47 votes
Accepted

How to adopt SD card as internal storage on Samsung devices?

Samsung (and some other manufacturers') devices don't support Adoptable Storage by default. However, there are some workarounds how you can enable it. Some devices will require root, and others don't. ...
Thomas Vos's user avatar
  • 3,950
37 votes
Accepted

How does the "Format as internal storage" feature work in Android 6.0+?

If you use this feature, your external SD card is replacing your internal storage. In the process, it will be encrypted. You no longer can "simply unmount" the card to read it in any other ...
Izzy's user avatar
  • 90.6k
34 votes
Accepted

How to decrypt Adopted Storage?

How to decrypt adopted storage. Your Android device must be rooted. Browse to /data/misc/vold, e.g. using a file browser app like "ES Explorer". The .key file there is the encryption key ...
poqdavid's user avatar
  • 1,323
26 votes
Accepted

Split external SD card partially into adoptable storage and portable storage

You don't need to root your device but the device i done this with is rooted You need to enabled Developer Options. Enable the USB Debugging option. Make sure your SD card is formatted as portable, ...
poqdavid's user avatar
  • 1,323
21 votes

How to stop apps writing to "Android" folder on the SD card?

Apps usually don't write data to external SD card, but starting with Android 4.4 up to latest release 10, there is no permission to stop apps writing to Android directory on external storage. The ...
Irfan Latif's user avatar
  • 19.7k
20 votes

Best file system for an external SD card

The answer to your question is built into your phone's OS. 1. Put the SD card in your phone 2. Reformat the SD card with your phone(Settings --> Storage/Storage & USB) 3. The file system on the ...
andDevW's user avatar
  • 616
14 votes
Accepted

Is it possible to mount on a PC an SD card that has been encrypted by an Android Marshmallow device?

Marshmallow has two ways to treat the external SD card : Portable Storage : In this the entire memory of the ext.SD card is available for use, if it is not encrypted (natively) and you can mount it ...
beeshyams's user avatar
  • 40k
14 votes
Accepted

How can I make a symlink (or equivalent) inside /storage/emulated/0?

ANDROID STORAGE: On Android 5: /sdcard >S> /storage/emulated/legacy >S> /mnt/shell/emulated/0 /mnt/shell/emulated >E> /data/media On Android 6+: # USER-ID of current user in case ...
Irfan Latif's user avatar
  • 19.7k
14 votes
Accepted

How to bind mount a folder inside /sdcard with correct permissions?

I have been using two different approaches (in fact many with small differences) on my older Android versions to mount whole /sdcard/WhatsApp directory from external SD card. I have tested, it works ...
Irfan Latif's user avatar
  • 19.7k
11 votes
Accepted

How to move apps to external SD card on a non-rooted Android 4.4.2?

With Kitkat your chances for a "complete solution" without rooting are pretty much zero: the Android project has definitely screwed up here. No apps get full access to the external SD card, which ...
Izzy's user avatar
  • 90.6k
9 votes

How to decrypt the corrupt SD card formatted as internal storage?

Even it does not fully answer the question, here's a guide to decrypt the external storage formatted as internal. You do need to be root on your phone, however. The gist is that we search for strings ...
Doruk Karınca's user avatar
8 votes
Accepted

Can I grant permanent access to external storage to an app in Nougat?

Manually granting permission For rooted devices, there is a way to inject a specific permission inside the /data/system/packages.xml file, which details any and all installed apps, alongside their ...
Grimoire's user avatar
  • 2,969
7 votes

How to upgrade / swap SD card without losing data and installed apps?

When I followed the instructions of the accepted answer with my Samsung Galaxy S5, the phone would always tell me that the new SD card needed checking. There seems to be a bug when you're trying to ...
Aaron Digulla's user avatar
6 votes

When app is moved to SD card, where is the app data stored on SD card?

OK, after some research it seems that all the apps moved to external SD-card are in the virtual file system /mnt/asec, which is, in turn, an abstraction layer over the encrypted files stored in the ...
zrx8's user avatar
  • 81
6 votes

Link2SD doesn't work on Marshmallow: No such file or directory

Marshmallow internal storage can be better used with a mixed-format SD card as I also explain in my blog here: http://blog.sam.liddicott.com/2016/02/android-6-semi-adopted-storage.html First, you ...
Sam Liddicott's user avatar
6 votes

How do I move my AnkiDroid data to external SD card?

It is NOT recommended by the AnkiDroid team. Here is the Github issue about this: https://github.com/ankidroid/Anki-Android/issues/3106 Someone reported success using the procedure below, please make ...
Nicolas Raoul's user avatar
6 votes
Accepted

What is the "u#_everybody" UID?

As stated here: Cross-user interactions are blocked using the everybody GID. Android reserves UIDs / GIDs ranging from 10000 to 19999 for apps. AID_EVERYBODY is one of the special groups, which is ...
Irfan Latif's user avatar
  • 19.7k
6 votes
Accepted

Decrypting microSD card on another Android device or desktop computer

I don't know of any GUI solutions that fit your needs but can share something about working CLI solutions. DISK ENCRYPTION: external microSD card is not merged with the internal storage You are ...
Irfan Latif's user avatar
  • 19.7k
5 votes
Accepted

Filesystem format used for SD Card by Galaxy S3

The reason is, at least with Samsung devices and cards larger than 32GB, Samsung or Android formats the card with the exFAT file system, but incorrectly identifies the partition type as "FAT32 (LBA)", ...
Hypocritus's user avatar
5 votes

SSHelper: SD card Permission denied

Take a look at the various ways to get around this issue as explained in the official docs. Here're some excerpt: One solution, not at all easy, is to take the external storage device out of the ...
Mansour's user avatar
  • 199
5 votes
Accepted

How to access sd card from computer in marshmallow

I found a solution of this problem. Each time I connect my phone to my computer I have to go to Settings -> Developer options -> Select USB Configuration and select MTP(Media Transfer Protocol). Then ...
salmanwahed's user avatar
5 votes
Accepted

What file system does the format option in settings > storage use?

It will format the external micro SD card to FAT32.
DukeSilversJazz's user avatar
5 votes
Accepted

What is the minimum MicroSD speed necessary to extend the storage of an Android phone?

tl:dr; Go in for SDXC UHS class 1 or A1 cards if you are looking to run apps from Ext SD SD card speeds have two aspects that would impact your proposed use as adoptable-storage ( though your ...
beeshyams's user avatar
  • 40k
5 votes

How to free Internal Storage by moving data or using symlink / bind-mount with Adoptable Storage?

First of all, symlinks don't work on Android's emulated storage. A workaround is to use bind mounts instead. See this answer for details. But with Adoptable Storage you don't need to: Create symlink ...
Irfan Latif's user avatar
  • 19.7k
4 votes

Link2SD error- "mount: Operation not supported on transparent endpoint"

Try with an ext4 partition. From www.link2sd.info/faq. I had the same issue and this fixed it.
Sparky's user avatar
  • 141
4 votes

Installing to SDCard by default

Install "Terminal Emulator for Android" in your mobile and open $ su # pm get-install-location 0[auto] # pm set-install-location 2 # pm get-install-location 2[external]
Abhilash's user avatar
4 votes

Check and fix SD card errors within Android itself?

While other answers are correct (at least partially), just to add some extra notes. On recent Android releases you don't need to run filesystem check manually as vold handles this automatically. See ...
Irfan Latif's user avatar
  • 19.7k
4 votes

Suddenly no data can be written to SD Card from PC (MTP), read Ok, Galaxy Ace 4. What to do?

This might be a simple problem of a write protection or permissions issue. Take a backup of your SD card and format the SD card. This may reset the permissions and you will be able to write into the ...
Ashrith Athreya's user avatar
4 votes
Accepted

Is the external storage size limit hardware or software?

As I know, this is a software limit. The communication protocol of a 32GB, 64GB or even 128GB SD card is exactly the same. Only the old non HC or XC cards of 2GB or less uses a different communication ...
Mark Schuurman's user avatar

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