05-15-2014 01:21 PM
...and a lot more!
Here it is, the SDCard Bible for the Moto E.
UPDATED 5/21/14 - use of ART
UPDATED 5/29/14 - UHS-1
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Moto E and SD card Tips and Tricks
Also covers Moto G LTE
Moto E & SD Card: what is supported
Moto E supports microSD cards of up to 32GB. The SD card slot is located under the removable back cover. Larger cards can be used in the product, but will require a reformat on first insertion. The Moto E SD card support is based on Android 4.4 Kit Kat, with a few improvements unique to Motorola:
Take care of your SD card
As the Moto E SD card support is based on Android 4.4, you should always power down your device before attempting to remove the SD card from the product. This will avoid damaging your card.
Remember that the performance and life of your cards is highly dependant on its class and quality. For the best results, we recommend at least a class 6 card, and make sure your content is backed up regularly.
What's supported?
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Move apps to SD card when using ART... |
No |
...when using ART, you cannot move apps to the SDcard. Media moves are fine. (You can switch to Dalvik, move apps, and then switch back to ART. ART is a developer option -- use it at your own risk!) |
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Yes |
...move to SD card works fine when the device is encrypted. |
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Use MicroSD UHS-1 card... |
Yes & No |
...the card will work, but the Moto E will not support UHS-1 speeds |
Additional Details & FAQ
By default, all application will store and save content internally, even if a SD card is present in the device. Moto E’s internal storage is the default storage location of application data, all third party apps will store content on the internal storage, unless these applications have been modified to use the new Android 4.4 storage management framework and API.
Some of the applications preloaded with your device (Motorola camera, Motorola migrate, play music, play movies) offer a setting to change the default storage location -but will only be applicable for this application. Other applications, such as file managers, will let your transfer content to and from the card.
Settings->Storage is the place to look if you need to know whether a SD card is inserted in your device. If the card is present and has been successfully mounted by the system, it will show up under storage settings, “SD Card.” If the card does not show up, it was not mounted correctly. Remove it and re-insert it.
Moto E supports SDHC cards up to 32GB. When inserting an SDHC card, and if the card is good and formatted, the device will display “preparing SD card” and the SD card available storage will be viewable in storage settings. Moto E and G LTE natively support SDHC (FAT32) formatted SD cards. Larger cards will need to be reformatted.
SD cards can sometimes fail. When a card fails, the system will automatically unmount it, and any attempt to reinsert it will not result in a successful mount.
We recommend to always power down your device before removing your SD card. Removing a SD card while the system might still be writing to the card could result in filesystem corruption and loss of data.
When inserting a SD card post-purchase, your Moto E will help you free internal storage by offering to move pictures, movies and music stored internally to the SD card, through the “Move Media” application. “Move media” will only move content that is safe to move: pictures, movies and music. Items are moved from internal storage to the card, and are moved to the same location on the card. As an example, a picture stored on your internal storage at this location: /sdcard0/DCIM/MattJones.JPG will simply be moved to /sdcard1/DCIM/MattJones.JPG (on the SD card). Content will still be visible to media consuming applications (Gallery, Music) after being moved. The Move Media dialog on card insertion will only display once for each SD card, and only if there is content to move. You can invoke it manually from storage settings at any time.
When an SD card in present, you can set it card as the default storage location for your pictures from the camera application. Out of the box, captured pictures and movies will always be stored on internal storage. You can find this setting under the “Storage location” icon in the camera app settings. This setting will only appear when a SD card is present in the device.
Some applications are quite large. For Moto E, we have enabled the ability for a consumer to install and move applications from internal storage to his SD card. Applications moved to the SD card still appear in the apps tray, and runs. When installing an application from Play Store, Android will make a install time decision on whether to install this application on internal storage or on your SD card, based on a guideline from the application developer and the amount of internal storage available. Moving applications manually gives you more control.
In Settings, under Applications, the “On SD card” tab, will display a list of applications which can be moved to the card, as well as these already installed on the card. You can move each application back and forth through each “app info” settings view (“move to SD card”). Please wait until each move has completed before exiting the App info panel.
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Moving an application to the SD card only moves the application executable and resources, any data which the application needs (cache, data) might still reside on internal storage (unless the application specifically use the Android 4.4. API)
Ultimately, it’s up to the application developer to decide whether an app can be moved to the SD card. Only applications which follow the Android install location guidelines can be moved, and there are certain class of apps which can’t be moved to the card. If your favorite app can’t be move to your SD card, please contact the application developer first
With the updated Android 4.4 Storage API, applications can decide to store content seamlessly on either internal storage OR an SD card. The first two applications using this functionality are Play Music and Play Movies, both preloaded apps on your Moto E.
If you have a SD card inserted in your Moto E, Play Music lets you select the SD card as the storage for your music cache, downloaded or purchased from Google Play music. This setting can be found under the application settings->storage location. Play Movies offer a similar option.
If you used both of these Google applications, we recommend you set both of these settings to “SD Card/External.”
Play Music storage settings
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Play Movies storage settings
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Motorola Migrate has also been updated to take advantage of an SD card. When migrating to your new Moto E, Migrate will automatically detect available storage space and store to your SD card if appropriate, or prompt you to install an SD card.
Documents, media and pictures stored on the card are always scanned by the media scanner, and available to all apps. With Gmail, or the Android email client, a user can easily attach any file stored on the SD card to an outgoing email. Content is shown by type, and storage location in the Android content picker.
This functionality leverages the Android 4.4 storage access framework. If you are trying to attach (or browse) a specific file on your card, we recommend enabling the “Display advanced devices” option in the file picker. When this option is enabled, your SD card will be explicitly shown as a storage location in the file picker, and you will be able to browse and select specific files on your SD card directory.
As the the download manager only supports “Internal” Storage, you can only save attachment or downloads on internal storage; not on the SD card.
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As the download manager only supports “Internal” Storage, you can only save attachment or downloads on internal storage; not on the SD card.
QuickOffice and Google Drive are preloaded on your Moto E are powerful document editors, and leverage the Android 4.4 storage access framework and system file picker (described above) to access local files. You can open files and documents stored on your SD card with Quick Office and Drive through the file picker.
The user can sideload content to his SD card from a tethered PC. Windows support MTP transfer natively, while the MacOS user will need to download the Android File Transfer application. With Android File Transfer, the SD card appears as a separate storage location which files can be dragged to and from. On Windows, your device storage locations (internal and SD card) will appear as devices you can drag content to/from.
While Android 4.4. currently disables write permission to the SD card in ‘public directories’, Motorola has enabled write access to these directories in our implementation. A user can use a third party file manager to manage, move and delete content in public directories on the SD Card. (DCIM, Documents, Downloads...). As required by Android, write-access to the top-level directory of the SD Card from a file manager application will fail.
Known Issues to watch for:
If there is less than 1.2GB of internal memory, you will not be able to use ART mode. The ART option will not be visible. You will have to free up space on the internal drive to use ART. Remember, ART is a developer option -- use it at your own risk!
- OlivierM
05-16-2014 06:11 AM
Thank you! Really looking forward to the Moto E now. The 2.2GB of usable internal storage won't be nearly as limiting as I had thought.
05-17-2014 06:21 AM
Matt, this is an awesome post. Makes me jealous! :-D
05-17-2014 05:55 PM
Yeah, the SD card slot makes up for the 2GB of internal space.
05-19-2014 07:55 AM
crystallet said:
Matt, this is an awesome post. Makes me jealous! :-D
View original
I wish I could take credit, but it was mostly composed by resident genius OlivierM.
05-19-2014 08:32 AM
To Resident Genius OlivierM: Totally awesome job on this post! And I'm still jealous! :-D
05-20-2014 11:09 AM
First off, this post is very useful, I could repurpose the 32GB SDC from my old phone without any loss of content and get to know all I could do.
Would like to share the following on moving apps to the SD card. This feature doesn't seem to work when the ART run time engine is enabled instead of Dalvic. I enabled ART, and all apps recompiled successfully, but then noticed that the apps were all in main storage, and within the 'SD Card' tab under 'Apps' in 'Settings' the 'Move to SD card' option was disabled. On reverting back to Dalvic run time engine, and recompiling all the apps, the move to SDC is enabled.
By the way, enabling ART did not make a difference on the AnTuTu benchmark score for my E6, as the number continued to be in the 12.3 K range. So, happy to continue with Dalvic RTE.
05-20-2014 11:20 AM
05-20-2014 04:26 PM
In the original post, it says that apps from the Play store can be moved to the SD card if the developer has followed Android 4.4 guidelines. It may be that the apps you're trying to move need to be updated. It might be worth contacting the developer to see if the app can be moved. Some developers, particularly with paid apps, program them so they can't be moved.
05-20-2014 04:37 PM
crystallet said:
In the original post, it says that apps from the Play store can be moved to the SD card if the developer has followed Android 4.4 guidelines. It may be that the apps you're trying to move need to be updated. It might be worth contacting the developer to see if the app can be moved. Some developers, particularly with paid apps, program them so they can't be moved.
View original
NO, these are apps that are designed to be moved to SD card. There's a screen in the apps section of settings dedicated to these apps, just like in gingerbread. Unfortunately it appears that moving apps to SD card is currently not compatible with ART, as confirmed by OlivierM on G+.