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How to move apps to sd card on an unrooted device: A noobs guide. **Updated 09/02/11**

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As I may have made clear already... I am a total noob! But ill ask anyway :p



You can run linux on an HTC Desire? :O

PS: Why in hell would you want to?

lol! Let me be clearer, sorry. I meant to say: Is there a guide for people who are running a linux operating system (e.g. Ubuntu) on their personal computer that will allow them to move all of their apps to their SD Card on their HTC Desire, as the above instructions are only valid for Windows users.

Anyway, it doesn't matter, as I booted up Windows to do it and it worked fine. Thanks for the help! Now I can move Need For Speed to the SD Card and save myself 40mb!!!! :D
 
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it's not going too well for me lol
my next problem:

f4qwsw.jpg


Ive got all the drivers downloaded, i ended up downloading all the updates on sdk.. dont know what to do now ..
 
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Thanks a lot for this great post William!

I'm a noob too and this only took me like 10 minutes and it was very straight forward.


I've now got the original T-mobile Froyo 2.2 on my unrooted phone and pretty much all apps can be moved to my 16 GB class 6 SD card thanks to your little trick above, so i can finally start enjoying the phone for real now :)
 
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I plan to do this tonight, so just to be clear. After this I can move all my existing apps to the SD card - except those that have use widgets on any of the home screens as these won't work (such as National Rail and Facebook for example). Then all new apps will go straight to the memory card and any new widgets from these will operate form the SD card and not the phone memory?
 
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I plan to do this tonight, so just to be clear. After this I can move all my existing apps to the SD card - except those that have use widgets on any of the home screens as these won't work (such as National Rail and Facebook for example). Then all new apps will go straight to the memory card and any new widgets from these will operate form the SD card and not the phone memory?

Spot on.

- But you can technically move widgets to sd, its just not advisable.
- And yes, so if you then later go and install a widget it will go onto the sd card automatically, but it isn't a problem as you simply click move to phone in settings once installed instead of move to sd card and the problem will be solved.
 
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it's not going too well for me lol
my next problem:

f4qwsw.jpg


Ive got all the drivers downloaded, i ended up downloading all the updates on sdk.. dont know what to do now ..

The picture shows the phone isn't connected properly. Does it complete an HTC sync? Is usb debugging enabled and on, and is it in sync / charge only mode?
 
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The picture shows the phone isn't connected properly. Does it complete an HTC sync? Is usb debugging enabled and on, and is it in sync / charge only mode?

it doesn't connect to htc sync, hence my earlier post :) i went ahead and tried when i read your reply..

it's in sync mode when i connect and usb debugging is on..

So looks like i have to get this htc sync problem sorted :(
 
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it doesn't connect to htc sync, hence my earlier post :) i went ahead and tried when i read your reply..

it's in sync mode when i connect and usb debugging is on..

So looks like i have to get this htc sync problem sorted :(

yup sounds like it. As the method you tried seems fine to me, so most likely once you get that sorted this method will work fine :)
 
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If I wanted to change to another SD card later, can I just copy everything from the one card to the other?

where are the apps saved on the sd card? somewhere inside the android folders??

Don't quite know where they are saved, but I wouldn't think it would matter as just copy every folder on the sd card onto the new one and I'd have thought that would work just fine.
 
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Ok, just one thing, i have noticed that some apps are still installing on the internal memory and i have to move them across, yet other apps are installing direct to the sd card, is this correct???

Thanks

Pete :thinking:

P.S i have apps2sd installed and every now and again this tells me that what ive downloaded can be moved to the sd card, but i thought that this tip said that the apps i download would automatically install on to the sd card??, do i need apps2sd installed or is this just confusing things??

Thanks

Pete (again!)
 
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Great guide William, had it done in less than 10 min! :)

Just one thing tho, being a noob myself, is there need to root now? I have been toying with the idea for ages and haven't bothered for fear of bricking my phone.

I am i little less scared now so i might go for it if there are any real benefits. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Rooting will let you use custom roms - xda developers has a a board dedicated to the whole custom rom scene. It does however have warranty implications so it's worth researching first.
 
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I dont understand this, i have removed apps2sd, i had 42mb left on the internal phone memory, i downloaded google earth, it went onto the internal memory(thought it should have gone on straight to the sd card??), that left me showing 22 mb, i then transfered it to the sd card yet my internal memory is still showing 22mb, Does anyone have any ideas what im doing wrong, i followed the above guide to the letter and all the icons etc that should have come up did, so i guess that part went all to plan, yet this is baffling me??

Pete
 
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I dont understand this, i have removed apps2sd, i had 42mb left on the internal phone memory, i downloaded google earth, it went onto the internal memory(thought it should have gone on straight to the sd card??), that left me showing 22 mb, i then transfered it to the sd card yet my internal memory is still showing 22mb, Does anyone have any ideas what im doing wrong, i followed the above guide to the letter and all the icons etc that should have come up did, so i guess that part went all to plan, yet this is baffling me??

Pete

Yup it all just depends on the app. Some may insist on being storied on internal memory only such as google maps, others automatically go to internal but can be moved like you say and others (most) have no preference about where they are stored so once this method is applied will just go onto sd card from the beginning. But anyway, despite all this, you can't always move absolutely everything onto the sd. Some apps even once installed on the SD still need to store some data on internal. I'm no expert, but I don't think you can avoid this. I don't know why it happens either but it does.

So, you haven't done the process wrong or anything, its just that not all 100% of apps can go onto sd card (but this is a very rare few apps) , but most can, and some even with this process applied won't go there by default - you just have to manually move them. Most however, will move there by default.

Hope this helps :)
 
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This is a nice alternative for stock Android users, however when you download and install stuff like Beautiful Widgets or other widget based stuff which gets automatically installed to the SD card, you'll want to manually move it back to internal storage so they work properly.

Apps such as those that require services or such like last.fm will not work on SD storage.
 
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Yup it all just depends on the app. Some may insist on being storied on internal memory only such as google maps, others automatically go to internal but can be moved like you say and others (most) have no preference about where they are stored so once this method is applied will just go onto sd card from the beginning. But anyway, despite all this, you can't always move absolutely everything onto the sd. Some apps even once installed on the SD still need to store some data on internal. I'm no expert, but I don't think you can avoid this. I don't know why it happens either but it does.

So, you haven't done the process wrong or anything, its just that not all 100% of apps can go onto sd card (but this is a very rare few apps) , but most can, and some even with this process applied won't go there by default - you just have to manually move them. Most however, will move there by default.

Hope this helps :)


Thanks very much for the explanation ;)
 
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