Recently, we presented a guide to free up space on mobile devices, and one of the options mentioned there is moving Android apps to the SD card. The most recent versions of the operating system handle this natively, but previous builds need a bit of help. With the magic of root access on our side, and downloading Link2SD, it's possible to perform a safe and effective transfer of apps.
One of the most frequent complaints users made when using previous versions of Android was the lack of support to move or install apps directly on the SD card. Over time, external solutions appeared that, accompanied by the ever-present root access, provided this resource. Once the version number in Android began to be higher, the possibility of moving apps gained some official profile, although it still depended on the manufacturer, the smartphone model, firmware modifications, planetary alignment, the Chinese horoscope, and other factors.
How to Move Apps to the SD Card on Android
With the new versions of Android also came an increase in internal capacity on smartphones and today we can see that several brands have opted to eliminate the microSD slot… but if your device has space for one of these cards, and you want to free up memory, the solution is Link2SD.
Link2SD offers two methods to move apps to the SD card. The first is relatively complex, and involves creating two partitions on the card using dedicated software like MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition. Both partitions must be "primary", one with the FAT32 file system, and the other with ext2 (for better compatibility). Once that's done, Link2SD should detect the second partition and use it as a "virtual extension" of internal memory, creating all the necessary links so each app works correctly. The other method, much simpler in my opinion, only moves the APK by activating the App2SD feature. The space gains aren't as large, but on devices with limited internal memory (for example, the Samsung Galaxy Ace), this step already represents a huge improvement.
If you use the standard version of Link2SD, you'll most likely only have access to the second method, since the developer offers a Plus edition (costing less than two dollars) with expanded features. The first alternative to Link2SD is Titanium Backup, which also has a "second partition" mode for moving apps, but its conventional mode is quite powerful, and I can vouch for its functionality. Whatever your choice, the basic requirement of root access remains intact, but you shouldn't let the opportunity pass.
