Complete guide to moving apps to an SD card

Moving apps from an Android smartphone to an SD card is a simple task if you don’t have to root it and your device allows it.

Many Android device owners wonder how they can move apps to the SD memory card, as low to mid-range smartphones often have limited memory and you’re always looking for ways to free up space on your smartphone. It’s a common desire to not always have to delete photos and music in order to have more space on your device for games and apps. How to do it?

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It’s simple. You don’t need to be a technology expert. In this article we present you the right procedure to move apps to SD card in no time.

How to move apps to SD

First of all, you need to figure out if your Android device allows moving apps to SD: although there is a slot to insert microSD cards, this operation is not always available. Also, not all applications can be moved, even though your smartphone allows moving them.

In particular, in the last case, there are some applications that cannot be moved to the external SD card if the phone has not undergone the so-called rooting. This is a process that on Android allows us to overcome all the restrictions that prohibit access to deep areas of the system and, therefore, to become 100% administrators of your smartphone and modify it as you like (as developers do). Si tratta di una procedura assolutamente legale, ma ti ricordiamo che essa può invalidare la garanzia del tuo smartphone.

Se il tuo device Android non consente di default l’opzione per spostare i dati sulla scheda SD, la strada non è quindi semplice e ti consigliamo di lasciar stare.

Spostare le app su SD senza root

Per spostare le app su scheda SD (e capire se effettivamente è un’operazione che puoi fare) devi recarti nella home del tuo dispositivo ed andare su impostazioni (la cui icona è solitamente un ingranaggio). Dopodiché devi svolgere i seguenti step:

  1. seleziona la voce Gestione Applicazioni (o App) dal menu delle Impostazioni;
  2. fai tap sulla lista delle tue applicazioni;
  3. scegli l’app che desideri spostare sulla microSD;
  4. clicca su Memoria e seleziona il tasto Cambia;
  5. ti si presentano due opzioni: memoria interna e scheda SD;
  6. scegli l’opzione scheda SD;
  7. attendi che il sistema Android completi il trasferimento dell’app.

If you can’t do this, as we saw in the previous paragraph, your Android device doesn’t provide this feature and the app can’t be moved without being rooted. But it could simply be that the selected app is already on your device’s SD card.

If the procedure failed and you want to avoid rooting, you can install the Link2SD app that forces the transfer of apps to SD cards in a very easy way: just launch Link2SD, select the app you want to move to the microSD, press the Move to SD Card button and then confirm with OK.