Transfering Apps from Internal Storage to External doesn't seem to truly be doing such.

[jaimielittlefield]

I have the option on some apps to transfer them from Internal to External. Thing is, it doesn't seem to actually do this. In fact, when I look on the Internal apps, the app (Let's call the example app FOODGRAZE) is there and when I look on External, it is there too.

When I uninstall it from Internal, it also uninstalled from External leading me to believe FOODGRAZE isn't actually moved to External as the phone claims it is.

When I turn on Developer Option to force Internal to External, this makes no difference either. Same situation.

The whole point to my conundrum is because I only have 64GB Internal storage, I have 150GB External storage.

According to my Storage in settings I have 10GB left.

How can I solve this issue? Would rooting my phone force it to actually be on my External? I don't want to root.. but 64GB isn't anything in this day and age.

I only got a Samsung because my old Samsung tablet actually transferred stuff to the SD card.

But my S9 is not doing this.

 

[GameTheory]

I have the option on some apps to transfer them from Internal to External. Thing is, it doesn't seem to actually do this. In fact, when I look on the Internal apps, the app (Let's call the example app FOODGRAZE) is there and when I look on External, it is there too.

When I uninstall it from Internal, it also uninstalled from External leading me to believe FOODGRAZE isn't actually moved to External as the phone claims it is.

When I turn on Developer Option to force Internal to External, this makes no difference either. Same situation.

The whole point to my conundrum is because I only have 64GB Internal storage, I have 150GB External storage.

According to my Storage in settings I have 10GB left.

How can I solve this issue? Would rooting my phone force it to actually be on my External? I don't want to root.. but 64GB isn't anything in this day and age.

I only got a Samsung because my old Samsung tablet actually transferred stuff to the SD card.

But my S9 is not doing this.

I don't move apps to external so I'm just taking a guess here...

It probably works like a symlink(symbolic link) in linux. Lets say you have folder A on drive A and folder B on drive B. You would create a symlink from folder A to folder B. Now anything that goes in folder A would only take up space in folder B on drive B even though contents are viewable in both A and B. Again, just a guess.

Rooting will not force it to work. Root can open other hacky alternatives that can cause issues, I wouldn't bother with, and don't know if they still work.

 

[kanaiada2]

I have INTERNAL, EXTERNAL , And SDCARD.
External seems to be a virtual folder in INTERNAL which had a different (bigger) size to fake more space available so it could be advertised as such.
SDCARD is where you want it to end up.
Obviously this needs a card in a slot.
The result is my phone says it has 128gb until it's almost full (26gb) then it's suddenly it if space (128gb).

 

[kanaiada2]

Disk Speed / Performance Test

 

[Christopher Clayton]

What is the version of Android? On my Tablet Android 7 I can MOVE many apps to SD card ok, using Apps2SD app --- but with my new Android 9 Pie phone I cannot move any apps to the card, only files and data --- this is which is a pity as I don't want to root. I expect I would be able to LINK (maybe this is what you have done?) but there is not much point. I have plenty of free External storage on the card but much less Internal.

 

[Hadron]

This type of thing doesn't depend on Android version but on what the particular manufacturer included.

The old "move to sd" thing from Android 2 was actually deprecated in Android 4. Many manufacturers chose to keep including it in many of their devices, but it's up to them which devices they put it in. To be honest it was always a bit rubbish: it only moved part of the app, none of the app's data, and if the app had any widgets they would stop working the next time you rebooted.

In android 6 the option to "format SD as internal" was introduced, but here not all manufacturers chose to include it. Funnily enough it was flagships that were less likely to have it: I think that manufacturers were worried that using the SD card that way would impact the performance of their phones, and then the phone would be blamed by ignorant users who didn't understand that it was a result of their actions and their sales would be hurt as a result. That one does let you use the SD card more effectively, but at the cost of encrypting it so it cannot be used in any other device (and a lot of apps being broken if the SD card fails).