How to Move Apps to an SD Card on Android

Most Android phones come with only 16 or 32GB of internal memory, much of which is already taken up by the operating system and preloaded software. After you start adding your own apps, shooting photos, downloading movies and putting your music collection on the device, you risk running out space. Fortunately, a number of tablets and phones come with microSD card slots that allow you to expand your storage capacity by inserting an expensive memory card, with 64GB units costing only $30 and 32GB models coming in under $15.  

Here’s how to move apps to the microSD card using Android’s application manager.

Some, but not all, Android devices offer a button in the application manager that can move portions of an installed app to the microSD card. The list of devices with this button includes the Samsung Galaxy S5 and Galaxy Note 3, the LG G3 and the HTC One (M8), among several others. 

Unfortunately, large apps such as games leave most of their data on the internal storage. For example, Asphalt 8 puts just 64MB of data on the microSD card while leaving the remaining 1.4GB to fill up your phone or tablet. However, you can save some space this way, particularly if you have a lot of apps installed and move all of them. 

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1. Navigate to settings on your phone. You can find the settings menu in the app drawer.

2. Tap Application Manager.

3. Select an app you want to move to the microSD card.

4. Tap the Move to SD Card button. If you don’t see a Move to SD Card button, the app cannot be moved. Most preloaded apps cannot be moved to an SD card. If you don’t see Move to SD Card buttons on any apps, your device may not support this feature at all.

If you wish to move an app back to the internal memory, hit the “Move to device storage” button.

The official Geeks Geek, as his weekly column is titled, Avram Piltch has guided the editorial and production of Laptopmag.com since 2007. With his technical knowledge and passion for testing, Avram programmed several of LAPTOP's real-world benchmarks, including the LAPTOP Battery Test. He holds a master’s degree in English from NYU.

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