to the SD card" in the settings>apps menu doesnt truly move them to the external SD card.
Why is that?
I dont have many apps yet, but it seems the apps i do have slowly get larger and larger as i use them and they save user data. (game progress for example).
Id like to know that I could at least move things that i dont care how fast they load to a truly external SD card (along with my wallpapers, ringtones, etc)
Even if theres a manual way via USB, thats cool. Just hoping someone with more than about a months worth of experience with a captivate glide (or really, i guess any phone that by default wont let you) could give some advice.
thanks!
Pawprints1986 said:
Any way to truly move apps to the external SD card?
I have just recnetly learned that moving apps "to the SD card" in the settings>apps menu doesnt truly move them to the external SD card.
Why is that?
I dont have many apps yet, but it seems the apps i do have slowly get larger and larger as i use them and they save user data. (game progress for example).
Id like to know that I could at least move things that i dont care how fast they load to a truly external SD card (along with my wallpapers, ringtones, etc)
Even if theres a manual way via USB, thats cool. Just hoping someone with more than about a months worth of experience with a captivate glide (or really, i guess any phone that by default wont let you) could give some advice.
thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You have sd card integrated to the board, its not true sd card. You can swap internal sd to external sd, then you can use same move function to use external micro sd card as application storage.
bubor said:
You have sd card integrated to the board, its not true sd card. You can swap internal sd to external sd, then you can use same move function to use external micro sd card as application storage.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So theres no way to just manually tell it to move there without messing up whats already on the internal storage?
The Android system still has no option to move app to external sd. You can copy everything from internal (built-in) sd to external and apply change-fstab.zip to make Android think that your external sd is internal and vice versa. Works on every 4.4 rom. No performance drawbacks if using class 10 sd card. Worked for me flawlessly and thanks to bubor for this great feature.
And for manually... There's an app called Link2SD. It's some sort of workaround. You make second partition on your external SD and move apps there, leaving links for Android system on your internal storage. You can find it in google market, be sure to read instructions first.
Makshow said:
The Android system still has no option to move app to external sd. You can copy everything from internal (built-in) sd to external and apply change-fstab.zip to make Android think that your external sd is internal and vice versa. Works on every 4.4 rom. No performance drawbacks if using class 10 sd card. Worked for me flawlessly and thanks to bubor for this great feature.
And for manually... There's an app called Link2SD. It's some sort of workaround. You make second partition on your external SD and move apps there, leaving links for Android system on your internal storage. You can find it in google market, be sure to read instructions first.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I remember trying link2sd on a friends tablet recently. it recognized certain apps as moveable, but when i actually tried to move them (on an SD that i had already partitioned) it said failure every time.
But im not sure i want to switch my storage entirely. I would just like to allow, say another 4 gigs on my SD card (with the other 4 being for wallpapers, ringtones, etc). i have an 8 gig card right now.
Then you should try link2sd here. Basically, no other options, unless you wish to emulate Link2SD work with some scripts and move apps manually. I saw some patches for Lenovo phones to combine internal storage or something like that, but they will not work on Glide obviously.
LG Tribute running 4.4.2, rooted with Kingo
My understanding is that new security measures keep most apps from being moved from the emulated SD to an external SD. The only options given that I've seen involve partitioning an SD card and linking apps to the SD card. I tried this (using AParted and Link2SD) and while it worked, it just doesn't free up much space at all. I've only got 4 gig external, and that's just so easy to fill up. System data takes over half, and even with moving as much as I can to the SD, apps add up.
But while googling around, I've seen External 2 Internal mentioned a lot. An app that swaps the mount points of internal and external storage, fooling the device into thinking that the huge SD card is internal storage.
Is this still doable with the new security measures? And if so, how?
I've been reading hundreds of forum pages, but can't find anything touching on this.