The SD or microSD card has always been a great help when our Android phone runs out of power. storage space. Especially when we install dozens of games, record videos and share content on WhatsApp or Telegram. It’s more. The SD card is used both to move files and documents and to move Android applications.
Some do not recommend move apps to sd card because some apps and games give problems when they are out of main memory. But if you have a large SD card and your Android’s storage is running low, you have no choice but to delete what is left over or move it to the SD card. Yes, try to move there apps and games you don’t use every day but that you don’t want to delete.
The process is relatively simple. That is if your Android phone has five years or less. Precisely in 2015 Google launched Android 6 (nicknamed Marshmallow), version that incorporates a simpler method to move Android applications to the memory card. Method that has been maintained until Android 12. Which represents more than 97% of the market of Android phones in 2022.
Move Android apps to SD card
We start from the fact that we have an Android phone with a slot for insert an SD card. The Android version has to be 6.0 or higher. And, of course, we must have an SD card inserted in its corresponding slot. Currently they are usually microSD.
To move games and apps to SD card we don’t need any third party app. They serve us Settings from Android. Specifically, you will have to go to Storage. There you will see what you occupy that storage space: system, applications, games, images, videos… In addition, there is a drop-down to differentiate between what is stored in the main memory of your Android and the memory card itself.
If we go into Applications or Games, we will see the list of apps and games installed on your phone. Within the file of each app or game, there is information such as what it occupies in memory, what occupies its cache, etc. From there you can uninstall the applications, delete their cache, force their closure… And in used storage you must press the button Change. This way you can choose if you want the application to be saved in the memory of your phone or on the SD card. It’s that simple.
Format SD card to move apps
If you don’t see the above option on your Android phone, it means that the SD card has not been formatted for such tasks. So we will have to format it. It may be formatted and you are already saving things there. In that case, review its content and save it to main memory or Google Drive. You can do it manually with the help of the application Records. Try to save the content that you are interested in saving from the SD card. When you format it, that content will disappear.
Once we know that the content of the memory card is expendable, we go back to Settings from Android. On this occasion, we return to Storage. In the dropdown, we will mark the option that corresponds to the SD card. To format it, click on the drop-down menu in the upper right corner of the screen. Among the available options, we will choose the one that says something like format as internal.
An informational screen will appear. Read what it says and, if you agree, click on Format SD Card or whatever name you have or have given it. The process does not usually take too long. After a few minutes you will have the SD card available so you can move applications, games or files. For move apps and games, follow the instructions that we saw before. And to move files, photos or videos, better use the app Records.
In principle, with the latest versions of Android, you should have no problem opening games or applications stored on the SD card. However, if you see that it doesn’t work as it should, you are always in time to move again the application to main memory. You will only have to follow the steps that we have seen but in reverse. On Storage You must click on the drop-down and choose the SD card, access its content and select it to move it to your phone’s memory.