Moving Apps to SD card Marshmallow
klang123
Enthusiast - Level 3

I upgraded to Marshmallow (Android 6) and was 'cleaning' up the apps when I discovered none of the apps can be moved to the SD card. New apps like Word and Excel can be moved but everything that Verizon has put on Marshmallow appears to be locked, can't uninstall, can't move. I use Amazon's Kindle reader and have over 700 books and now it is locked to the internal phone memory. All the Google Play stuff appears to be locked including the news/magazines, that should fill up the phone memory along with e-mail both Gmail and all other e-mail apps, locked.

So Verizon, how do I move my expanding data from the internal/phone memory to my 128GB SD card?

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Re: Moving Apps to SD card Marshmallow
ELMOLR1581
Enthusiast - Level 2

I'm having the exact same problem and still no answer from Verizon.  This appears to be mostly an issue with the Marshmallow version of Android.  I had 10-15 apps moved to my SD card before the upgrade.  After the upgrade all of the apps were moved to internal storage.  But since internal storage couldn't handle the volume of files a whole bunch were just wiped out.  Plus now I can't delete any of the 'junk' apps that came with the S5 phone to free up space.

Hope this situation gets addressed soon.  Thanks.

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Re: Moving Apps to SD card Marshmallow
Ann154
Community Leader
Community Leader

Which phone model do you have? Not all phones are capable of adaptable storage.

I'm most definitely NOT a VZW employee. If a post answered your question, please mark it as the answer.

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Re: Moving Apps to SD card Marshmallow
ELMOLR1581
Enthusiast - Level 2

Samsung Galaxy S5

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Re: Moving Apps to SD card Marshmallow
vzw_customer_support
Customer Service Rep

Elmolr1581 We understand storate is at a preimum. I apologize if we did not address your concerns earlier. We want you to get the most out of your device. Since Android was really never intended to run apps from the SD card the default is to move apps to internal once an update happens. The only way around this is to manually move the apps back to the SD card. Remember anytime the app has an update it goes back to internal storage. DeloresK_VZW
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If my response answered your question please click the �Correct Answer� button under my response. This ensures others can benefit from our conversation. Thanks in advance for your help with this!!

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Re: Moving Apps to SD card Marshmallow
ELMOLR1581
Enthusiast - Level 2

Thanks for the feedback but from what I can tell the Marshmallow version of Android does not support moving apps to an SD card while the prior version did. I moved a lot of apps with data to the SD card with the previous version and everything worked fine. Then when the upgrade was automatically installed that feature went away. Also, I cannot delete the 40+ applications installed on the phone when I got it. I could before. Now I can only ‘disable’ the apps and that doesn’t free up any internal storage.

Better service to Verizon customers would notify them of feature changes and possible negative impacts BEFORE upgrading the operating system. Customers should be given the option of installing the upgrade or not. I did not see any option to not install the Android upgrade (or didn’t see the fine print) and there was certainly no warning about the impacts. Verizon should test the pending upgrades, assess the impacts and let customers know the outcome if they choose to install it. understand the downside risks of not upgrading (security holes, etc.) but I should be able to assume the risks or not and not have the upgrade and negative impacts forced on me.

If there is a way to stop automatic upgrades let me and other customers know and what the risks/impacts are.

I’ve managed information systems for over 30 years and I know there is a better way to handle this situation. Now I’m stuck with a crippled phone. Thanks.

Re: Moving Apps to SD card Marshmallow
Ann154
Community Leader
Community Leader

Actually Android removed the ability to install applications to the SD card in a few versions prior to Marshmallow. Samsung modified the code to add it back for their phones until they removed it to follow the source code for adaptable storage.

I'm most definitely NOT a VZW employee. If a post answered your question, please mark it as the answer.

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Re: Moving Apps to SD card Marshmallow
klang123
Enthusiast - Level 3

Just trade up! Note 7 next month, 64GB internal memory, that old S5 is past it's prime, you need another payment and think of not just 16GB like your S5 but 64GB!

I just purchased a Note Edge since the new Note phones couldn't do what I needed, I'll wait until next year to see how the Note 7 does, not happy about the Iris scanner or the shatter rate of the S7 phones.

Samsung took out the adaptive storage option on my Note, I can only format my SD card as portable storage. This is a good thing, why would I want to mix EMCC memory with slow SD memory? Even with a U3 95mbs SD card the EMCC memory is at least twice as fast. I had hoped the Note & would support UHS-II SD cards like SanDisk Extreme PRO UHS-II card, nope.

On the memory thing, I removed all my Kindle books and disabled the Kindle reader, disabled all Amazon apps, my memory went from 17GB used to 11GB of Phone (internal) memory. Kindle does not allow moving 'their' books to the SD card, only on select Fire HD devices. I still haven't figured out what is using 11GB of memory since Android is only 4GB....  

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Re: Moving Apps to SD card Marshmallow
ELMOLR1581
Enthusiast - Level 2

I sorta figured that Samsung would not support moving apps and data on their older phones in order to force their customers to buy new phones.  Given the recent recall of phones it appears that Samsung shot itself in the foot.  I don't want to start a fire in my house so I'll wait to see what happens after the recall of those phones.  Forcing people to upgrade in order to use features that existed in older versions is just 'bad business'.

I'm not going to buy a new phone just to use features (SD card) that I already paid for.  Verizon tech support said Samsung supported code in Android to move apps and data on the SD card.  They decided to stop doing that in Marshmallow (and maybe a couple of versions early) and decided to just use the base Android code.  Anyway, it's a crummy way to manage a business.  On top of the SD card problem there comes the battery problem.  I guess people should just move to the iPhone.