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Help Move to SD card option greyed out

RubenMotoG

Lurker
Dec 31, 2014
1
0
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I have an unrooted Moto G LTE version with sd-card slot and android 4.4.4. The phone says it can move apps to the SD card, but the option is greyed out. How can I move the apps to the SD card?
 
Your second screenshot suggests that some of your apps have been moved, so I'm assuming that the function does work for some apps but not all.

Most recent Android phones don't have this option at all. Where it exists, it will only be available for some user-installed apps and no pre-installed ones. The app developer determines whether they want their app to be moveable or not. Since so many phones don't have this option I'd not be surprised if a smaller fraction of apps allow this now than used to be the case.

There used to be a trick for setting the default install location to SD, which would let you move more apps. It involved enabling USB debugging, installing ADB on a computer, connecting the phone then on the computer typing the command "
adb shell pm set-install-location 2". If you want to undo it, repeat the procedure but replace the "2" with "0" (or "1" - one of them is "set to phone", the other is "auto", but I can't recall which is which). I've not tried this since Gingerbread, but it probably still works. That will let you move more apps, but not all. Remember that if you use an app's widget you should not move it to the external SD card, as that will break the widget (if not immediately then the next time you reboot). Also apps installed after doing this will be installed directly to SD, so if you don't want them there (e.g. because of widgets) you need to move them to the phone.
 
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Without being rooted there's not much you can do. Apps2sd is useless without being rooted. If you are rooted you can run the kit Kat SD card fix which then allows you to write to the SD card. Then you have to partition your SD card into 2 folders. Thats the only way you can do it on kit Kat to get all your apps onto an SD card.
 
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