Develop Bugs

How to choose which partition to save files to?

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.
Click to expand...
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.
Click to expand...
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?
Click to expand...
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.
Click to expand...
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Internal/External SD Cards

Just got my GS2 today and I must say this is the easiest phone I have rooted to date! I have been working my way around the OS and found that apps are not seeing my files on my External SD Card. Is there a way to sort of sync these? I guess I dont mean sync, but have apps search both internal and external storage for files? Take beautiful widgets, I have a ton of images on the ex sd card. When I launch the app to apply one of those images it looks in phone storage and gives no option to search the ex sd card.
Thanks

cordell12 said:
Just got my GS2 today and I must say this is the easiest phone I have rooted to date! I have been working my way around the OS and found that apps are not seeing my files on my External SD Card. Is there a way to sort of sync these? I guess I dont mean sync, but have apps search both internal and external storage for files? Take beautiful widgets, I have a ton of images on the ex sd card. When I launch the app to apply one of those images it looks in phone storage and gives no option to search the ex sd card.
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
easiest thing would to move everything to the internal sd card. i dont like how the phone sees SD card (internal) then from there i have to navigate to the folder called 'external sd' to look at my microSD files.

tool2269 said:
easiest thing would to move everything to the internal sd card. i dont like how the phone sees SD card (internal) then from there i have to navigate to the folder called 'external sd' to look at my microSD files.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Exactly, but what good is it to have an external card if the apps dont use it? If I have to move everything to the internal card, what can I put on the external card and be able to use/access? None of my apps recognize the external card, lol.

i use my external sdcard for music & movie business and use the internal for everything else. i sync back & forth between pc & cell a lot so having a CLEAN (aka, none of those extra android folders) sdcard makes browsing and syncing much easier, cleaner, and organized. also, without that android bloat i can tell exactly how much goodies i have just by looking at the size of external sdcard
ps: external sdcard is more or less just a subdir on the internal sdcard.... its /sdcard/external_sd if i remember correctly.

i just slap my movie files onto thte internal sd since i delete them afterwards... didnt realize 16 gb is a lot of space lol

I removed some movies from the internal memory but when i go to storage, the available free space is the same as when the movies where there. I held the movie file down and selected delete when the pop up menu came up.
Any suggestions to clear the inetrnal memory or do i need to format the usb storage which will delete everything from internal memory?
Thanks,
Ian B

16GB internal + SD card. How does it work?

how does Apps2SD work when you have internal memory and an SD Card?
If you don't have an SD card, do the apps go to internal Memory.
Just curious how this all works since my current phone doesn't have internal RAM.
What I would like to do is keep Music/videos in one storage and apps in the other.

Since the phone has 16GB storage on it, theres no reason to use App2SD at all. You can run all your apps off the phone's 16GB storage.
The 16GB (actually ~11.5GB) comes up as "USB Storage" in Settings > Storage if thats what your wondering.
An SD card will show up separately under SD Card. Though in a file manager, the 16GB onboard shows up as your storage, the SD card under an "external sd" folder

Treefallingquietly said:
how does Apps2SD work when you have internal memory and an SD Card?
If you don't have an SD card, do the apps go to internal Memory.
Just curious how this all works since my current phone doesn't have internal RAM.
What I would like to do is keep Music/videos in one storage and apps in the other.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I cant possibly see why anyone would still use Apps2SD with this amount of internal storage. Accessing apps from an external drive is so much slower.

Actually there is only 2 gb of storage for apps. The rest of the internal memory is for media and other files. If you choose to install to SD it will install to external SD card.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk

satur9ine said:
Actually there is only 2 gb of storage for apps. The rest of the internal memory is for media and other files. If you choose to install to SD it will install to external SD card.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes there is 2gbs for apps. If u use app2sd u can put the apps on the other internal partition thy has 11gb. Works for me when I tried it.
Sent From My Evo Killer!!!

strongsteve said:
I cant possibly see why anyone would still use Apps2SD with this amount of internal storage. Accessing apps from an external drive is so much slower.
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Click to collapse
This is good to know. So based on all the other comments, Apps go to the internal memory or the extended internal memory and I can keep music/video/books on SD.
thanks all.

Finally got hands on with phone. I noticed the internal memory is listed as USB storage but when I go to app management it doesn't give me the option to move apps out of ram to USB memory, just move to SD card.
What gives?

How do they get away with saying it's 16GB internal when it's actually 11.5GB?

Its pretty amazing how much this phone brings to the table... 1gig ram, 16gig internal storage.. this phone keeps.blowing me away, it really does. I am very impressed with samsung. I would be running roms on my evo and it didn't have enough ram to hold the contents of a web pagr if I multi tasked to xda. I would hold the home button and fast switch to the internet again and the browser would have to load it all over again instead of having enough ram to just keep it there. I'm inlove haha

IA-32e said:
How do they get away with saying it's 16GB internal when it's actually 11.5GB?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not exactly sure how it works but I think 2gig is partuined for apps and some more for the rom right?

This hasn't worked for me. Everytime I try to move apps to internal storage, it says that there is no sd card inserted, and I need to insert one.

Can some suggest a good way to use the memory?
The Incredible had 8GB internal but the phone was setup never to use it, except for pictures. Everything went on the SDcard. I bought the Incredible used and the guy did a full reset from with in Android but when I got it the internal memory was still full of pictures, unfortunately nothing X-rated or blackmailable.
The E4GT is just as *ssbackwards. In / you have an sdcard which is internal storage. In sdcard you have a link for ext_sd and usbStorage. I put my Music in usbStorage and no music app can find it. How crazy is that? I just want one sdcard link that actually goes to the sdcard, that I would use for Media. The internal sdcard memory used for /data and a home folder. Come on Samsung, doesn't that make more sense?

bluefire808 said:
I'm not exactly sure how it works but I think 2gig is partuined for apps and some more for the rom right?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok that makes sense.

gedster314 said:
Can some suggest a good way to use the memory?
The Incredible had 8GB internal but the phone was setup never to use it, except for pictures. Everything went on the SDcard. I bought the Incredible used and the guy did a full reset from with in Android but when I got it the internal memory was still full of pictures, unfortunately nothing X-rated or blackmailable.
The E4GT is just as *ssbackwards. In / you have an sdcard which is internal storage. In sdcard you have a link for ext_sd and usbStorage. I put my Music in usbStorage and no music app can find it. How crazy is that? I just want one sdcard link that actually goes to the sdcard, that I would use for Media. The internal sdcard memory used for /data and a home folder. Come on Samsung, doesn't that make more sense?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1. I too would love to know if there's a "best practice" for how to manage the storage memory on the EG4T. Should I just put all media in the onboard USB storage, and then only use my SD card as overflow, or are there certain things that might be better put on the SD card? I'm probably overthinking this, but I'd like to get a handle on this now while the device is new and I don't have much on it yet.

*** Bump ***

I have filled the internal sd with some games and have room on external sd how do I transfer aps from internal sd to external sd? I have searched found some things about a apk converter??? I love the 16gb internal but it is not enough for my needs. I did see the adb method to swap internal and external sd cards.

HappyFillmore said:
I have filled the internal sd with some games and have room on external sd how do I transfer aps from internal sd to external sd? I have searched found some things about a apk converter??? I love the 16gb internal but it is not enough for my needs. I did see the adb method to swap internal and external sd cards.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
look into darktremor apps2sd maybe? not claiming it works, just a suggestion

bluefire808 said:
I'm not exactly sure how it works but I think 2gig is partuined for apps and some more for the rom right?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The rom takes up about 3 gigs (just under) and 2 gigs are partitioned for apps. The rest is partitioned as USB Mass Storage (11.5) So 11.5+2+2.5 = 16, thats a rough estimate of how it breaks down anyways. The OS is usually between 2.5-3 gigs depending on how much the manufacturer adds to it. Stock Android is 2 gigs. Sammy doesnt add major bloat so it comes out to like 2.5 to 2.65 gigs. Motorola however usually comes out to 2.75-3 gigs. Which is why I like Sammy. ICS is about 3 gigs stock though, so remember that when you decide to upgrade to ICS later on. You'll be sacrificing memory on a device that wasnt built for it. Sammy added that extra memory for when ICS does come out, just in case. They were aware of the extra memory in ICS.

Storage

I have a few general and a few specific questions regarding storage:
1. Why did Samsung create 2 directories for internal storage? It has regular internal storage and "SD" storage but both are really internal storage. Why not just make one big partition and SD storage is actually your removable SD card (this is how it was on the OG EV) Someone please explain this to me if you know the answer.
2. On CM9 rom how do you save apps and their data to a external SD card? I'm trying to install a Gameloft game but it's saying I don't have enough space available which I certainly do.
3. On TW based ICS roms how do you save apps w/ data on the actual external sd card? Possibly planning on trying out Rujelus' rom so I'd like to know before hand.

SantinoInc said:
I have a few general and a few specific questions regarding storage:
1. Why did Samsung create 2 directories for internal storage? It has regular internal storage and "SD" storage but both are really internal storage. Why not just make one big partition and SD storage is actually your removable SD card (this is how it was on the OG EV) Someone please explain this to me if you know the answer.
2. On CM9 rom how do you save apps and their data to a external SD card? I'm trying to install a Gameloft game but it's saying I don't have enough space available which I certainly do.
3. On TW based ICS roms how do you save apps w/ data on the actual external sd card? Possibly planning on trying out Rujelus' rom so I'd like to know before hand.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The OG evo didnt have an emmc partition. It had internal storage dedicated to things like app storage, same as any other phone. You cant mount internal storage to your PC so combining these would be a waste of space.
You might be able to push game data from emmc to the sd card and they might still locate it but I have never tried as I never fill up my emmc, I just keep everything else on the sdcard. But worth a shot.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium

barnacles10 said:
The OG evo didnt have an emmc partition. It had internal storage dedicated to things like app storage, same as any other phone. You cant mount internal storage to your PC so combining these would be a waste of space.
You might be able to push game data from emmc to the sd card and they might still locate it but I have never tried as I never fill up my emmc, I just keep everything else on the sdcard. But worth a shot.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't quite get your reply but to make things easier for myself what is the best way to format the SDcard. I am talking about the internal SDcard not my actual removable micro SD card. I know there is an option in storage but I don't know what SD card its referring to.

SantinoInc said:
I don't quite get your reply but to make things easier for myself what is the best way to format the SDcard. I am talking about the internal SDcard not my actual removable micro SD card. I know there is an option in storage but I don't know what SD card its referring to.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just remove your external then hit the format option in storage. And if you move back to the fd16 kernel on cm9a3 you will be much happier with the way the storage is handled.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium

[Q] Move apps to the EXTERNAL SD card??

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.