HTC Desire (Android 2.2) - Moving Apps to SD Card

One of Android's bigger drawbacks (from a user perspective) has always been that apps could only be installed in the phone's internal memory, which is and remains extremely small. For example, the HTC Desire has only 147MB, while the SD card is 4GB. Google (which is also the ideological author of Android) justified this choice on security grounds. There is also another aspect - there are a number of apps and files whose disappearance or unavailability is undesirable. For example widgets, wallpapers, etc.

The good news is that since Android 2.2, the ability to move apps to an SD card appeared. BUT! Only if the developer has provided for it (when developing an app, it is necessary to specify where the app can be installed). Fortunately, the more conscientious developers have provided for this.

Menu > Settings > Applications > Manage applications - clicking on an app, alongside other memory-related options, may offer the option to move that app from the phone's internal memory to the SD card.

The bad news is that there are very few such apps that can be moved.

Moving apps with SDK tools

Even if the developer has not anticipated their app being moved to the SD card, all is not lost - using Android SDK tools you can try to do it anyway.

Instructions:

1. HTC Sync must be installed (found on the phone's SD card),
2. Android SDK must be installed (on the computer),
3. On the phone, activate "USB debugging" (see *).
4. Connect the phone via USB port, open a terminal and type "adb shell pm setInstallLocation 2" (without quotes). ADB is part of the Android SDK and by default is found at C:Program FilesAndroidandroid-sdk-windowsplatform-tools (for SDK r8)
5. With this, we have enabled moving apps to the SD card.
6. Go to the Settings > Applications menu and move apps to the SD card.
7. To restore the previous settings, type "adb shell pm setInstallLocation 0" in the console.

*) Menu -> Settings -> Applications -> Development -> enable USB Debugging

Even after this trick, not all apps will allow themselves to be moved. Note that even after moving, something remains in the phone's memory.

Results:
Skype 1.69 MB (from 17.52 MB),
TweetDeck – 1.23 MB (from 8.44 MB),
Alfas dāvanas 2.07 MB (from 13.77 MB)

Links:

- http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html