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When I first inserted my SD card, it showed a notification with an "options button." I proceeded to format the card as external, portable storage, although the system storage format option was available (a mistake on my part). I later realized this when there was no option to move apps to SD card, as you can on LG devices. So, I went to storage settings, and pressed format, and it did not show the option to format as internal memory. Could anyone help me set this microSD card as internal storage? ***

Please note that this is not a previously asked question. I know that my phone has the ability to set it as internal storage. I have seen the option. Read the entire question.

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    Since it is portable storage it can be removed without any problem. Do that and Copy data from it to PC . Next, 1. Reinsert and reboot (sometimes it takes doing this an few times) 2. Format on your PC and insert into phone- it may detect and prompt format
    – beeshyams
    Commented Jan 14, 2018 at 1:14

2 Answers 2

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It seems like manufacturers are removing the "Format as Internal" feature on newer phones. Perhaps because it's in their interest to force us to upgrade our devices after running into memory frustrations.

So after a long and frustrating process, this eventually method worked for me. I had to make two alterations:

  1. I used the MTK ADB driver instead of the one linked in the guide. This depends on your chip type, there's no harm in trying both if you don't know which to pick. Just that your phone might not show up on step 7.

  2. On step 8, the fourth command adb shell sm partition disk:179,64 private might give you a java exception error. I had to use my result from the first command adb shell sm list-disks which was something like disk:179,124. The author neglects to mention that this may vary for your device.

With a bit of patience this should work for you too. If I missed anything, search the comments of the article, another person's experience might give you a clue.

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    Seems to work on Nokia 3.1 running stock Android 8.1.0 because the SD Card storage option now shows "Format as external" (meaning that it is currently used as internal storage). Thanks a lot!
    – Gabriel Devillers
    Commented May 3, 2019 at 13:02
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    Excellent. Works like a charm for LG Stylus 2 running Android 6.x.
    – Philzen
    Commented Oct 27, 2021 at 15:47
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Insert the SD card into a PC, or connect the phone with the SD card in it to a PC via USB. Next, locate the SD card through "This PC" in file explorer. When you find it, right click it and format it as EXT4 or exFAT. After it is formatted, return the MicroSD card to the phone or unplug the phone and then restart it. It should, in the notifications/alerts dropdown say the SD card is corrupted. Click this notification, and you should now have the option to format it as internal storage after restarting your phone.

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    Tried gpt + Ext4 on a Payton device running LineageOS 15.1, no luck :(
    – genpfault
    Commented Feb 27, 2019 at 0:37

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