Saving & Moving to SD Card - problems

[KarlJonathan]

Hi  everyone, hoping you can help me out on this one. 

Now I realise this is not an undiscussed topic, but I'm pretty savvy on this stuff, and this have stumped me, and driven me to ask for help!

My M4 is telling me "insuffucent storage" to download. I get that, and have moved everything possible to the SD Card.

... yet my internal storage is still showing 3.2GB of Apps. Looking at the list and the size of the apps, I'd be surprised if they totalled 1GB... so that is strange in itself... Furthermore these '3.2GB' of Apps do not show up as candidates in the "Transfer to SD Card" menu.

This leaves me around 600MB of data (well 100mb in reality as I believe you need a safety of 500mb to allow Play store download or update with saying "insufficient memeory" again.) All of which means any further app downloads will have to happen one at a time, and then immediately moved to the sd card... and most updates will fail. 

That's the background... and my questions are these:

1) Has anyone (please!?!) found a way to get Google Play to download directly to SD Card, therefore eliminating my issue? (much discussed I know, but no solution to this that I could find)

2) Why can't I move more of the apps over to SD Card...? I'm talking about the non-system ones that will not give the option to move. 

3) My feeling is I'd need to do something I'd rather not do to get the results I need... i.e. root the device, please tell me I'm wrong somebody?... anybody!??

Thanks in advance!

[_alexdon_]

This is an important thread you need to see:

/t5/Software-Updates/Apps-moved-to-SD-card-still-reserve-space-in-internal-storage/td-p/956195/page/...

Basically, even if you move an app to external memory, the apps data will be stored in internal memory. The app itself must have the option to either store/download to SD for the option to work completely.

And you cannot download to SD card for almost the same reason (the app must support that).

You should also check this thread on insufficient memory to update apps:

/t5/Xperia-M4-Aqua/Insufficient-storage-I-have-sufficient-storage/m-p/1089586#M5244

[Qatrium · Accepted solution]

@KarlASC

Hello and welcome to the community. First advice I can give you is to try clearing some cached files, you can easily do that from Settings -> Storage -> Tap on Cached files and accept the pop up confirmation. This can free up a huge chunk of space that gets bigger by using apps.

To answer your questions:

1) No there's no way to install directly to SD card, but Google promised some improvements in Marshmallow that will alow users to convert their SD cards to emulated internal memory.

2) This limitations is made by Google and is affecting every Android phone out there.

3) Rooting will allow you to mess up with system files, but moving an app to SD card this way will not guarantee that it will still function as it's supposed to do. I strongly recommend that you don't root your device if you're not an expert in how Android OS works.

[KarlJonathan]

Thanks for the comments... I have looked at the Android Marshmallow update and that seems to directly solve the problem with the proposed "Flex Storage" (http://www.xperiasony.com/android-m-for-xperia-z3-features-release-date/ - point 11)... where you can "format as internal storage".... fingers crossed it's as promised and arrives this side of the summer!

Thanks. 

[torvik1963]

The expansion of the internal memory onto a SD-card is now possible at the Android 6: http://pocketnow.com/2015/12/18/adoptable-storage

Now we have only the hope that SONY does not forbid it. Probable for M4 the update in March is planned.