Step 1: Install Android SDK
To run the SDK, Java is required
Because the tool we need isn't included with the SDK by default, you need to click the 'Android SDK Platform-tools' option and then click 'Install Packages'. This will take a few minutes to complete, but once done, we can get to tweaking.
Step 2: Setting Up Your Phone
I'm not 100% certain on which options need to be enabled in order for this to work, but there's no harm in touching all the bases and making sure it will "just work". 'USB debugging' assuredly needs to be enabled, as does 'Allow mock locations'. For the connection type, I use 'Disk drive' which has never caused me an issue.
If you don't like leaving these settings checked, you are able to revert them back after you copy over what you need to the microSD card. I personally leave them enabled all the time as I've yet to find an issue with it.
Step 3: Running the Tweak
With the software above installed and the phone prepped, you're able to load up a command prompt in Windows and go to the install folder in order to run the tool we need. By default, the install folder will be found under the Program Files (x86) folder. The full path for me was:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools
You can navigate here with the 'cd' tool. Prefacing the path above with 'cd ' (note the space, no quotes in actual command) will bring you straight there, as you can see in the shot below.
Once the last command is set, you can run the 'getInstallLocation' command again to verify that it went into effect, and then you can unplug your phone and get on with moving some apps.
Step 4: Moving Your Apps to an SD Card
Below is an example of a game where the developer disabled the ability to move the game to an SD card, before and after. As you can see, while the option to move to an SD card was faded out without this tweak, it was lit up afterwards. Don't mind the odd clock changes here, as I did a lot of this in the reverse order
Figuring out which apps can be moved and which can't is easily the most tedious part of using Android, but fortunately apps exist to make the chore a lot easier to stomach. One solution I've been using is called "App 2 SD", as it's both free and intuitive (though not that pretty, in my opinion). Here's another before and after example:
you can see, using this tweak suddenly allows me to move over many apps to my SD card, freeing up valuable space. As mentioned earlier, I emplore you to not copy over things like widgets as it will result in some headaches. Some system tools might be fine to be moved over, but I'd be careful there also.
Once you have moved over everything that you need to, I'd highly recommend reverting the tweak by connecting your phone and setting the default location back to 0. This will avoid any potential headaches, some of which I experienced over the past week of using this tweak. All-in-all though, this tweak is an easy way to free up some space on your phone, all for free and without rooting.Download
To run the SDK, Java is required
Because the tool we need isn't included with the SDK by default, you need to click the 'Android SDK Platform-tools' option and then click 'Install Packages'. This will take a few minutes to complete, but once done, we can get to tweaking.
Step 2: Setting Up Your Phone
I'm not 100% certain on which options need to be enabled in order for this to work, but there's no harm in touching all the bases and making sure it will "just work". 'USB debugging' assuredly needs to be enabled, as does 'Allow mock locations'. For the connection type, I use 'Disk drive' which has never caused me an issue.
If you don't like leaving these settings checked, you are able to revert them back after you copy over what you need to the microSD card. I personally leave them enabled all the time as I've yet to find an issue with it.
Step 3: Running the Tweak
With the software above installed and the phone prepped, you're able to load up a command prompt in Windows and go to the install folder in order to run the tool we need. By default, the install folder will be found under the Program Files (x86) folder. The full path for me was:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools
You can navigate here with the 'cd' tool. Prefacing the path above with 'cd ' (note the space, no quotes in actual command) will bring you straight there, as you can see in the shot below.
Once the last command is set, you can run the 'getInstallLocation' command again to verify that it went into effect, and then you can unplug your phone and get on with moving some apps.
Step 4: Moving Your Apps to an SD Card
Below is an example of a game where the developer disabled the ability to move the game to an SD card, before and after. As you can see, while the option to move to an SD card was faded out without this tweak, it was lit up afterwards. Don't mind the odd clock changes here, as I did a lot of this in the reverse order
Figuring out which apps can be moved and which can't is easily the most tedious part of using Android, but fortunately apps exist to make the chore a lot easier to stomach. One solution I've been using is called "App 2 SD", as it's both free and intuitive (though not that pretty, in my opinion). Here's another before and after example:
you can see, using this tweak suddenly allows me to move over many apps to my SD card, freeing up valuable space. As mentioned earlier, I emplore you to not copy over things like widgets as it will result in some headaches. Some system tools might be fine to be moved over, but I'd be careful there also.
Once you have moved over everything that you need to, I'd highly recommend reverting the tweak by connecting your phone and setting the default location back to 0. This will avoid any potential headaches, some of which I experienced over the past week of using this tweak. All-in-all though, this tweak is an easy way to free up some space on your phone, all for free and without rooting.Download
