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[Guide] Move more (most) apps to SD without root (Simplified)

SUroot

Extreme Android User
May 25, 2010
23,907
5,306
Riddlesden, West Yorkshire, UK
This guide is 5 steps. Please start at the beginning


There are 2 other threads for this, but over time the steps have been refined so this new guide gives the same result with minimum effort.

For reference the previous 2 guides are here:
http://androidforums.com/desire-tips-tricks/160560-force-apps-install-sd-without-root.html
http://androidforums.com/desire-tip...ed-device-noobs-guide-updated-09-02-11-a.html




Note*** This is for the HTC desire. This should work on most android 2.2+ devices (no 2.1 devices can do this) but you will need your own devices drivers. For HTC devices, HTC Sync provides these.

Feel free to ask questions about this process here if you do not have a desire, but other than confirming you have at least Android 2.2, I will not know any more than you do about your device specific issues.


1) download and install htc sync



2) download sdk and extract to C:\



  • Double click the zip file once downloaded and drag the "android-sdk-windows" folder (contained within) to your C: drive

*** Note, the provided download is designed to work with this guide. The SDK has changed the path since so if you already downloaded the SDK, you can either keep with that and amend the instructions to reflect your path, or just download the supplied files.



3) Connect your phone by USB (you may need to test with USB and Charge only modes)


4) Open command prompt (in Windows)


  • Go to Start > Run
  • Type "Cmd" and press OK


5) In the black window:


  • Type "cd\android-sdk-windows\tools" and press enter (or platform-tools if you have adb in there)
  • Then Type "adb shell" and press enter
  • Then Type "pm setInstallLocation 2" and press enter

Further notes***

This will not move apps that are already installed. It changes the default install location to the SD card so newly installed apps should install to that location. To move apps you already have installed, download "Apps2sd" from the market. This will go through all apps that can be moved and allow you to press the "Move to SD" button for each, sequentially.

For some people this will not install apps to the SD card, but still allow those apps to be moved manually. Keep an eye on this.

If it doesn't work for you the first time. Try toggling usb debugging to the opposite of what it is currently set to. If it still fails, toggle back again.

 
Done!!
Had to run HTC Sync (Doh)
then had to connect the phone to use HTC Sync, come out of debug mode, then back into it
While in the command prompt, you'll know its working as it will say
*daemon started successfully*
$ pm setInstallLocation 2
then the cursor will flash on a blank line, which is where you type the last instruction
then after pressing enter, the next new line will just show $
 
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I've got
C:\android-sdk-windows\tools>
when typing "pm setInstallLocation 2
its then saying 'pm' is not recognised as an internal or external command,operable program or batch file
Any ideas?

At the prompt C:\android-sdk-windows\tools> you should type "adb shell" then you should have a different prompt. Thats where you type pm blah blah
 
Upvote 0
Thanks SURoot and Duv.

Me and a guy a work with just did this and it worked fine for mine, but his one had the same issue as Duv's where it wouldn't install, so we did what Duv suggested and turned debug off and back on which then allowed it to install :cool:

One thing I should point out to anyone else trying this - don't think it will just move everything itself, because it doesn't. I'll admit I was sitting there for a minute after installing the hack / edit waiting for it to begin, until I worked out that it allows you to manually move apps to the SD card that were previously blocked from moving.

This is where:

It will not,. You will have to move those. You can download "Apps2sd" from teh market and instead of going through each one, it will present you with the move to sd screen for each app in sequence. You still have to press the "move to SD" button for each, but saves a lot of time.

Comes in useful..

Just don't try and move everything to SD as some items need to be left on the phone disk to work properly - especially widgets such as Tasks lists, System Info Widget etc. ;)
 
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Upvote 0
Just done the official 2.3 update and trying to do this again but having trouble.I'm getting two things, first saying "device not found" however I set the connection type also another line saying the adb is out of date then says killing...
I did it before on Froyo with no probs. Any ideas? Thanks.
 
Upvote 0
Go Launcher cannot be moved to SD and shouldn't be even if it could. Any application that needs to run on start up will not run from SD card as the SD card is mounted last in the boot process.

If you moved a launcher that was not explicity designed to be on SD card, you would have no launcher at start which would render thelauncher useless.

@ Mite_jan. Not all apps no. More than default, yes - as per the title of the thread. You cannot move system apps (apps that were pre-installed that you didnt install yourself).
 
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Suroot how much free internal space do you have and what os are you running

curently i have 24mb free :thinking:

and i have around 20mb in phone only area (5 applications) watching this through app2sd

i am running the cm 7.0.3 mod

what do you think it is eating my internal space ? (i have a lot of themes but they are all in the sd card)
maybe some downloads through skyfire or else
 
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