Configuring SD card


Question

I bought an SD card of 64 gb for my Razer Phone 2 and I'd like to transfer big data in it (Spotify songs, videos, useless apps). I can't find any option to safely move data from my phone to the SD card. On top of it, i inserted the card, l installed it as memory extension and, out of nowhere i filled up 20 gb on it!! That is, my phone continues to have 97% of usage data plus 20 more GB on the SD card created apparently from thin air. How's it even possible? Did google just transfer there stuff, what criterion did it even use?


I downloaded an app 'files to SD card' which could do the transfer, however when selecting the root of the SD card it returns me the following message : 'no root directory has been selected'. I am afraid my card has been installed as extension of the SD card and thus cannot be used to transfer data from the phone to the SD card. However, after the creation of the 20 additional gb, i am afraid of reformatting the SD card to reinstall it differently. Hope this is clear enough


Answer

To have control, you need to configure the SD card as Storage and not Expansion. Not all phones offer these options automatically and it is possible you have to switch it. Changing modes, wipes data on the card since it gets reformatted.


Once you the SD card is configured as Storage, you can use it to store Data but generally not Apps, at least on most recent official versions of Android. However, many Apps that expect to produce or manage large data have the option somewhere to configure where that data is stored. This includes the Camera App, since it is expected that it can capture huge volumes of photos and videos, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Maps.ME and many more, but those are the ones I know and are configured on my current phone.


For applications that are media players, such as VLC, then generally you can place media yourself in any folder that could be on the SD card or in internal memory. You can place all your videos and audio in the SD card and then either navigate to where you want to open media or add folders on your SD card to their 'Media Folder' list. Technically, you can add the entire card but if it is huge, scanning it will take a long time, so it is preferable to create yourself a folder structure by media type. Note that you will have to grant permissions to modify the SD card for each application you want to use that way.


When you installed the card as memory extension, I am surprised that much data appeared but generally, the process involves creating some cache. Before you erase that, do take a look to see what those files are using the file manager. There should be mostly hidden files (starting with a dot) and folders called 'cache' or similar.


Note that modern Android phones mount SD cards by their Label which means that when you swap SD cards, most applications will no longer find their data and revert to internal storage or show an error. Ideally, there would be a way to mount the SD card in a fixed mount-point (but I have not figured out how to do this. It is likely to be possible since all phones so far have a single SD-slot, so they could give it a fixed path) but if you use a cloning tool (or just dd on Unix), then you can backup an SD card so that it has the same label. This is not so important but there are some apps that once they do not find their data, force you to redownload it, even if you put back the same SD card again later and point them to the same path (MAPS.ME does this).


Topics


2D Engines   3D Engines   9-Patch   Action Bars   Activities   ADB   Advertisements   Analytics   Animations   ANR   AOP   API   APK   APT   Architecture   Audio   Autocomplete   Background Processing   Backward Compatibility   Badges   Bar Codes   Benchmarking   Bitmaps   Bluetooth   Blur Effects   Bread Crumbs   BRMS   Browser Extensions   Build Systems   Bundles   Buttons   Caching   Camera   Canvas   Cards   Carousels   Changelog   Checkboxes   Cloud Storages   Color Analysis   Color Pickers   Colors   Comet/Push   Compass Sensors   Conferences   Content Providers   Continuous Integration   Crash Reports   Credit Cards   Credits   CSV   Curl/Flip   Data Binding   Data Generators   Data Structures   Database   Database Browsers   Date &   Debugging   Decompilers   Deep Links   Dependency Injections   Design   Design Patterns   Dex   Dialogs   Distributed Computing   Distribution Platforms   Download Managers   Drawables   Emoji   Emulators   EPUB   Equalizers &   Event Buses   Exception Handling   Face Recognition   Feedback &   File System   File/Directory   Fingerprint   Floating Action   Fonts   Forms   Fragments   FRP   FSM   Functional Programming   Gamepads   Games   Geocaching   Gestures   GIF   Glow Pad   Gradle Plugins   Graphics   Grid Views   Highlighting   HTML   HTTP Mocking   Icons   IDE   IDE Plugins   Image Croppers   Image Loaders   Image Pickers   Image Processing   Image Views   Instrumentation   Intents   Job Schedulers   JSON   Keyboard   Kotlin   Layouts   Library Demos   List View   List Views   Localization   Location   Lock Patterns   Logcat   Logging   Mails   Maps   Markdown   Mathematics   Maven Plugins   MBaaS   Media   Menus   Messaging   MIME   Mobile Web   Native Image   Navigation   NDK   Networking   NFC   NoSQL   Number Pickers   OAuth   Object Mocking   OCR Engines   OpenGL   ORM   Other Pickers   Parallax List   Parcelables   Particle Systems   Password Inputs   PDF   Permissions   Physics Engines   Platforms   Plugin Frameworks   Preferences   Progress Indicators   ProGuard   Properties   Protocol Buffer   Pull To   Purchases   Push/Pull   QR Codes   Quick Return   Radio Buttons   Range Bars   Ratings   Recycler Views   Resources   REST   Ripple Effects   RSS   Screenshots   Scripting   Scroll Views   SDK   Search Inputs   Security   Sensors   Services   Showcase Views   Signatures   Sliding Panels   Snackbars   SOAP   Social Networks   Spannable   Spinners   Splash Screens   SSH   Static Analysis   Status Bars   Styling   SVG   System   Tags   Task Managers   TDD &   Template Engines   Testing   Testing Tools   Text Formatting   Text Views   Text Watchers   Text-to   Toasts   Toolkits For   Tools   Tooltips   Trainings   TV   Twitter   Updaters   USB   User Stories   Utils   Validation   Video   View Adapters   View Pagers   Views   Watch Face   Wearable Data   Wearables   Weather   Web Tools   Web Views   WebRTC   WebSockets   Wheel Widgets   Wi-Fi   Widgets   Windows   Wizards   XML   XMPP   YAML   ZIP Codes