[SOLVED] Moved apps to external SD card, all gone.

[rossmcm]

I needed to free up some storage on the Tablet S so I thought I would try moving some apps to the 32Gb external SD card. I moved a group of the largest apps (Angry Birds, etc), and now when I try to start them it says "App isn't installed". The icons are still there, but the apps aren't present in the apps list anymore (so I can't move them back to the tablet).

Am I in for a reinstall of the apps?

Why does Android let me do something that is going to throw a large chunk of data away (sigh! )?

 

[Rukbat]

The phone can't know if the app was written to allow it to be moved. Use a file manager to look for the apk for the app. If you find it, open it, and it'll reinstall - to internal storage. Leave it there.

If you can't find the apk, go to the Play store and install it again. And leave it in internal storage. (If the phone doesn't have enough internal storage for your needs, it doesn't. moving apps that can't run from the SD card to the SD card doesn't solve the problem. How do you put 20 gallons of gas in the 10 gallon tank in your car? That's what you're trying to do with your phone.)

 

[rossmcm]

Hi, thanks for replying.

First, let me say the problem resolved itself. I had restarted the phone a couple of times and the problem was still with me, but after a safety-pin-in-the-hole reset all the apps returned and now run fine from the external storage.

The phone can't know if the app was written to allow it to be moved.

An operating system that offered a "Move to USB" button in the application manager would know whether or not an app can be moved. It's part of the AP - this from App Install Location | Android Developers:

Beginning with API Level 8, you can allow your application to be installed on the external storage (for example, the device's SD card). This is an optional feature you can declare for your application with the android:installLocation manifest attribute. If you do not declare this attribute, your application will be installed on the internal storage only and it cannot be moved to the external storage.
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If the phone doesn't have enough internal storage for your needs, it doesn't. moving apps that can't run from the SD card to the SD card doesn't solve the problem. How do you put 20 gallons of gas in the 10 gallon tank in your car? That's what you're trying to do with your phone.

I disagree. The problem was that the update of a fairly large app was failing because of not enough storage. Moving a few large apps to SD card freed up around 1.5G on the tablet and allowed the update to proceed.

Thanks,
R

 

[macl2]

Download All-in-one Toolbox from the Google PlayStore and when entering the app go to the toolbox option (it's on the right side) and then tap app2sd and have it scan your sd card. Violà! All of your apps shall apppear.

 

[jamesh0317]

Perfect! Thanks