Upgrading SD card, what's important to transfer? - T-Mobile Galaxy Note 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

This might be a stupid question, I am upgrading my SD card, the current card has like nearly 60gb of data. Only about half of that are the photos/music... Stuff o know I loaded.
What are the important files/folder to move to the new card? Or should I just transfer my dcim/camera, music, TB folder... And let android replace whatever else it might want?

Edit: this card has been in use for over a year on my previous phone... I'm sure there's a bunch of useless junk hidden? But I'm not familiar enough with Android file structure to know for sure.

I keep all the stuff I care about in a folder called "My Stuff."
That way I know at a glance what to backup. Just a thought you might try going for.
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What I would do is copy it all to a computer, then copy only what you know you need to the new card. If you later find something is missing, you still have the copy on the computer and can transfer it over.

My 64gb card was in my S3 for over a year, and its got over 50gb of stuff.... only about half is "MY STUFF" per se, music, pictures, videos, etc... the rest is cryptic android folders I have no clue!
Thanks for the suggestions, I wanted to make sure nothing "important" system-wise was stored on the card I didn't know about... big cards create big clutter for me, the more space I have the more junk I seem to accumulate.

Related

[Q] How to set the primary sdcard folder

Is there a way to switch the sdcard / sdcard-ext folder names to make the external sdcard the primary one? Or is there any other way to set the primary sdcard?
Thanks!
I was disappointed to see the phone force you to use sdcard and then renamed my microsd card to sdcard-ext. It made it quite a bit of a hassle to restore programs or use the backup features of other apps.
I know its been done on some tablets running 2.3 (My old Viewsonic G Tab). On those you had to edit the vold.fstab to mount them the way you want.
I'd love to do this too. I made a lot of songs available offline in Spotify, synced some mp3s etc and it all ended up on the internal "sdcard", not my 32gb class 10 Patriot MicroSDHC (which works perfect with the D3).
The same goes for most apps.
If someone has experience doing that please tell us how to do, I'm not too experienced in such Linux filesystem things. THANKS!
+1 this is very annoying.
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/etc/vold.fstab seems to be the right place to change it, like mentioned above. However I think the risks are little, I wouldn't be the first who tries out ... at least not before an SBF is available.
And I cannot fully assess what it means for future updates, if and how it has to be undone then. I'd rather recommend to live with this naming.
Thanks for explaining that und danke.
I'm more curious to see if we can remove the space allocated to "sdcard" and merge it back with the internal program storage, then when I drop my actual sd-card in, it mounts as "sdcard".
Possible? Or is that a rom only thing.
Does this link help?
Partitions for the x2
I'm afraid I'm not experienced enough to dare to try it ^^

Internal vs SD menory?

Is there anyway to FORCE the apps to use the MicroSD memory instead of the Internal storage?
It seems every app I've installed ( Dropbox, Google Docs, Evernote, etc) uses the internal memory. I have a 32GB MicroSD that seems to be useless right now. I tried moving all the apps to SD, but they still use the Internal Memory to store cache/files
I have yet to see a fix for this as well. The way I work around this is if the app saves files to the internal storage there is usually a setting in the settings menu that will allow you to change where it saves files. For instance with the TapeRecorder app. It automatically saves files to the sdcard (which Motorola stupidly named the internal storage for). I go to the settings and change the "sdcard" to "sdcard-ext", then it works!
For the time being, you can use the SD-EXT microsd card for music, videos, pictures, TiBU backups, downloads, etc., but in some cases you need to change some settings to do so. Apps cannot be installed on the external microsd card for now and you should make sure you 'move to phone' any apps which are check marked in the 'media' area or you are subject to losing them.
Sorry this next generation android phone just like Droid X it has dedicated app memory. That memory is used strictly for those apps. U can put 500 apps and not run out of room. SD card is used for media music movies etc
.
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Groid said:
For the time being, you can use the SD-EXT microsd card for music, videos, pictures, TiBU backups, downloads, etc., but in some cases you need to change some settings to do so. Apps cannot be installed on the external microsd card for now and you should make sure you 'move to phone' any apps which are check marked in the 'media' area or you are subject to losing them.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is this why When I selected "Move to Media Area" the application shortcut disappears from the "All Apps" menu?
I moved 2 games to the "Media Area" and now they are gone... they are still installed, but I have no way of accessing them. (I know they are still installed because when I went to reinstall, it said something about it replacing an app thats already install)
After researching more, and fumbling through the phone I discovered that Motorola has deemed the 8GB of Internal memory as an SDCard.
Another FAIL for Motorola, and I doubt there will ever be a fix for this. I could be wrong, but I don't think so.
Stated on the Motorola Forums:
Folks, it's the storage naming system in Android. If you go to any forum for any phone with internal and external memory you'll see the same complaints. There are multiple threads about it here.
Even though in Motorola's file manager you see "internal phone memory" and "SD Card", the internal memory is actually "sdcard" and the external is "sdcard-ext". Like I said, it's like this on every brand of phone with this set up.
So, what's happening is the apps are saving to the internal memory because it is, in fact, the SD card. Motorola has tried to remedy this confusion by discontinuing to say "move to SD" and instead now calls it "Move to Media area".
And no, your external SD is not useless. You can still set your photos from the camera to save directly to your external, you can still put music and movies and all kinds of media on your external and your phone will see them just fine. This is why there is a 16GB card included with your phone, so you can use it for media and if you want to move your apps off of the system memory to save space you move it to the 8GB internal area. Of course 8GB is still plenty of space for apps and other media as well
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
EDIT: BFirebird101 stated this to, I don't know why, but when I was scrolling it passed over his post. Didn't mean to restate what he said.
I've been *****ing about this problem for weeks and nobody seems to care, and it also seems to not bother anybody either.
Its a crock of sh1t. Yea you can save media files on the real SD card, but how many apps actually find them? Smooth move Motofùckingrola!
Fortunately with some coaxing and about a month of messing around, DoubleTwist can find media files on sdcard-ext. Its about the only worthy music player that can.
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Tornlogic said:
I've been *****ing about this problem for weeks and nobody seems to care, and it also seems to not bother anybody either.
Its a crock of sh1t. Yea you can save media files on the real SD card, but how many apps actually find them? Smooth move Motofùckingrola!
Fortunately with some coaxing and about a month of messing around, DoubleTwist can find media files on sdcard-ext. Its about the only worthy music player that can.
Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The Stock Music App seems to find the music files just fine on the MicroSD (just add some to try) and the Gallery Finds the Pictures. But I don't give a damn about Music or Pictures.
I have 123MB of the "Internal Memory" (SDCard) left - after I loaded all my work documents (spreadsheets, powerpoints, etc) & E-books. Right now I have to Move the file from the SDcard (InternalMemory) to the SDCard-Ext(MicroSD) after I've edit it and reuploaded it to Google Docs, then if I want to Edit it agian, I have to move it back to the SDCard(Internal Memory) Just so Google Docs will see it again.
Stock? That's okay, I'll pass. I froze those apps with TiBackup.
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i use videovault and when i pulled my video vault folder from my old backup and loaded it to the external SD, the VideoVault did not find them. There is no way i will load 4GB of videos into my Internal 8GB card just so i can haz my pronz!
What I noticed is this seems to be very similar to how the Xoom and Honeycomb handles sdcards and internal storage (minus the fact that we still cant write to sdcards on stock honeycomb....) so it could be Motorola setup the phone this way for a smoother migration to Ice Cream Sandwich when it comes out?
If ICS looks anything like the "leaked" video then ill pass.
It seems that MOTOROLA Android devices are the only ones with the MicroSD issues.
I have an Asus Transformer android tablet that has absolutely NO trouble at all when it come to read/write access of the MicroSD.
Motorola seems to fudge everything up. But verizon doesnt off any better phones (IMO)
You would think with all the Smart/Nerdy People on this site, someone would come up with a way to Rename the partitions Motorola has setup.
If it was just possible to rename the "SDCard-Ext" To "SDCard" ...
The reason you have no issue is Asus did a hack mod to get the SD card to work. Moto did the same on European xooms but on USA version its a google product there fore moto has no control on software manipulation. As for apps to SD card there is no need the device has dedicated app storage stritctly for apps.
KoolAidJunkie said:
If ICS looks anything like the "leaked" video then ill pass.
It seems that MOTOROLA Android devices are the only ones with the MicroSD issues.
I have an Asus Transformer android tablet that has absolutely NO trouble at all when it come to read/write access of the MicroSD.
Motorola seems to fudge everything up. But verizon doesnt off any better phones (IMO)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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SD Card Pointless

So, Samsung have boasted that they can have 128GB SD card support.... what is the point in that if you can't install apps to it... All the guides i've followed have not been clear enough in regards to using my 64GB SD as the "internal" I've tried numerous apps from Link2SD and Internal2ExternalSD none of which have worked
I've also tried to partition it in the hope it would work that way, but no... it just took off what I partitioned and the excess was still displayed as SD storage!!!
Does anyone have any ideas?? because I'm really tempting to take the phone back.. a waste of money in my eyes.... who the hell at Google thought 16GB would be enough to store games and apps on..... Please... Please someone help me here, has anyone managed to use their SD as internal??
PS I also know that KitKat took away move to sd support... so before anyone says that, I know =)
Google are the one's we should be venting our anger at. Samsung do make the devices with more storage so they've covered their backsides on that one, but it's Google that in my opinion have done this deliberately to force us all to use cloud storage. I do however believe that Samsung and other manufacturers should be going back to Google and applying pressure on them to rethink.
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I have many games installed on my memory card?
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have you ever even tried an S5 or you just making assumptions?
Because it has app moving built in and works just fine.
I have my S5 rooted, installed NextApp SDfix (from google play), FolderMount and everything's working perfect on SD.
All my apps are automatically installing to my memory card fine on my s5...all thats on internal mem is the sammy junk
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MOD EDIT: Comments removed
Anyway, so am i doing something wrong...because i play a lot of big games I.E. ones that take over 3GB, so when i "move" to sd... it transfers about 80MB out of 3GB... please explain what i've done wrong???? I've never used a Samsung before!
Seriously, it was a genuine question, I even went into the Samsung store today to enquire about it all...
zagaradrian said:
I have my S5 rooted, installed NextApp SDfix (from google play), FolderMount and everything's working perfect on SD.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can you just explain how you managed to get your games to install on the SD then? all i can put on there is music, photos and well..other media... installing games doesn't seem to work...
CraigUK87 said:
Anyway, so am i doing something wrong...because i play a lot of big games I.E. ones that take over 3GB, so when i "move" to sd... it transfers about 80MB out of 3GB... please explain what i've done wrong???? I've never used a Samsung before!
Seriously, it was a genuine question, I even went into the Samsung store today to enquire about it all...
MOD EDIT: Some comments removed
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What amount is transferable to the SD card is dependent on the game, not the phone or the SD card itself. large games rely on downloadable data which is not transferable, because they need to be located in a certain place in the phone in order for the game to run (usually android/obb or android/data).
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MohJee said:
What amount is transferable to the SD card is dependent on the game, not the phone or the SD card itself. large games rely on downloadable data which is not transferable, because they need to be located in a certain place in the phone in order for the game to run (usually android/obb or android/data).
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Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, I understand that...can i move the "Android" folder across to the SD via a file browser app... would that work? or will the S5 not read the files anymore... I've just tried that foldermount app... moved my spotify songs across, only to find Spotify losing all the music and then asking to redownload it.... is there a way to maybe mount the SD as a mirror... or at least as the internal card itself.. with other people saying that it "works" fine.. then maybe they arn't reading what I'm asking correctly..
"Attention Wal-Mart staff, we need a clean-up in aisle 6!"
Ok members, I see a lot of tempers and un-called for comments from several participants. Keep in mind XDA rules require respecting other members. That includes the use of profanity and name calling.
Now, I'll clean out the off-topic posts, and maybe even edit some comments. Anymore "mud-slinging" regardless of who throws it, and the thread will get closed.
MD
EDIT: Thread cleaned and edited some comments from some posts.
Folks, if you don't wish to help, then kindly move along to some other thread without posting silly comments.
Also, please be aware of how you post, and that it doesn't come across as whining or complaining. A well thought out precise question will usually result in a precise answer.
And if any member sees a violation of XDA rules, their "ONLY" course of action is to "Report Post". Not add further fuel to the fire, as then it turns into a mess and moderation must come and clean it up. Regardless of what some think, XDA is a development site, Not a social network. Please read the rules.
Thank You and keep it clean.
MD
CraigUK87 said:
Can you just explain how you managed to get your games to install on the SD then? all i can put on there is music, photos and well..other media... installing games doesn't seem to work...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OK, follow those steps (or the missing ones...)
- root your phone
- install and run SD fix; as result, writing to external SD works like before 4.4
- use some application like FolderMount. You can choose different folders from internal memory and link them to another folder on external card. For example: after installing one game (normal, on internal memory), choose in Foldermount the obb folder (that is where almost every app put big amount of data) and link it to a folder on external SD (as result, foldermount will offer you to move existing data). Set Foldermount to automatically mount it on boot, and voila!
link: at operating system level, that directory seems as on internal memory structure, but in reality it resides on external card.
Thanks, to the guy above.. it's all sorted now!
As anyone can understand a bit of frustration was inevitable... considering how much this phone cost and SD.... but appreciate the help.
I'm on Omega Rom 2.0 (KitKat) and after I'm moving and mounting real racing 3 or dead trigger 2, when I try to play the game it downloads the data again from the Internet. I have 64 GB Samsung UHS -1 external Sd card. Any suggestions? Thanks.
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The point of it? Storing all your music, videos(series and films) and offline maps on it so you can keep your internal memory as free as possible for apps that haven't been updated to work with KitKat.
Apps can read from the SD without issues. You don't need to write to the SD to play media.
That said, it still installs all my apps onto my SDcard. (Which I don't want it to.)
It's ridiculous how apps utilize the SD cards on a stock S5.
Let's say you install an app that takes up 100mb, and decide to move it to SD with the device manager. It will maybe reduce the on-device size to 90mb and move 50mb to the SD, and suddenly the app takes up a total of 140mb. Just an example, but this seems to be the case for every app.
Apoxx said:
It's ridiculous how apps utilize the SD cards on a stock S5.
Let's say you install an app that takes up 100mb, and decide to move it to SD with the device manager. It will maybe reduce the on-device size to 90mb and move 50mb to the SD, and suddenly the app takes up a total of 140mb. Just an example, but this seems to be the case for every app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Fantastic!! (irony)! That's Samsung allright!
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---------- Post added at 01:48 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:45 AM ----------
ShadowLea said:
The point of it? Storing all your music, videos(series and films) and offline maps on it so you can keep your internal memory as free as possible for apps that haven't been updated to work with KitKat.
Apps can read from the SD without issues. You don't need to write to the SD to play media.
That said, it still installs all my apps onto my SDcard. (Which I don't want it to.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But alot of people, me included, uses files in a much more interactive way than just "reading" from them. I need apps to be able to modify document, movies, music files etcetera! And for that the apps need WRITE permissions, which now is no longer possible.
This new KK sdcard rules really messes this up.
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I like to keep my media collection stored locally since I don't have a large data plan. Expandable storage on devices will NEVER be pointless.
Please give up and stop buy 16g phone, so 32g phone will come for every brand . I insist buy s.version to have 32g. I just cannot accept android phone treat customers as a fool.
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osvanberg said:
This new KK sdcard rules really messes this up.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
App developers just need to update to support /mnt/extSdCard for writeable storage, is that really too much to ask?
This is really akin to the old days when apps on Windows assumed they could write to "C:\Program Files" or "C:\Windows" ... that's just a bad idea, and lazy (the wrong kind of lazy).

Files disappeared,

Yes, I know how to use google, yes, I tried many things now and I don't know where else to look for help so I'm asking here, a place with many smart heads full of ideas.
I was doing pretty normal thing on my phone this morning, just trying to copy all the files from internal memory onto the PC. Of course I couldn't do that thanks to "Unspecified error" during copying some of the folders, including Downloads and DCIM. I managed to copy only some of the files from internal storage. I thought a reboot might help. And so the nightmare began. All the other files I wanted to copy disappeared from gallery and Total Commander. They must be on the phone though, as there is something on the phone that uses 2gb of memory. I did not delete them, the system just fails to see them. I already tried deleting all the ".nomedia" files, clearing cache and data from Media Storage app, disabling it, rebooting and enabling again but it was of no use. I'm helpless and I don't know what to do, why did android even do this? I lost a lot of photos and images and I'm really upset about that. Any ideas what to do? The phone is not rooted, never played with software in it, it's updated to 5.1
Download any File Manager from Play Store, check if the files are on the phone memory. If not, well, they are somehow lost. Maybe you cut-paste them onto your PC, and the files were deleted, but you got an 'unspecified error' on moving.
Thanks a lot for a response. I use Total Commander on every android phone I had, I can see that my files look like they disappeared completely, android just generated empty generic folders ("Pictures etc) after I cut off the previous folders along with their content so I saved a little bit that I could. On the other hand something is occupying 2gb of data but the phone refuses to show what, so there is a chance my files are there. After copying the whole content of the phone to the folder on desktop it just shows it weight few hundreds KB. I'll be trying to use some recovery software for android. The question is how did this happen at all? It had no right to happen, what if this happened to someone who has completely no idea about that stuff? Who's to blame and who's responsible for helping such a person? Motorola? Google? Anyway, this is the last phone with no micro-sd card slot I used. A memory card is the best backup
You COULD recover your files even if they were deleted if Android still had a mass storage mode. I don't think any of the data recovery softwares play nice with the MTP transfer that android offers. Of course, the SD card is infinitely better, but a rarity these days. I am sorry for your lost data. You seem like you did everything within your reach to get it back.
EDIT: Just to be sure, did you cut-paste the folders on your PC from phone, or just copy-paste. It might be possible for files to be deleted in cut-paste, if some error occurs in copy.
Thanks for contributing. It seems Google knows better then any of us what we need and there's no more Mass Storage option which gives free access to memory. Unfortunately I don't have that option. First I ensured which files are not affected by error by trying to copy them folder after folder. Then there were left files I couldn't copy, it was DCIM with most recent photos (unfortunately) and download where I kept lots of images with cool infographics found on the internet. I thought a reboot would help to get access to them and you know the rest. Files were there no longer. I'm seriously considering switching to Windows Phone, it seem it's too much to ask for a phone that just "werks" nowadays...I have a painful lesson to use memory card as well as cloud synchronizing but didn't give up yet, still trying anything I can I also wrote to Motorola with help request but I don't think they'll help me any better than people here, although it's more their responsibility to fix that stuff, the phone is barely 6 months old.

deleting unnecessary stuff out of system folder - Android 11

greetings community,
i have tried to search it, but being pro newbie, I found nothing. Is it possible to make this folder little bit lighter it takes 22gb of space, and my poor phone has only 64gb
I have rooted devices
thank you in advance
You can delete some apps using root file manager. I've use root explorer and have for years but nowadays there are times where it will not allow me to delete some apps (YouTube, chrome are a few this has happened to me on..) that my phone will NOT allow me to. And yes I have magisk and root explorer pro has root permission when this has happened. One way to get these apps off when this has happened to me is use another root file manager. Amaze file manager did the trick. I was able to delete apps I could not with root explorer. I'm BIG on not having useless bloatware on my phone so disabling apps is NOT my style. I usually save a copy by making backup and throw the backed up apks on my laptop or a USB thumb drive and delete whatever in case I end up deleting something that messes with my phone...Far as what can be deleted and what can't you can just discover for yourself. That's what I've done. I'm currently on a custom rom and I normally don't do much deleting unless I'm using the Google stock rom. If and when I do wipe more off stock I'll return and give you a list of what I did clear out. Just look in /system/app, /system/priv-app, product/app, /vendor/app with a root app and go to town. That's what I've always done. I believe TWRP for Android 11, the test build that bigbiff dropped about a month ago works now to make backups so that would be something to maybe do before hand in case you end up needing to restore your rom. On a few other devices I've owned people would sometimes make a thread on here for apps that can be removed and all and then list what they took off and what not to. I believe this Is what you are talking about.. If so hopefully it helps
Far as making system folder smaller and not meaning apps I believe it's possible but I think maybe you would have to repartition your device to do that and although it's possible it's dangerous. One wrong move and you have a paper weight doing that. I messed up my original Pixel XL because power went out while I was doing it before I was done and it was a goner. If anything I say here isn't right or there is more information about this please someone share who has more knowledge of this sort of thing. I would love to know as well. Good day/night to all. Cheers.
100kaa said:
greetings community,
i have tried to search it, but being pro newbie, I found nothing. Is it possible to make this folder little bit lighter it takes 22gb of space, and my poor phone has only 64gb
I have rooted devices
thank you in advance
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
@100kaa
You would be better off deleting excess files, trash, and photos that are already backed up. The system partition can be mounted and some files removed, but for the most part it is a minefield. Google has a fantastic new tool (since changing Photos retention rules) called "Takeout" that allows you to back up the contents of many parts of your phone and allows you do d/l it in compressed format directly to your PC. Check it out. OTHERWISE- If you simply must carry large files like movies, music database, pictures etc. then consider getting a USB-C OTG drive.
https://takeout.google.com/
This is why you get a phone with an SD card slot.
You then use the SD card as your data drive.
Only the apps and temporary folders go on the internal memory.
Next best thing is a flash stick or use cloud based storage which has downsides to it. Even if your internal storage is huge you don't want to store critical data there. I use about 64 of my 500gb of internal vs 340 of 500gb on the data drive.
If a large data base is on a large internal memory a data restore takes... forever. Most times the SD card is spared in OS crash and burns. Plus it can be used to restore the OS drive apps and settings.
Much of the above doesn't help you now but it could with future devices. All my PCs even my laptop are configured as dual drives. I learned a long time ago it works well, saves sweat and data.

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