Limited Storage Workaround - Samsung Galaxy A21s Questions & Answers

Hi All,
I've got an A21S for my Daughter and she's unable to properly use the SD Card for app storage are there any ROMs which allow moving apps to the SDCard.
Tia

Why is she doing that?
What's taking up all the internal storage space?
She should store data, music, movies, images, etc on the SD card not in the internal memory.

The SD Card won't format as internal storage it only formats as external so we can't move the apps to it. The only thing you can store in the SDCard is photos which makes it kind of pointless.
I read the Samsung forum and it's a known issue. I just wondered if there's a ROM that will do away with this limitation they've suggested putting it into Dev mode and allowing adoptable storage but I'd rather just install a ROM that doesn't have this silly limitation.
Thanks
blackhawk said:
Why is she doing that?
What's taking up all the internal storage space?
She should store data, music, movies, images, etc on the SD card not in the internal memory.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
blackhawk said:
Why is she doing that?
What's taking up all the internal storage space?
She should store data, music, movies, images, etc on the SD card not in the internal memory.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

mashed said:
The SD Card won't format as internal storage it only formats as external so we can't move the apps to it. The only thing you can store in the SDCard is photos which makes it kind of pointless.
I read the Samsung forum and it's a known issue. I just wondered if there's a ROM that will do away with this limitation they've suggested putting it into Dev mode and allowing adoptable storage but I'd rather just install a ROM that doesn't have this silly limitation.
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's far from pointless.
Just like on a PC you use the faster bus/memory of the internal memory for the apps as they benefit most from it.
The SD card is best suited for use as a data drive, not the primary drive as it's memory/bus speeds are substantially slower.
Music, pics, vids, documents, backups and downloads should be kept here.
The size of the internal memory defines how many apps you can or can't load.
You need at least 1gb headroom preferably 2gb or more.
My internal memory holds about 20gb including the Download folder. I have a fair amount of apps loaded including 4 browsers, 3 of which are heavily used.
My SD card holds 335gb of data.
Unfortunately she has outgrown that phone. Consider using less or lighter apps to regain the headroom you need.
These are lessons I learned the hard way about settings up a platform long ago in my XPx64 days. For a phone my minimum now is 128gb internal (preferabley more) and an SD card is mandatory.

Related

[Q] App storage

I'm really confused after reading through a post. The poster stated that there was only around 1.75mb available for app storage. Is this phone really handicapped down to under 2 gigs for app storage? If so, that's sad. It'll be returned before I even open the box. Two large size games and you're out of storage.
kiltedthrower said:
I'm really confused after reading through a post. The poster stated that there was only around 1.75mb available for app storage. Is this phone really handicapped down to under 2 gigs for app storage? If so, that's sad. It'll be returned before I even open the box. Two large size games and you're out of storage.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I answered you other post. It really does have a ton of storage! That is GB not MB All the preinstalled stuff proabably took it from around 2 GB down to the 1.75GB that someone mentioned. Hell you can put a 64GB micro SD card into it and download as many games as you want!
I haven't gotten a chance to play with it much yet, but if it's the same thing as my Skyrocket, it'll be around 2gb for system storage, and 11.25gb for internal storage. Apps will be stored in system storage, while app data will be stored in internal storage. Even large game executables will be a max of what...50mb?
planoman said:
I answered you other post. It really does have a ton of storage! That is GB not MB All the preinstalled stuff proabably took it from around 2 GB down to the 1.75GB that someone mentioned. Hell you can put a 64GB micro SD card into it and download as many games as you want!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think this is what is getting me. I have an LG thrill right now. I have a 32 gig SD card and I can't move actual games to the external SD card (the one taht you buy at the store taht you store pics and videos on).
But on the Thrill I have 6 gigs to move apps to.
tenderchkn said:
I haven't gotten a chance to play with it much yet, but if it's the same thing as my Skyrocket, it'll be around 2gb for system storage, and 11.25gb for internal storage. Apps will be stored in system storage, while app data will be stored in internal storage. Even large game executables will be a max of what...50mb?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, most yes. But I have some Gameloft games that take from anywhere from a half a gig to a full gig.
I think you have about 11gb free for songs, music, etc.
droidal said:
I think you have about 11gb free for songs, music, etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's much better. That I can deal with.
"One of the plagues of using Google’s Android platform was the inability to install Android apps and games to the SD Card versus internal memory storage; with the official announcement of Android 2.2 this feature will come standard. By default, apps will continue to be installed on internal memory storage, however a quick visit to the list of applications in the Settings menu offers one touch to move the app to SD Card. Thus they are playable just fine from the SD Card. Now user storage for apps and games will only be limited to the storage of the SD Card purchased."
droidal said:
"One of the plagues of using Google’s Android platform was the inability to install Android apps and games to the SD Card versus internal memory storage; with the official announcement of Android 2.2 this feature will come standard. By default, apps will continue to be installed on internal memory storage, however a quick visit to the list of applications in the Settings menu offers one touch to move the app to SD Card. Thus they are playable just fine from the SD Card. Now user storage for apps and games will only be limited to the storage of the SD Card purchased."
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not true of all devices running 2.2 or above. My Thrill won't move any apps to the external SD card. I bought a 32 gig just for this purpose...to have plenty of space. The move was limited to the devices app storage (around 6 gigs).

Q. internal & mounted sd cards

is it possible to swap the internal & mounted sd cards so that i can make better use of the available space on my 32gb external card rather than be limited to the 8ish gb currently in use?
i've tried directory bind - which seems like the long way round the houses.
put simply: can i allocate the mounted/3rd party card as the primary sd?
gascomm said:
is it possible to swap the internal & mounted sd cards so that i can make better use of the available space on my 32gb external card rather than be limited to the 8ish gb currently in use?
i've tried directory bind - which seems like the long way round the houses.
put simply: can i allocate the mounted/3rd party card as the primary sd?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, maybe it is but then it will work badly, you must just manage e.g. all your apps on the internal ROM, Music and Videos on your ex_sd and Documents & Downloads on your in_sd, I can't imagine you have problems with that much storage. I have a 32GB ext_sd too and I have got it like this:
EX_SD: 30GB Music and 2GB Data (ROM ZIP's etc.)
IN_SD: 4GB Ringtones, Data, Pictures etc.
Internal Storage: 820MB Apps
I hope my information was helpful
@DonUber
helpful, thanks. i've torrents & ftp'd music & films on the external card which is i guess always going to be the biggest type of memory hog.
just curious what is possible. i've gotten used to single large drives on pc's & although rarely an issue on a rooted phone the very concept of receiving a low memory warning seems daft in the 21st century

sd card question

how the heck can i move my apps to my sd card?? i run the app App 2 SD and all it does is move my apps from phone storage (internal) to the phones (''sd card'') i cant move google chrome, google+, facebook, adobe...all fairly large apps. when i look at apps under settings > apps, the only options i have is to move it to phone storage or internal storage. im pretty lost
Linch89 said:
how the heck can i move my apps to my sd card?? i run the app App 2 SD and all it does is move my apps from phone storage (internal) to the phones (''sd card'') i cant move google chrome, google+, facebook, adobe...all fairly large apps. when i look at apps under settings > apps, the only options i have is to move it to phone storage or internal storage. im pretty lost
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you may need root.
don't hold me to that though
thats what i was thinking but i wasnt trying to talk out of my rear end ah well at least i can still store my music and pics on my sd card...without root a 32gb card seems pretty extreme doncha think? without all the nandroids and roms lol
Linch89 said:
how the heck can i move my apps to my sd card?? i run the app App 2 SD and all it does is move my apps from phone storage (internal) to the phones (''sd card'') i cant move google chrome, google+, facebook, adobe...all fairly large apps. when i look at apps under settings > apps, the only options i have is to move it to phone storage or internal storage. im pretty lost
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
know i don't know if this will work with apps but it work for photos, i opened the phone's card and long pressed on the ones i wanted to move and selected the option-move to, and transfered photos from phone card to sdcard. i did this with es file explorer. from the phones card not the internal storage or memory wharever it's called
Tried using es file explorer and my sd card didn't even show up. This is what it looks like in disk usage
The storage card is the phones hard drive I think (it's 8 gbs right? And we can't use all 8?)
The /mnt/sdcard/ext_sd is my 32 gig sd card. But when I move my apps it goes to internal storage
Linch89 said:
Tried using es file explorer and my sd card didn't even show up. This is what it looks like in disk usage
The storage card is the phones hard drive I think (it's 8 gbs right? And we can't use all 8?)
The /mnt/sdcard/ext_sd is my 32 gig sd card. But when I move my apps it goes to internal storage
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you tried plugging in phone to computer and dragging and droping from one drive to the other, just a suggestion, don't know if it will work
I'll try that after work thanks boss
Aldo101t said:
Have you tried plugging in phone to computer and dragging and droping from one drive to the other, just a suggestion, don't know if it will work
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
We established this in another thread about a month ago. With the introduction of Android 4.0, Google decided to change the way mounts work in Android. Google, assuming that microSD card would be phased out in the introduction of larger capacity internal storage phones without microSD slots, decided to make the internal eMMC storage be named 'sdcard', since most apps already used the 'sdcard' location for saving data, and name a real SD card 'sdcard2', also reachable by a folder in 'sdcard' name 'sd_ext'.
The largest phone out there right now that I know of has 64GB total of internal storage, while phones like ours only have 8GB total, with about half being taken up by the system, necessitating the usage of a real SD card for storage. The /data partition on our phone only has about 1GB available, and a dozen medium-sized apps and their data will use that up quickly. In short, there's no way to install apps to the real SD card since ICS, and once your eMMC 'sdcard' fills up, you're out of luck. A large oversight, in my opinion, by Google and HTC.
If our phone had 16GB of internal storage, we might not have that problem nearly as quickly, but games like DEAD Trigger, which is nearly 200MB, will quickly fill up our phone.
Basically, pick and choose the apps you want carefully, and keep the eMMC 'sdcard' partition as empty as possible, aside from your larger apps.
Aldo101t said:
Have you tried plugging in phone to computer and dragging and droping from one drive to the other, just a suggestion, don't know if it will work
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When you move an app to 'Phone storage', it saves in the eMMC internal storage '/sdcard/.android_secure/' folder as a '.asec' file. In my testing, if you move it to actual SD card, that is '/sdcard2/.android_secure/', it won't recognize it. It displays 'Application not installed' when clicking on the app to run it. The Android system saves the pointer to the apk, whether it's saved in '/data/app' or '/sdcard/.android_secure/', and that's the only place it will look for it. You can't move it to the real SD card unless someone else has found a workaround, and I haven't heard of it if the have. I'll find the link to our previous discussion and post it.
IceDragon59 said:
We established this in another thread about a month ago. With the introduction of Android 4.0, Google decided to change the way mounts work in Android. Google, assuming that microSD card would be phased out in the introduction of larger capacity internal storage phones without microSD slots, decided to make the internal eMMC storage be named 'sdcard', since most apps already used the 'sdcard' location for saving data, and name a real SD card 'sdcard2', also reachable by a folder in 'sdcard' name 'sd_ext'.
The largest phone out there right now that I know of has 64GB total of internal storage, while phones like ours only have 8GB total, with about half being taken up by the system, necessitating the usage of a real SD card for storage. The /data partition on our phone only has about 1GB available, and a dozen medium-sized apps and their data will use that up quickly. In short, there's no way to install apps to the real SD card since ICS, and once your eMMC 'sdcard' fills up, you're out of luck. A large oversight, in my opinion, by Google and HTC.
If our phone had 16GB of internal storage, we might not have that problem nearly as quickly, but games like DEAD Trigger, which is nearly 200MB, will quickly fill up our phone.
Basically, pick and choose the apps you want carefully, and keep the eMMC 'sdcard' partition as empty as possible, aside from your larger apps.
When you move an app to 'Phone storage', it saves in the eMMC internal storage '/sdcard/.android_secure/' folder as a '.asec' file. In my testing, if you move it to actual SD card, that is '/sdcard2/.android_secure/', it won't recognize it. It displays 'Application not installed' when clicking on the app to run it. The Android system saves the pointer to the apk, whether it's saved in '/data/app' or '/sdcard/.android_secure/', and that's the only place it will look for it. You can't move it to the real SD card unless someone else has found a workaround, and I haven't heard of it if the have. I'll find the link to our previous discussion and post it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
okey dokey, maybe after root we can do something with it.
Has anyone tried a 64 GB card with this phone? I jumped the gun and bought one for $44 because they work in the Incredible 2.
itll work for media like pics and music I think. Thanks for all the info. I'm new to this phone and also official ICS
bberryhill0 said:
Has anyone tried a 64 GB card with this phone? I jumped the gun and bought one for $44 because they work in the Incredible 2.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1841317

App Storage?

I have a TS with 8 GB internal memory and have installed a 32 GB micro-sd card. If I look at my "storage" setting, it indicates that I hav 1.27GB TOTAL "Internal" storage, 4.91 GB "Phone" storage and 29.3 GB "SD" card storage. My "internal" storage is almost completely filled with apps, whereas my "phone" storage and "SD" card storage are almost empty.
It looks like all apps are being loaded to "internal" storage. Not sure the difference between that and "Phone" storage. My watch will no longer let me download apps because the "internal" storage is full. Is it possible to direct the storage to the"Phone" storage? I can;t find a setting for that anywhere.
Internal- where the apps go
Phone- where music, pics and such go
SDCard- where music, pics and such go
I had suggest a long time ago that internal be made larger or that internal and phone be made converted into internal only and require an SDCard. Almost nobody wanted this.
Lokifish Marz said:
Internal- where the apps go
Phone- where music, pics and such go
SDCard- where music, pics and such go
I had suggest a long time ago that internal be made larger or that internal and phone be made converted into internal only and require an SDCard. Almost nobody wanted this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well that sucks......Time to delete some apps I guess..
Have you tried an app like "apk2sd" to move as much from internal to SD card ? I am sorry I cannot remember the name exactly, I have not used such since I retired my Droid3.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
Problem with apps2SD is that if he factory resets the watch, the apps and data are still on the SD card but the watch won't know that. It's like you deleting a shortcut but not uninstalling the app.

Question Moving Apps to the SD Card

How can I move some apps to the SD Card?
On the Samsung I moved from, you could move a lot of the apps to the SD Card, which helped with saving space. But on the Sony, none of these same apps show an option to move them to the SD card under the Apps settings.
You have 256gb of internal storage, right?
How could run out of internal storage with an SD card too?
Apps and download folder(and maybe the dcim folder) goes on internal memory.
All critical data goes on the SD card, the data drive.
Otherwise you will cause issues...
blackhawk said:
You have 256gb of internal storage, right?
How could run out of internal storage with an SD card too?
Apps and download folder(and maybe the dcim folder) goes on internal memory.
All critical data goes on the SD card, the data drive.
Otherwise you will cause issues...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can do this on the older Samsung phones with a lot of the apps. You can move the installation to the SD Card. I had lots that I'd moved on the last Samsung I had, never had any issues.
At the moement, I've used 43GB of internal storage and I haven't finished installing all the apps I use yet, or any games.
dbman2023 said:
You can do this on the older Samsung phones with a lot of the apps. You can move the installation to the SD Card. I had lots that I'd moved on the last Samsung I had, never had any issues.
At the moement, I've used 43GB of internal storage and I haven't finished installing all the apps I use yet, or any games.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's all apps? Leave at least 10% headroom on the internal memory.
I can't understand how you used up so much storage space.
blackhawk said:
That's all apps? Leave at least 10% headroom on the internal memory.
I can't understand how you used up so much storage space.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's new, no data/photos/music/videos on the internal storage.
Apps are currently 18GB. The rest is System - 25GB.
dbman2023 said:
It's new, no data/photos/music/videos on the internal storage.
Apps are currently 18GB. The rest is System - 25GB.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What's the internal memory size?
All my apps and system are using less than 100gb. I'm still running on Android 9, no scoped storage so that helps.
blackhawk said:
What's the internal memory size?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
12GB memory, 256GB internal storage
dbman2023 said:
12GB memory, 256GB internal storage
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Click to collapse
That should be more than enough even with scoped storage unless you got social media app hogs, ditch that trashware!
blackhawk said:
That should be more than enough even with scoped storage unless you got social media app hogs, ditch that trashware!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I use a lot of social media but no social media managers.
dbman2023 said:
I use a lot of social media but no social media managers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You see what's using the space up. Social media apps are malware. If you must you them, sales or banking apps use browser login only through good browser like Brave.
The space they are hogging has better uses...
You can move (moveable) apps to MicroSD Card only if the OEM supports that feature, which is very unlikely for a Samsung or Sony flagship due performance reasons. It requires you to format the MicroSD Card as internal aka Adoptable Storage.
If you don't have this option, you can try from cmd line.
https://jimcofer.com/2016/03/10/marshmallow-lg-and-adoptable-storage
blackhawk said:
You see what's using the space up. Social media apps are malware. If you must you them, sales or banking apps use browser login only through good browser like Brave.
The space they are hogging has better uses...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've not actually got around to installing those yet! Unavoidable, as I need to use them.
dbman2023 said:
I've not actually got around to installing those yet! Unavoidable, as I need to use them.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So you got have around 150gb of free space on internal, right? Lol, unless Sony has more bloatware than Samsung which be hard to do

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