How to Install Android Apps to SD card

In this article we will discuss about how to Install Android Apps to SD card. Many newer Android phones have an SD card slot that lets you add a lot more storage space. If the phone’s built-in storage isn’t enough for you, this add-on is a must-have for your smartphone. Even if a phone has 16GB of storage on the inside, it is easy to fill it up with media, apps, and files.

Anyone who uses their phone to run their life knows that you always need more space, no matter how much you have. You can get around that if you can download apps to your SD card. You no longer have to clean up and get rid of files and apps before you can download something new.

Android phones always say that they don’t have enough space. Most likely, this problem is happening because the phone memory is set as the default storage. If you download and install a lot of apps, the phone’s memory will be full, which will make it less useful. Using SD Cards, you can add more storage space to your device to meet your needs.

Ways to Install Android Apps to SD card

Using the Application Manager to Move Apps from internal memory to SD

If you can’t install apps straight to your SD card, you could install the app on your phone’s internal memory and then move it to the SD card. But not all devices have this feature and not all apps can use it. If you don’t want to worry about how to install Android apps on an SD card without rooting, you can try this. Here are the steps to move apps from an Android phone to an SD card.

• Navigate to Settings on your phone > Navigate and select Apps > Select an App you want to move to the SD card.
• Tap Storage > Tap Change > Tap Move

If you don’t see an option to “Change Storage,” you can’t move the app. This is the choice of the developers, and it means that the app is meant to do things that can’t be done from the SD card. If none of the apps give you this option, it means that your device doesn’t support the feature.

Set SD card as internal storage

If your device doesn’t let you move apps to a microSD card after installing them, you can use a feature to format a microSD card so that it works like extra internal storage. This feature isn’t available on all devices with a microSD slot, and some brands, like Samsung and LG, have taken it out of their newer phones. It is also called “taking roots.” This will work best if;

• Make use of the fastest SD card you can lay hands on. You can check Carlcare service centres for top quality and warranty-covered SD cards that will give you optimum performance.
• Also note that any information already present on the SD card will be formatted or erased, and you cannot use the SD card on another device unless you reformat it.
• Once you remove this SD card from your phone, your app functionalities will be affected.

Here are the steps.

• Launch Settings > Navigate to Storage and tap on it > you will see the RAM, internal storage, and memory card > Select your SD card by tapping the three vertical dots (menu button) by the right corner of the memory card > Select Format as internal
• For some devices, you may have to select Storage settings before you will find the option to Format as internal.
• After selecting Format as Internal > Tap Erase & Format
• If the system sees that your microSD card is too slow, it will prompt you with a warning that it will degrade performance. You can choose to proceed or stop and retry with another SD card.
• Tap on Move Now (to initiate moving your files and apps to SD card) > Tap Done when it is finished

Change the default storage to SD card

Let’s look at how to change the settings and make the SD card the default memory to install apps directly from the Google Play Store. Remember that this solution won’t work for all Android devices. Those with the Android 4.4.2 operating system can use it. They usually only have a small amount of storage on the inside, so larger apps have to be put on an SD card.

• Ensure that a compatible SD card has been inserted into the device
• From the Home screen, Tap Settings > Navigate and Tap Storage > Check to turn on the SD card, and set the SD card as the default storage place.
• From the Home screen, Tap File Browser open > Navigate and select Apps > Choose a particular app to be installed > Tap OK to install the App to SD card

Using a third-party app manager

An app that manages other apps is called a third-party app manager. You can buy one of these easily from the play store. You can also go to the official Android support site to know more information.

• Launch the Google Play Store
• Type App manager in the Search bar. This will give you a list of third-party app managers from which you can choose from. Some third-party app managers are free while others are premium, do some research and decide. A couple of apps that have received quality reviews are the File Manager 4.7-star rating and the App Manager with 4.3-star rating.
• Install your preferred option.
• Whatever app you choose, you will have to grant permissions the first time you launch it.
• They are pretty simple to use and navigate and you can then use it to move apps from one location to the other.

Use Android Studio and Android SDK to configure your phone

Start by installing the SDK app if you want to use the Android SDK to install apps directly to your SD card. This is a small program that lets the Android operating system talk to your PC. That means you can’t use this solution without a PC. This is also a very technical process that you must carefully follow.

• You can download the app on your phone by searching Android SDK on playstore and picking a preferred option.
• Also download and install the Google Android SDK onto your computer.
• Once you have downloaded and installed it, Plug your phone into your PC using the USB charging cable
• From the options, select File Transfer
• On your phone, Launch Settings > Select Developer Options > Scroll down and Tap USB Debugging
• On your PC, open the Platform-tools folder and open a CMD window within the folder. (If you’re on Windows it might be under a folder like this: C:\Users\User1\AppData\Local\Android\Sdk\platform-tools)
• Type ‘adb devices’ to view all connected devices > Type ‘adb shell pm set-install-location 2’ to set the install location to external, SD card in this case.
• Type ‘adb shell pm get-install-location’ to view the location where apps are installed
• If you see 2 [external] in the CMD window, you’re all set. If you don’t, try again.