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Help moving to SD card

DWFII

Well-Known Member
Jul 6, 2016
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ᴡᴡᴡ.dwfii.sexy17.ru
I have over 8GB free on my SD card. Yet when I try to move a downloaded app such as Image2Wallpaper (approx. 9MB) to the SD card I get a message saying there isn't enough storage space.

Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

(PS...Under Application Manager, I see a number of apps that are supposed to be on the SD card yet drilling down none appear to actually be using an SD card. When I look at storage under settings, I see I have 11+GB of USB storage and about 8Gb of that free, but under SD storage it says "mount" SD card and "insert SD card." Do I actually have SD storage?

If not, can the Galaxy SII 4G have an SD card added?
 
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You have to put an SD card in the device yourself.
Maybe I'm misreading what you stated but it sounds like you never installed an SD card into the phone.


Well, I inherited the phone from my daughter...so I suspect you're right--it doesn't have an SD card.

Can I put an SD card in this phone and how big can I go?
 
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so...I learned today that Android doesn't allow you to move apps to the SD card. What's that about?!
On Marshmallow you can now use your SD card as system storage so you indeed can. On older phones, you cant move the entire file to the SD card but you can put it partially onto the SD card. You can't do this with all apps. Some developers don't allow for apps to be stored on SD.
 
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Actually, installation apk files can be deleted right after you install them to your phone successfully. The apk files are useless after installation and deleting them can help you save device storage.
I don't suggest you move apps to the SD card. Generally speaking, so-called moving apps to SD card is not a good idea, because most documents that support the basic performance of an app have to be stored on internal storage, and moving apps to SD card will separate these folders and documents according to an order you will never understand, which will cause future difficulty managing them and cause even missing data.
An Android management app or software is a must for Android devices. You can use them to regular check through your device and remove unnecessary files, including installation apk files, from your device.
You are absolutely wrong about storing apps to SD and no one has asked anything about apk's.
 
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An Android management app or software is a must for Android devices. You can use them to regular check through your device and remove unnecessary files, including installation apk files, from your device.

You are absolutely wrong about storing apps to SD and no one has asked anything about apk's.

Well, I might be interested in deleting apk's --the whole issue is to free up some space. That was going to be my next question but I have been trying to figured out how to ask it without listing ever damn file on my phone...ie: which files / apps can I delete and which are essential to the OS?

So...what is a good Android management app? And will it identify non essentials for me?
 
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The native move apps to sdcard function was introduced in v2.2 Froyo (frozen yogurt). It has only improved from there. The issue is this has to be integrated into the app at the development level. If a developer feels that migrating their app to the sdcard could potentially break it, of course they will exclude this function.

Last bit of advice. Jelly Bean is not a good place to be at this point. I assume this is your SII. You seem interested in learning the ins and outs of Android. If you would like to extend the life of your device, let me know.

Edit: I'm referring to less than conventional means ie. Custom ROM.
 
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Edit: I'm referring to less than conventional means ie. Custom ROM.

Leaving aside the fact that I am 70 years old and this is my first phone inherited from my daughter, and I'm not likely to ever be as attached or involved with it as much as younger folks, I am not sure, either, why JellyBean is "not good." It seems "sufficient unto the day."

That said, rom..."read only memory"...wouldn't that be a chip that would physically need to be pried out of the phone and replaced?

What advantages would a Custom Rom bring to the table?

And what are the chances of bricking (?) / breaking the phone?
 
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ROM, is technically incorrect, and it is a misnomer in the Android world. A better term is firmware. Not software not hardware, somewhere in between. Replaceable. It is the version of Android, the user interface. An upgrade. Basically, the OEM's and more so the Carriers decide eventually to stop support for a device. After all, they would rather you buy new as often as possible. So with no more upgrades a device will eventually become deprecated.
Hence the birth of the Android Development community.
I had an SII, that I passed down coincidentally. It is currently running Marshmallow, three full versions ahead of yours.
You may start to encounter problems with security certs when Browsing and unusual battery drain due to the demands of newer apps. Not sure if you are familiar with Windows computers but you are basically running XP. Soon to become obsolete. No, you are never too old.
And yes there is some risk, but everything worth while seems that way as well.

Ninja'd
 
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The jargon is misleading: the android OS + system apps are often collectively referred to as a ROM because the user cannot modify these. The system can though (through an OS update), so it's not truely a ROM, and physically it will be part of the same storage chip as the rest of the internal storage.

The only problems with JellyBean at this point are (a) there will be some apps which aren't compatible with the older OS (only a problem if you need to run that app and can't find an alternative), and (b) there won't be any more security updates (true for any device once it reaches the end of its update cycle - which with some budget devices is the moment you buy it - and only a problem if you encounter malware that uses an old exploit). A custom ROM might give you access to a newer OS version plus other customisations, but you would need to jump through a few hoops and gain a decent knowledge before installing one. I always advise people to learn what's involved rather than jumping in blindly following some recipe. Risks of bricking are low as long as homework done first.

The SD confusion is that your SII is using an old and odd storage model. Originally Android had a /data partition (internal storage, used for apps) and a physical SD card. When manufacturers started adding significant internal storage they originally partitioned that into /data and /sdcard, where /sdcard was the larger partition and could be used the way the actual SD card was used on older devices. Then if people put an actual SD card in that had a different mount point (name varied). This is the setup that your SII uses. Subsequently (with Android 4) a "unified" storage model was introduced, where the entire internal storage (apart from the space used by OS and firmware) could be addressed as either /data or /sdcard, allowing the whole space to be used for apps, data or media in any ratio (with the legacy names kept to allow legacy apps, which had this hard-coded, to still work). However, although your SII is running 4.1.2 the storage model was not changed for the SII because doing that would have erased all apps and data on the phone, which would be unpopular with users who received such an update (and would not expect that to happen). From this thread it seems that the "move to SD" function on your phone will only move to a real SD card (which would make sense for a phone using the unified model, since /data and /sdcard would be the same space and there would be no point moving from one to the other!).
 
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Leaving aside the fact that I am 70 years old and this is my first phone inherited from my daughter, and I'm not likely to ever be as attached or involved with it as much as younger folks, I am not sure, either, why JellyBean is "not good." It seems "sufficient unto the day."

That said, rom..."read only memory"...wouldn't that be a chip that would physically need to be pried out of the phone and replaced?

What advantages would a Custom Rom bring to the table?

And what are the chances of bricking (?) / breaking the phone?
He is referring to rooting (administrator access) and putting a custom operating system(ROM) onto it.


Unless you are rooted you shouldn't be able to unistall anything that is vital to your device (system files and tye like).
 
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I'm a couple of decades give or take a few years younger than you DWFII and I still don't understand this ROM thing. All I know is it can be done. It voids your warranty, And if you do it wrong you could,maybe, brick your device. But all the kids are doing it so it must be okay. Once you have an actual MicroSD card inserted on your S2 (I wish I hadn't sold mine) you will see apps on it. :)

Welcome to the Android Forums. Love your avatar. Bet there's a story there.
 
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Why is Jellybean not good at this point? My Tab 4 is on Jellybean and is running perfectly fine.

I have seen a lot of problems with battery drain and other problems related to the newest versions of the Play Store and other apps. Not to mention security updates. It is a very competent system though.

Can't stay on XP for ever. Eventually have to but new or switch to Linux to stay current;)

Edit: Man, that'll teach me not to proof read.;)

Well, @DWFII as you can tell, there are clearly two different schools of thought. Ultimately the device is yours. What you do with it is up to you. I didn't mean to confuse that fact.
 
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MacQueen...or really MacSuibhne(MacQueen is a more modern pronunciation). [Oldest still standing stone castle in Scotland is Castle Sween on Loch Sween.]

I ran this phone and these issues by a so called "expert" (sells and sets up phones) and he told me I did have an sd card installed.

And in fact, there are a half a dozen apps that register as being on the sd card but as mentioned, several of those I tried to move to the sd card and while they show up as being on the sd card, they are using zero bytes. Booking.com and Translate (which does Scots gaelic) seem to be fairly installed on the sd card but Pandora and several others (Whoscall and Image2Wallpaper) are not. The show but use no space.

Maybe most confusing...although I didn't try to move it...not even Google photos, which shows up as being on the card, is using any space--zero point zero zeroB.

The battery on the SII is not all that great but it will hold a charge most of the day...as long as I'm not messing with the interface or set up a lot.

As for "staying on XP" (I'm on Win7 x64 and not moving to 10) I am trying to sell some stuff (high end fly-fishing equipment) so that I can upgrade my phone...mostly for the better camera. Fixed income--SS.
 
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