Letting apps use SD card as storage

[horizonbrave]

Hi

I just bought an M4 and I'm very excited to start using it.

Please how does it work the SD card.. is it easy to set up Google Photos, Play Music and the other basic app to use the SD rather than the humble integrated memory space or do I need to root the phone?

I hope we'll have a Marshmallow update ASAP
Many thanks in advance and please point in case I need further reading before asking more silly questions!

[Phy]

Take a look at the memory frequently asked questions section 4 talks about the sd card

/t5/FAQ/Memory-in-Android-devices/m-p/348064#U348064

[Phy]

When you move an app to the SD card in Android, Android will only move the apk-file as described here: http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/data/install-location.html. This is standard for Android and not specific for our devices.
The path to the obb is for example known by the app so if you were to move it the app may not find it. I believe there are also security concerns involved here due to it being a removable storage and the file system used.

http://talk.sonymobile.com/t5/Software-Updates/Apps-moved-to-SD-card-still-reserve-space-in-internal...

[horizonbrave]

That FAQ entry generate more questions.

Quoting: "In some products you may find both a large internal memory and a memory card reader slot. However, on the current Android platform, the card reader slot does not work in the same manner in a device with a large internal memory as it does in a device with ONLY a memory card slot"

Please, which are these device with "ONLY a memory card slot"? Is my M4 phone one of them? Because my phone neither have a large internal memory (or are 16GB for someone still considered large??

Please, when I choose to download music on Google Play Music or Spotify.. will the app be able to write on the SD card or by default in all Android smartphones this is not possible unless the phone is rooted (sorry this must be a very newbie kind of question

The faq entry also cite PC and MAC computers.. please what about Linux ones? We're only using Linux PCs at home.

Thanks for the link, I'll reading and googling

[Uliwooly]

@horizonbrave

Check @Phy's second post. 

Any app that you use, the app's cache will be on the internal storage, this is standard on google/Android and can't be changed, perhaps if you root the phone > partition the SD card > then you might be able to change this.

Only certain apps can be moved to the SD card, even doing so, only a small part of the app its moved to the SD card, this is a Google restriction. 

[Phy]

You can run Sony PC Companion on Linux.
Most people use wine. To run program on a Linux machine. I prefer to use a virtual windows machine. But take a look at the link below and try something that works best for you.

http://www.howtogeek.com/133515/4-ways-to-run-windows-software-on-linux/

[horizonbrave]

thanks all for the replies

I'm actually not trying to move the apps (I really hope 16GB would be enough).
I just wonder if the more space demanding apps, except Sony Camera which as by faq should be fine, will use for content space the SD card (Google Play Music, Spotify, Google Maps in my case scenario).

May I need to read better the provided links 'cause I may misunderstood a couple of basic things
Cheers

[Phy]

This is the official information regarding memory

* The E2303 and E2353 have 3 GB of free memory (before you update preloaded applications) available to the user for downloaded applications and their data, music, pictures and movies while each device has up to 8 GB of flash memory in total.

The E2306 has 11 GB of free memory (before you update preloaded applications) available to the user for downloaded applications and their data, music, pictures and movies while the device has up to 16 GB of flash memory in total. For more details about memory

[Christofer]

Hi @horizonbrave,

To add to what Phy and Uliwooly has already said about moving apps to a SD card, some apps allows you to choose where you want to store data that is downloaded through the app.

Google Play Music, as an example, allows you to choose if the app should download to the internal storage or to the external (if available). I'm not completely sure about Spotify but if I remember correctly it should automatically detect and choose the largest available memory available when you start using the app. For Google Photos you would have to choose the SD card as data storage in the Camera app's settings.

To summarize, you can move some apps to an SD card through the phone's Settings menu and some apps allows you to change where they store data through the app's settings menu. There is, however, no general behaviour for this. It differs between different apps.

I hope this makes it a bit clearer for you.