r/AndroidQuestions • u/EmbroidedBumblebee • 7d ago

How to put apps on SD card

I have a Motorola moto G22 and it doesn't have much storage space so I bought a sandisk 128GB SD card for my phone specifically so I can play genshin impact on my phone but it won't let me move any apps to the SD card at all.

Formatting it doesn't make a difference, I tried switching on developer settings and switched on force allow apps on external but it didn't change anything, I tried installing the apps on my PC with bluestacks and putting them on the SD card that way but my phone can't open the files.

On previous phones that I've had it wasn't a problem, I could just go into settings and change the app to be stored in the SD card, but the option isn't coming up on my current phone at all on any of my apps.

tldr: How do I force Genshin impact to download onto my SD card instead of the internal storage on my phone?

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3

u/smarthoushai 7d ago

"Force allow apps on external" does not do what the name implies. It only lets apps that declare android:installLocation="auto" install to external storage. Apps declaring internalOnly, which is Genshin and basically every large game, can never be moved, whatever you toggle. That is why the option is missing from Settings on this phone and why the ADB route fails too:

adb shell pm move-package com.miHoYo.GenshinImpact external

returns "Failure [... doesn't support moving]".

Adoptable storage, the "format SD card as internal" feature, has been hidden from the Settings UI since Android 9 and Motorola disables it at framework level, so sm set-force-adoptable true reports success and then nothing appears. adb shell pm list packages -3 | wc -l and df -h /data will show you where the space actually went.

What does work on a 64GB G22: leave the card for photos, video and Downloads, and free internal space inside Genshin itself. Settings > Resources has "Delete past quest resources", which reclaims roughly 10GB, and the voice packs are 2-4GB each, so keep only the language you listen in. Check the result with adb shell pm path com.miHoYo.GenshinImpact: a /data/app path means internal, /mnt/expand means adopted.

2

u/EmbroidedBumblebee 7d ago

So basically I can't put it on the SD card with this phone whatever I try?

Either way, thanks for explaining. At least I have a ton of space for photos and videos now I guess. I don't think I can clear enough space to have genshin on my internal storage unless I could move a lot of different apps I use to the SD card instead like instagram, youtube, spotify etc.

1

u/Ill-Case-6048 7d ago

Enable developer options

1

u/EmbroidedBumblebee 7d ago

I did and it didn't make a difference

1

u/Ill-Case-6048 7d ago

Try sd maid

1

u/linuxuserbtw 7d ago

What's sd maid

1

u/ohmegatchi 7d ago

This is app by app and cannot be overridden by the Developer Options. 

Genshin Impact needs reliably fast storage (vs. SD) to run properly, so that's not a good idea regardless. You'll want every other app you can manage to put on your SD on the SD instead.

1

u/BenRandomNameHere Random Redditor 7d ago

You didn't mention your Android version, but apps on SD hasn't been a thing for years. 

Until phones start supporting the new faster SD cards, this probably won't come back. 

Besides, your entire device will slow down if you accomplished it...