• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

move apps to sd without rooting

spectrainc

Lurker
Jul 4, 2010
1
0
if u can complete the following steps u can then move most of your apps to the sd card .
i am able to now move most of my apps to the sd card .
its easy
if u have froyo then its even easier .
all other firmwares will also work .

I just spent 20mins figuring this out.
-Go here
--http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html
and get the SDK for your OS
-Once you download it, unzip it to its own folder, I put it off C:\
-Run the SDK Setup.exe
-Click available Packages, on left, install all the packages for froyo 2.2. or your os /Although I do suspect that we only need the USB driver, which is at the very bottom.
It will take forever to install.
After it's done installing, I Clicked on Installed Packages, and update all.

Not done yet.
check that the phone is set up to allow debugging via USB (Settings⇒Applications⇒Development⇒USB debugging)
Plug in your phone
Windows will fail to install the driver.
Go in device manager and and update the newly Yellowed entry, the driver is in:
C:\android-sdk_r06-windows\android-sdk-windows\usb_driver or your original downloaded location
The driver should install

then open command prompt in windows .(type cmd in run line or click start and look for run )
and type
cd C:\android-sdk_r06-windows\android-sdk-windows\tools or where ever your original sdk is unzipped .

and then type

> adb devices

if you see a serial number starting with an "H" that means you got things working, now do the following:

> adb shell pm setInstallLocation 2

This command will push ALL apps to your sd card .
you will see that the button for move to sd card will now not be grayed out and u will be able to move apps now to sd card .

to reverse the above type

> adb shell pm setInstallLocation 0

this should work
 
As far as I know this only works for Froyo (Android 2.2) and basically overrides the app developer specifying whether the app can be installed to SD or not. Sure there may be some apps that have not been updated to work with Froyo but for the majority if it doesn't install to the SD there is normally a good reason as explained here. So I would strongly advise against this.
 
Upvote 0
Sounds good but to complicated for me.
I'm sure I read some were that froyo will sort this out anyway or was I misinformed ?

Yes and no. FroYo does indeed support apps installed on the SD card, however, the developer must modify the app to permit it. The default location is still the phone's internal memory.

You can, however, change the default location to the SD card which will install a good many more apps to the SD card.

How to Install Apps to the SD Card by Default on Android 2.2 Froyo | larsa | Androinica

That said, as with any "hacks", there are caveats. Widgets and active services should always be on the phone's internal memory to function correctly, so make sure they are installed there, or if not, you manually put them there.

You should also note that installing a great many apps to the SD card will make mounting and unmounting the SD card, and rebooting the phone take longer.
 
Upvote 0

BEST TECH IN 2023

We've been tracking upcoming products and ranking the best tech since 2007. Thanks for trusting our opinion: we get rewarded through affiliate links that earn us a commission and we invite you to learn more about us.

Smartphones