Using an SD Card with Moto G32

waterman10

I've got a Moto G32 smartphone and my storage is very nearly full (mostly with apps).  I'm looking at buying an SD card but I had a quick look at the motorola website and regarding using SD cards with the G32 it says "you can't store apps on the SD card because it is portable storage".

I've seen videos on Youtube of people putting apps on their SD card so does anyone know why this is?  Is this specific to the G32?  

thanks

QrizB

Android distinguishes between portable storage (for data - photos, music, video and documents) and system memory (for apps as well as data).

Recent versions of Android have allowed an SD card to be treated as an extension to system memory. The Moto G32 is only from 2022 so I'm surprised that it won't allow this; I'm fairly sure my old Moto G6 from 2018 had this ability.

Woodstok2000

You can reformat the SD card as internal storage, which should allow you to use it to store apps.

The other option is to check if any of the apps could free up storage by deleting their stored/cached data.

QrizB

Woodstok2000 said:

You can reformat the SD card as internal storage, which should allow you to use it to store apps.

Do you know this is possible with a Moto G32? Moto's own instruction booklet implies that it isn't.
That's why the OP is asking.

flaneurs_lobster

Looks very much like the G32 doesn't have the option to format a SD card as internal storage.

Is the OP familiar with ADB and running commands on a phone from a PC?

Might be possible to do what you want, have a look here

https://www.xda-developers.com/enable-adoptable-storage-for-galaxy-s7-and-s7-edge/

ignore the fact that this is specific to Samsung phones, it's general advice

further reading about this here

https://www.reddit.com/r/MotoG/comments/1cn1ypq/psa_sd_cards_as_adoptable_internal_expandable/

waterman10

Thanks for your help everyone.  I think I'll just clear the cache on all my apps and hopefully that'll free up a bit of storage

Woodstok2000

This was the guide I found, but as noted in the links above the option to format internally may have been removed:

https://en-gb.support.motorola.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/133914/~/using-an-sd-card

PHK

QrizB said:

Android distinguishes between portable storage (for data - photos, music, video and documents) and system memory (for apps as well as data).

Recent versions of Android have allowed an SD card to be treated as an extension to system memory. The Moto G32 is only from 2022 so I'm surprised that it won't allow this; I'm fairly sure my old Moto G6 from 2018 had this ability.

It’s more the opposite way around. Older versions of Android allowed the card to be used as adoptable storage, sometimes called internal storage. But from Android 12 onwards this has gradually disappeared from many versions of Android. Newer phones are less likely to support it. 

flaneurs_lobster

PHK said:

QrizB said:

Android distinguishes between portable storage (for data - photos, music, video and documents) and system memory (for apps as well as data).

Recent versions of Android have allowed an SD card to be treated as an extension to system memory. The Moto G32 is only from 2022 so I'm surprised that it won't allow this; I'm fairly sure my old Moto G6 from 2018 had this ability.

It’s more the opposite way around. Older versions of Android allowed the card to be used as adoptable storage, sometimes called internal storage. But from Android 12 onwards this has gradually disappeared from many versions of Android. Newer phones are less likely to support it. 

The "posh" phones particularly were never keen on this functionality - SD cards are slower than internal RAM and more prone to failure, don't want nasty reports of slow phones, breakages and returns appearing online - plus quite keen on flogging the models with more GB.

PHK

It's true that flagship devices weren't keen on adoptable storage. Fortunately the G32 isn't in that category