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Forcing Apps to install to the SD card without root

I went through the steps but I'm still not able to move anything to the SD card. Tried using App2SD also to no avail. Everything in the CMD went fine and I saw everything that the tutorial said that I would see, however, apps still install to the internal memory. This makes me want to take the phone back. What am I supposed to do with 2gb of internal memory when half is taken up by the OS? lol
 
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I went through the steps but I'm still not able to move anything to the SD card. Tried using App2SD also to no avail. Everything in the CMD went fine and I saw everything that the tutorial said that I would see, however, apps still install to the internal memory. This makes me want to take the phone back. What am I supposed to do with 2gb of internal memory when half is taken up by the OS? lol

Are you using Android 2.3.x (Gingerbread?) You can check by going to menu>settings>about phone.

If you go to menu>settings>applications>manage applications and you tap on an app you want to move to SD, does it list that option there?

Maybe if you let us know which apps you are trying to move.
 
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After further reading I found that this isn't going to work with the OS that I have. I've been trying to do this on 4.0.4. Didn't Google specifically remove the ability to move Apps to the SD card in this version? If so, wtf were they thinking?! haha

I was trying to move Apps like Pandora, Flashlight, a few games, things like that.

my htc explorer is rooted should i try this method ? i want every app i want to install should go automaticaly in sd card plz reply

You can still move apps to SD in 4.04 and 4.1 (ICS and JB). Mind you some apps can't be moved and others like widgets and those providing polling services should never be moved to sd. Also keep in mind that while it can move a good bit of the app to the sd, there will still be a bit of it left in the system.

If you go to menu>settings>apps and tap on the app you want to move, you should see the option there.
 
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Yes to your first question. You will still be able to perform a factory reset and apply updates. To the second part, I really don't know if you need to redo the setting after a reset or and update.


hi ok that has paused me from starting, is there some thing that we could copy from phone first as a backup and paste back in after like the directory that is visable when i conect and view the folders i think there is a abd file in there but not to sure.
 
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hi ok that has paused me from starting, is there some thing that we could copy from phone first as a backup and paste back in after like the directory that is visable when i conect and view the folders i think there is a abd file in there but not to sure.

Not really, but this setting is easily reversible. I wouldn't worry about it.
 
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i have done all the steps. the apps is success installed in my phone. but the apps will stack my some internal storage, anything i cn do to remove them from internal storage? coz when i want to install some apps from play store but my internal storage is nt enough space it will cum out "There is insufficient space on the device". what can i do with tat?:(:(:(
 
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The next step would be to root your phone and use an app like Link2SD to link system apps to the SD card and uninstall some system apps you don't want.

+ You'll probably never run out of memory again.
+ There are many other benefits to rooting, like being able to back up your apps and user data.
- You'll void your warranty.
- There is a chance you could "brick" your phone by messing up something. But that's part of the normal learning curve and most bricks are recoverable.
 
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I was facing the same problem so here is what I do.

I have astro installed and backup all my apps to the SD card with it. When a major application needs updating - whatsApp, viber,etc - and I get this "insufficient ..." message I uninstall skype. Then run all the updates. Once all is done I reinstall skype from the backup folder. It works every time. I also find it easy to reinstall. You will have to experiment with your installed software and decide upon which one u will use.

My phone is still under warranty so I will wait to root. Once it is rooted I can delete a lot of bloatware from it.
 
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Just one correction in your post. When you run the command "adb devices" it does not show the serial number. It shows a stupid number - "0123456789ABCDEF device" regardless of which phone I attach. The system however works flawlessly.

Secondly with an application named apps2sd even previously installed applications residing in phone memory can now be moved to sd card.
 
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Hi,

Thanks for this thread. Unfortunately it hasn't quite worked, and I think it fails at step 5. After typing adb shell I get a new line with a dollar symbol, but nothing else. This doesn't match up with the screenshots provided in the first post. Screenshot of my problem here: i.imgur.com/6Puqk.png (apparently I can't post images or links as a new user)

To clarify - when I extract the sdk-tools, do I need to do anything else with it or the files inside? At the moment, I'm just extracting them and that's it. Am I supposed to run an installer?

Thanks for any help!
 
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Hi,

Thanks for this thread. Unfortunately it hasn't quite worked, and I think it fails at step 5. After typing adb shell I get a new line with a dollar symbol, but nothing else. This doesn't match up with the screenshots provided in the first post. Screenshot of my problem here: i.imgur.com/6Puqk.png (apparently I can't post images or links as a new user)

To clarify - when I extract the sdk-tools, do I need to do anything else with it or the files inside? At the moment, I'm just extracting them and that's it. Am I supposed to run an installer?

Thanks for any help!


You're right, just didn't go far enough.

You have indeed got got the adb shell, but you need to add "setInstallLocation 0" to the command.
 
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Thanks for the swift response! I must admit I didn't fully understand your reply (i.e. what syntax to use in the command prompt), but I used the command pm getInstallLocation and it told me that it was set to "2" already. I then went back into the app list, and discovered that although I was unable to move the first app, I can move other apps to the SD card. So it seems it worked afterall :)

Thanks for this thread, very useful!
 
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