Moving Your 'Non-Movable' Android Apps to an SD Card

[Rob Williams]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Your advise worked brilliantly thanks for the help!

Glad to help!

does as it says works like charm, moved facebook, twitter, freesms, what's app, fring, pda net, gemini app manager, etc.which i was unable to move by move to sd program which was useful initially but the importance got lower with time. freed a lot of space.
could not move gmail ymail ymessenger touchpal keyboard, flashlight, 3g watchdog, n ofcourse maps..may be some of these apps are important & need to be in primary memory for start up, to work even when sd card is mounted & faster n better performance. but i think some of these are not compulsory and should have the option to move to sd card. sometime we can compromise with the speed/ performance rather than mis out of all cool apps.
i m using micromax ninja a50 which has just 180 mb of internal memory. now i have 45 mb free. earlier i had 20 mb free. and suprisingly my phone has speed up a lot and the difference can be felt after moving these apps to sd card. so the developers of the apps should know that they should suggest location but leave the decision to the users where they want to install/ move rather than forcing them.
hope this concept will work for me for a good time, installed all major apps and think the new apps i will install can be moved directly to sd, if not won't mind using this method to move them.
can i know which more apps i cannot move even with this method like gmail ymail ymessenger touchpal keyboard, flashlight, 3g watchdog, google maps, only

[Rob Williams]

You managed to move Facebook? I don't think I was able to for some reason. So kudos on that.

There ARE some programs that just refuse to be moved for some reason, but I'm not entirely sure why. If anything, some of them might tie themselves to the underlying system and be required to be on the fastest storage possible. It sucks though, especially when you have barely any in-phone memory.

If you are looking to move more stuff that's just not moveable, it's not going to be possible without rooting your phone, and it's probably unsafe to go that route. One important thing I should mention is that I've found even if apps are moved to the SD card, sometimes remnant data is left on the phone until it's uninstalled. So if you have a LOT of apps installed, you can expect a fair bit of space on your phone to be taken up even if you move the apps (I am not sure if it's caches or what, I haven't ever figured it out).

Thanks for the instructions, phone memory now available again, until the next time!

Thanks so much for this info! I did everything Rob said to do and it worked! It was a bit confusing since I'm computer illiterate, and the black command screen thingy really scares me! but I used this guys info: http://www.thedan1984.com/moving-app...nt#comment-802 and Rob's and I was able to get through it.

PS I have a Samsung Galaxy Q

oh and btw I was also able to move facebook to sd card. I haven't used it yet since the move so hopefully it will run just as good as it did on my phone. If not I can just move it back to my phone! thanks again

[Rob Williams]

I'm glad the tutorial helped! I'm impressed that Facebook could be moved, and I'm now left confused as to why I haven't been able to do that on my own phone. I've given up on it though, and am just never going to make the mistake of owning a phone with so little internal memory again.

I got all the way to the setInstallLocation command and it returns a killed message and does not apply the change. Sounds like I will be reading up on root options....

[Rob Williams]

I am not familiar with that error, to be honest. You might want to test it out in another computer, or it could just be a limitation of the phone - something that rooting should fix (though I am not certain there either).

Hi, i tried this method but some of the apps still can’t be moved? why is that?

As reported by another user, I'm able to connect and execute the commands, but my phone refuses to change the location. I suspect it's a firmware issue; I have a no-contract Android (LG "Optimus Q" VS700).

Here's a screen cap of the session...
--------------------------------------------------------------
C:\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools>adb devices
List of devices attached
A0000031702A26 device


C:\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools>adb shell pm getInstal
lLocation
0[auto]

C:\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools>adb shell pm setInstal
lLocation 2
[1] Killed pm setInstallLoc...

C:\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools>adb shell pm getInstal
lLocation
0[auto]
--------------------------------------------------------------
...as you can see, it connects correctly, but appears to refuse the "pm setInstallLocation" command.

[Rob Williams]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

As reported by another user, I'm able to connect and execute the commands, but my phone refuses to change the location. I suspect it's a firmware issue; I have a no-contract Android (LG "Optimus Q" VS700).

That's unfortunate. Are you certain that you installed the exact SDK to match your phone's Android version? I recently performed this trick on another phone, a 4.0 ICS-based one, and it worked just fine (but I don't think it would have worked had I not had the proper SDK version installed).

Originally Posted by Unregistered

As reported by another user, I'm able to connect and execute the commands, but my phone refuses to change the location. I suspect it's a firmware issue; I have a no-contract Android (LG "Optimus Q" VS700).

Here's a screen cap of the session...
--------------------------------------------------------------
C:\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools>adb devices
List of devices attached
A0000031702A26 device


C:\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools>adb shell pm getInstal
lLocation
0[auto]

C:\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools>adb shell pm setInstal
lLocation 2
[1] Killed pm setInstallLoc...

C:\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools>adb shell pm getInstal
lLocation
0[auto]
--------------------------------------------------------------
...as you can see, it connects correctly, but appears to refuse the "pm setInstallLocation" command.

I have the same phone - same problem. Any workarounds.

[Rob Williams]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I have the same phone - same problem. Any workarounds.

Did you try using the alternate commands?

adb shell pm get-install-location

adb shell pm set-install-location 2

I have major doubts that's the issue but you never know. Quick Google searches tell me that phone is a pain.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

As reported by another user, I'm able to connect and execute the commands, but my phone refuses to change the location. I suspect it's a firmware issue; I have a no-contract Android (LG "Optimus Q" VS700).

Here's a screen cap of the session...
--------------------------------------------------------------
C:\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools>adb devices
List of devices attached
A0000031702A26 device


C:\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools>adb shell pm getInstal
lLocation
0[auto]

C:\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools>adb shell pm setInstal
lLocation 2
[1] Killed pm setInstallLoc...

C:\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools>adb shell pm getInstal
lLocation
0[auto]
--------------------------------------------------------------
...as you can see, it connects correctly, but appears to refuse the "pm setInstallLocation" command.

I have the same issue, even after rooting the phone