Installing applications on a memory card in Android without root. How to install apps to Android memory card

Phones with low internal storage capacity run out of free space. It is expanded with a memory card to which photos, videos, music and other data are transferred. But what if there is not enough memory for programs, but there is nothing to delete? The most rational option is to install applications on the Android SD card.

This can be done using standard tools or using third-party software. We will analyze simple ways giving almost 100% results.

What applications can be transferred to a memory card?

Unfortunately, not all programs can be transferred to MicroSD. Some developers do not optimize the software to run outside the system memory, so there is no way to force it to function on the memory card. However, the vast majority of software works well on it. Therefore, even heavy applications can be transferred, freeing up space on the internal storage.

Note! The system allows you to transfer only downloaded programs. You will not be able to change the built-in directory - they will not start.

Also remember that the speed of writing and reading from a memory card is much slower than from the built-in storage. For this reason, it is not recommended to transport games and other software for which performance is important.

Transferring applications through stock tools

It has become possible to install applications on a memory card with built-in services since Android 2.2; for earlier assemblies, you will have to tinker and carry out the transfer using a PC.

Note that the instructions are not completely universal. In some firmwares, the names and locations of the items may differ, but the essence stated in the instructions remains unchanged. We will demonstrate the transposition using the example of the AOSP system ("naked" Android) and the Samsung shell. We will also analyze the nuances for versions up to 6.0 Marshallow and later assemblies.

For AOSP (up to 6.0)

Following this instruction, the transfer of one program will take about a minute:

The shell will notify you when the application is moved to the memory card.

For Samsung (up to 6.0)

Now we want to show the differences in the procedure using the example of firmware from Samsung, but at the same time substantiate the thesis that the principle remains the same. So:

Here, the installation of applications on the card is a little longer, but the main thing is to go to the applications menu, select the one you want and interact with the storage parameters. The same principle will be on other firmware, just the first time, you may have to spend a couple of minutes to figure it out.

For all firmwares based on Android 6.0 and higher

In this Google versions revised the principle of interaction between smartphones and flash drives. Previously, it acted as a portable data storage, now, in addition to this, a new function has been added - Adoptable Storage. It integrates a memory card with internal storage, which is beneficial, because by default all data will be installed on it. However, it will no longer be possible to insert it into the computer and easily transfer files.

To activate the mode, you need:

Try to make a backup of the data installed on the microSD, as everything will be deleted. Android will reformat it to fit its needs, add encryption of information to improve security, change the type of file system. Think carefully about what will be more convenient for you, but remember that in the future you can change the method of working with the flash drive, and the documents on it will be lost again.

Move all data to MicroSD

Porting individual programs is helpful. But what if the smartphone has little RAM and internal memory of 4, 8 or 16 GB and needs to be urgently released? Stock Android services will help with this, because there is a toolkit for resetting all videos, pictures, music, software and even games to a removable drive. To do this, take a few steps, namely:

The method is simpler than the previous ones, it is suitable if you want to radically free up space on your phone from programs that have been installed for a long time and take up a lot of space.

Transferring applications using third-party software

It happens that it is not possible to transport software by standard means, but there are many alternative options. We propose to disassemble the two simplest: one using a PC, and the second through special programs, but you will need root rights.

Note! Read about how to get root on Android in the topics about your device in order to avoid problems.

Using a computer

The solution is not the fastest, but simple and accessible to everyone, even if there is no root-rights. So:

It's easier to do this through a device synchronization program, for example, My Phone Explorer. First, it is installed on the phone from Play Market and then to the PC. The distribution kit should be downloaded from the official website of the developer.

Now proceed to transpose the application to the card Android memory, for this you need:

This completes the procedure, the application is ready to work.

Using the app

A lot of applications for transfer have been developed, we suggest using the multifunctional utility Titanium Backup. To do this, you need to do the following:

If you want to upload all the software to a USB flash drive, then after starting Titanium, follow these steps:

Now wait for the end of the process.

These were the most basic ways to install an application on an Android SD card, which will always work. If one of the methods does not help, we recommend using an alternative one.

When a smartphone or tablet with Android OS runs out of memory, the question immediately arises of how to make applications download to a memory card.

There is a way to transfer existing programs to microSD and make them load directly to external media.

Method number 1. Porting existing applications

If there is still a little MB on Android, programs can be installed on the internal memory, and then transferred to the external one.

The latter happens as follows:

Go to the settings and select the "Applications" item there.

Then click "Application Manager".

Note: This instruction relevant for latest versions Android OS. In earlier versions, the settings could immediately include the "Application Manager" item or something similar. In any case, you need to look for something that will show all applications.

Select the application you want. By clicking on it, you will go to its page. There, tap on the inscription "Memory".

On the memory information page, click Change. A window will appear in which you need to select exactly where the program will be transferred. Place a checkmark on the "Memory card" label.

In the next window, click "Move" in the lower right corner and wait for the task to be completed.

Thus, using the standard settings, you can quickly and easily move the software to external media. You can also use a computer for this.

Method number 2. We use a computer

In short, in this case we just upload the file with the apk extension to the memory card via the computer. Accordingly, being on an external medium, the application will be installed there.

Theoretically, the same can be done without a computer, but in this case, the apk-downloader site may not work or work, but not correctly. Now you will understand what it is about.

So, the procedure described above is performed as follows:

Go to play.google.com and select the app you want to download. Copy the link to it to the clipboard. It's in the address bar at the top.

Now go to the aforementioned apk-downloader site and paste the link copied in the first step of this list of actions into the only field on it. Click Generate Download Link. After that, another button "Clock here do download ... now" will appear. Click on it. The apk file will be downloaded.

That's all. Now you have the installation file for the program. It can be transferred to a memory stick via USB cable, Bluetooth or other ways. If you are using a cable, it is important to select the memory card when loading.

Next, when the file is on the memory card, just run it. Most likely, the software will be installed on the microSD.

Finally, there is another rather tricky way to accomplish the task. But the programs will be immediately installed on the card.

Method number 3. Additional applications

In this case, you will need to install only 3 samples of additional software.

Step by step, this process is as follows:

Give your device superuser rights, they are also root rights. How to do this is described in this article. Choose any application and install it.
Go to settings, section "Memory", "Memory card" and click "Disable". Confirm the request if it appears.

Download and install the AParted program on your device (the best way to do this is from play.google.com). Click on the plus sign in the upper left corner and add two sections - one for the cache and one for the programs themselves. It is important that the first partition is of type "fat32", the second is "ext2". This parameter is indicated on the right. Then click on the three dots in the upper right corner and select "Apply Changes".

Download and install Link2SD in the same way (again, use play.google.com). At startup, a window for selecting a file system will appear, check the box for "ext2". A reboot will occur. Then open Link2SD again. In the program settings, check the box next to the "Auto link" item. In the window "Installation location" select "1st section of the SD card". Finally, in the Auto Link Settings window, check all three boxes and close the program.

After that, everything that you download from Play Market will be automatically installed on the memory card.

Lack of internal memory is the main problem that tablet and phone users are trying to fight. It is very easy to solve it. It is enough to purchase an SD memory card of the required size, place it in the device and save games or applications to it. There will be no problems with the purchase - the market provides ample opportunities for choice, but installing applications on a memory card can cause difficulties, especially for users of gadgets on Android OS. How to transfer files to SD?

What should you be aware of before installing applications?

According to statistics, about 78% of contemporaries choose Android phones and tablets. The multitasking software product of earlier versions (up to 2.1 inclusive) does not provide for the ability to save or transfer games to SD in the settings. In later versions (2.2 and earlier), the installation of applications on the sd card is included in the standard functions of the OS.

But purchasing a gadget with the latest version of the OS or updating it will not solve the problem, because when installing the software, the place where you want to install the program is still impossible to choose on your own. The reason is that the installation of the object in most cases is carried out along the path programmed by the product developer - into the internal memory of the device.

Did you know: the automatic installation of applications on the card and their subsequent transfer can be carried out only if the authors of the application have not blocked the possibility of choosing the installation location. This fact can be indicated in the characteristics of the downloaded program.

How to transfer installed applications to the SD card with built-in tools?

If, after installing the next game, the phone or tablet reminds the user about the insufficient amount of free disk space, then the already delivered software products or their cache can be transferred to an external SD memory card.

The built-in tools of the OS will help with this. If on android the installation of applications to the SD card did not occur, then you can try to transfer them as follows:

Find and select "Settings" in the main menu;
Go to the "Applications" section;
Select the "Application Management" item in the list;
Check "Third Party";
In the list that opens, find and select the required software product;
Click "Move to SD card".

Did you know: to determine if the software can be transferred to additional memory, you need to pay attention to the last (6) menu item. If, when choosing a software product, the move button is not active (it is not at all in the menu), then the operation will not be possible - the developers do not provide an option. There is no point in trying again.

Can the internal storage of the phone be freed up?

You can, for this you need to know how to set up the phone so that applications are installed on a memory card or transferred after installation. Special utilities will help with this: AppMgr Pro III (for early OS versions), FolderMount (suitable for latest OS versions), Link2SD and others. To use any of the proposed programs, the user will need root rights - administrator or superuser access.

The choice of the utility depends on the desired result - transferring the applications themselves, their cache, sorting by operations, and so on. To install applications on an android card without complications, you need to be a confident user. Therefore, use this method freeing up the internal memory should be done carefully.

For modern mobile devices on the Android operating system, the problem of lack of space on the system partition of a smartphone is no longer as urgent as it was a few years ago. Manufacturers have long been supplying their phones or tablets with four, eight or more Gigabytes of internal storage, a significant part of which is given to the system. For most users, this is enough space so that the installation of applications can be carried out without problems to the internal memory of the device, and not to the SD card.

But appetites and, accordingly, the amount of space occupied by applications is also growing, and if you are an active user of your smartphone, then at one point you may well find that the space on its system partition is coming to an end, or during the installation of the application you will encounter an error caused by lack of space for its installation. Don't worry too much about this. Operating system Google android provides its users with the ability to transfer already installed applications or install new ones on an SD memory card, if one is present in your phone or tablet. And for special cases there are non-standard, but pretty simple solutions bypassing system limitations. So, in this small instruction, we will tell you how to install applications on the SD flash card of your mobile device.

How to install apps to SD card for Android 2.2 to 4.2.2

The earliest versions of Android OS did not support the function of transferring applications to an SD card, although for the first smartphones with a small amount of internal memory, it would be most relevant. Since version 2.2, this function has been enabled by developers as a standard feature in device firmware. It should be noted that not every application can be transferred to a memory card, even if you have a fresh version of Android installed. It depends on the developers of the application, who simply may not provide such a function for it.

So how do you install an application to an SD card if it has such a function? If you want to free up space on the system partition of the device by transferring the already installed programs to a USB flash drive, you need to perform the following sequence of actions:

1. Open the menu of your device and go to "Settings";

2. Select "Applications";

3. Go to the item "SD-card", you will see a list of all programs that support the transfer to the SD card;

4. If you have old version Android OS, you need to go to the "Application Management" item and go to the "Third Party" tab;

5. Select the application that you would like to transfer to the memory card by tapping on it with your finger;

6. You will see the application window, where it will be indicated how much space it takes in the device's memory, buttons for forced stop, uninstall, etc. We are interested in the "Move to memory card" button;

7. If this button is active, press it, and your program will be transferred from the internal memory of the device to the SD card. An inactive button indicates that this application does not support the function of transferring to a memory card.

8. Re-entering the application window after the completion of the operation, you can observe that some data still remained on the system partition. This is fine. The main thing is that most of the files have moved to the flash card, freeing up precious space for us.

There are also specialized utilities that can install applications to an SD card. One of them, moreover, is free, is AppMgr II I. This program can move applications, hide system applications, supports batch operations with applications and much more.

Installing apps to SD card for Android 2.1 and below

As mentioned above, Android 2.1 and earlier do not support installing and transferring applications to a memory card. But this problem can be circumvented if you have a certain amount of patience and minimal knowledge to perform simple operations with your smartphone or tablet.

Before installing the necessary specialized software and carrying out further manipulations with it, we strongly recommend that you make a backup copy of everything that is stored on your memory card. In the future, this can help you save a lot of nerve cells.

Also, for the operation of applications that work with data transfer, you need to have Superuser rights (Root access) on your device, take care of this in advance if you have not yet "rooted" your smartphone or tablet.

To work with a flash card, you need to download free program MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition. After downloading and installing the program on your PC, do the following:

1. Connect your device to your computer with a USB cable as an external storage device;

2. Delete all partitions on the SD card;

3. Create a Primary FAT32 partition for your data on the flash card;

4. Create another primary ext2 partition (the new version also supports ex3 / ext4 partitions), it will store the data of the applications transferred to the memory card;

5. Restart your smartphone and make sure the memory card is visible. Now you can copy your previously saved personal data to it from a backup copy;

6. Application data is transferred to the memory card in a separate program. One of the most popular is the free Link2SD, which can be downloaded at Google play Market.

7. Install Link2SD, give applications root rights. The program is ready to work;

8. Highlight the apk file to be transferred to the memory card and select "Create link". The selected application will be transferred to your SD card. To return it back, you must select the "Remove link" item.

How to install applications on a memory card for Android 4.4.2 KitKat

Due to the fact that Google, the developer of the Android OS, has changed the algorithms for protecting applications in new version its Android 4.4.2 operating system on some device models there may be problems with transferring installed applications to a flash card. Some mobile app developers with operating system Android 4.4.2 took care of solving this problem by promptly preparing updates to their programs that can work around this problem. Also, some manufacturers have solved this problem in firmware updates for their devices, as, for example, Sony did for the Xperia T2 Ultra and Xperia T2 Ultra Dual models.

For those who want to be able to write programs to an SD card on Android 4.4.2, but this is not provided by standard capabilities, there is an SDFix application: KitKat Writable MicroSD

We hope that the instructions we have provided for transferring user programs to a flash card will be useful to you, and your applications will find their place on the memory card of your phone or tablet, freeing up valuable space on your device. Be careful when handling memory cards and always back up your data before doing anything with your phone. Good luck!

If your device has a small amount of internal memory and you are constantly faced with the need to delete applications, photos and videos in order to free up more space for installing large applications, then you should read this article.

In this article, we will explain in detail how to install or move Android apps to SD card on smartphone or tablet and how to make apps install to Android memory card.

How do I transfer apps to SD card?

Currently, there are two ways to solve this problem:

Store photos, videos and music in the cloud
Using a microSD card

If your Android phone or tablet allows you to install an SD card, then be sure to install an SD card. In this case, the external memory will be for storing photos, videos and music, and the internal memory for applications.

However, there are situations where the owner wants the apps to be saved to the SD card. So the question is, how to install or transfer any suitable application to the microSD card?

So, below we will tell you in detail how to make applications installed on the Android memory card by default. As a result of such manipulations, the internal memory will be significantly freed, which will have a positive effect on the operation of the Android system.

Instructions for devices up to Andoid 6.0

The instructions below may vary slightly from phone to phone. Some phones may just have a button "Move to SD"... Thus, you need to pay attention to every word associated with "Move", "SD" etc.

If your device needs to free up internal storage, move any number of apps, photos or videos to the SD card. Alternatively, open the app "Camera" and go to settings and set save to SD card. Instructions on how to move apps to Android SD card:

First of all, open the notification shade and click on the gear-shaped settings button. You can also enter "Settings" through the app drawer.
Open the tab "Device", go to the tab "Applications", and then "Application Manager"... On some devices "Application Manager" has a title "All Applications".
Then go to the list of your apps, find the app you want to move. We will be moving the APL application to the SD card.
After you find an application, click on it, then click on the button "Change" as shown below. Please select "Memory card" (Click on the picture to enlarge).

It is worth noting that any game or application in which speed is important is best left on the internal memory, since the data transfer speed is much faster on the internal memory of the smartphone than on the SD memory card.

Instructions for devices version Android Marshmallow 6.0 and higher

In old Android versions The SD memory card worked as both portable and removable storage. On devices from Android 6.0 Marshmallow and above, a feature called Adoptable Storage has been added. Thus, when you insert an SD card into the device, the system will automatically add up the capacity of the internal memory and the SD card and display the total memory.

The advantage is that all apps are automatically installed to the SD card. As a result, there is no need to manually move applications.

Insert SD card, open the notification shade and press "Tune"... You can use the SD card as portable storage or as internal storage. If you select the function, the system will format the SD card and then integrate with the device.
After that, all data on the smartphone will be installed on the memory card by default.

However, using such a function will fully integrate the SD card with internal memory and now it won't work with other devices. This means you can't just pull it out and plug it into your computer to download music, photos or videos from your computer.

Be sure to back up any data or information on your computer before choosing a function "Use as internal storage" as Android will format the SD card completely.

It is worth noting that at any time you can go to the settings according to our instructions above and transfer applications from the SD card back to the internal storage.

Android 5.0 Lollipop and above

If you are using a smartphone or tablet running Android 5.0 Lollipop or higher. Your device will use the SD memory card as both portable and removable storage. This means you can eject the SD memory card and download photos or music from your computer, and then reinstall the SD memory card on your Android device.

In the event that you need to move applications to an SD memory card, use the instructions below:

Open the menu, select "Settings", and then "Applications" and move any app to SD card. To do this, just click on the application and click on the button "Move to SD card".

However, remember that applications that come preinstalled software cannot be transferred to SD memory card. Usually applications installed from the Play Market can be transferred.

Other methods (apps for transferring to SD memory card)

There are many third-party apps in the Play Market that allow you to transfer apps to your SD card. Most of the applications require root access of course. But, there are several applications that allow you to transfer applications without root access.

AppMgr III (App 2 SD)

The most popular application that allows you to transfer almost any application to your SD memory card. It should be noted that the application does not require root access, which is especially important for inexperienced users.

In addition, AppMgr III is feature rich and provides many other useful features.

Download AppMgr III app, wait automatic installation(takes 2 to 5 minutes).

Now open the AppMgr III application and wait for the list of installed applications on your phone to load. After that, click on the application you want to move, select "Move" and then in stock Android move the app to the SD card.