Question Phone won't use extra space from newly installed SD card.

[MAUSERmike]

Installed the card into my Android Smart Phone and formatted it and the phone seems to recognize the card but my phone is still saying "You're dangerously low on space" and I cannot download anything or even receive e-mails due to this.
Any help would be great!

Cheers,

Mike

 

[Calvin7]

Format as internal option for storage

1. Put the SD card on your Android phone and wait for it to get detected.
2. Now, open Settings.
3. Scroll down and go to the Storage section.
4. Tap the name of your SD card.
5. Tap the three vertical dots on the top right corner of the screen.
6. Tap Storage Settings.
7. Choose format as internal option.

Some smartphone manufacturers disable Android's default function to format microSD as internal memory by hiding the option from your phone. Some manufacturers are removing the "Format as Internal" feature on newer phones. It depends on what you have.

 

[MAUSERmike]

The only "Storage" option I can see is in the settings and under "Device Maintenance", aside from this I go into that and tap the 3 dots, tap "Storage Settings", tap the SD card, then format but it only comes up with format as "Portable Storage" no mention of "Format as Internal".

 

[britechguy]

Android has internal memory reserved for system and user blocks, that are separate from each other.

The warning you are getting indicates that one, the other, or the combination of the two are very close to full.

If you have apps you've installed that you don't use, uninstall them. If you've got things like photos by the thousands on the device, upload them to your computer and delete them from the device.

Most people are pretty lax about "housekeeping" on smartphones, and if you've got an older one that has limited ROM and RAM it's very, very easy to fill it up. I had an LG Tribute (LS660P) that could never even download and install an updated version of Android, even when reset and empty, because the amount of available memory was insufficient to do so.

You don't mention your make, model, and Android version - all of which are helpful to know when trying to answer questions like the one you're asking.

 

[MAUSERmike]

Android has internal memory reserved for system and user blocks, that are separate from each other.

The warning you are getting indicates that one, the other, or the combination of the two are very close to full.

If you have apps you've installed that you don't use, uninstall them. If you've got things like photos by the thousands on the device, upload them to your computer and delete them from the device.

Most people are pretty lax about "housekeeping" on smartphones, and if you've got an older one that has limited ROM and RAM it's very, very easy to fill it up. I had an LG Tribute (LS660P) that could never even download and install an updated version of Android, even when reset and empty, because the amount of available memory was insufficient to do so.

You don't mention your make, model, and Android version - all of which are helpful to know when trying to answer questions like the one you're asking.

It's a Samsung J3 and I believe its running Android 8.1.

 

[britechguy]

What does your Storage screen show? (See: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=screen+shot+android+8 ) That, or your file manager on the screen that shows how much of the internal memory and SD card memory is taken up? (If I use either the built-in file manager, or FX File Manager in Section or Grid view I get a report of how much internal storage versus media card storage is used. In FX if I use the Usage Display as format, I get a folder by folder display of how much space each takes).

The J3 was produced in a number of variants and at the low end had only 2GB RAM plus 16 GB storage, which can fill up very quickly, particularly if you're someone who installs lots of apps and/or takes lots of photos/videos and is storing those in internal memory.

 

[britechguy]

I also failed to ask, but had better, is the SD card formatted? Most come this way and will be recognized as soon as they're inserted, but if you do happen to have one that is not formatted you do need to do that before it will be of any use to you.

I thought the ability to move apps from internal memory to the SD card was restored after a brief period of Android madness where they discontinued it (during the Kit Kat era, and I suffered through that) and it appears that's the case. You should be able to move non-system apps to the SD card to get back internal storage space, as well as change your camera to store on the SD card rather than in internal memory.

As far as moving apps to SD goes, see: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=android+8+move+app+to+SD+card

 

[MAUSERmike]

It is indeed the variant with only 16gb of storage and yes it is formatted as its recognized when I insert it. But I just need to find out how to designate the SD card as internal storage as this is a real pain.

 

[britechguy]

It appears that some Android 8 variants allow you to designate the SD card as internal storage. See https://duckduckgo.com/?q=android+8+SD+card+internal+storage and see if any of those will work for you. I never do this.

I generally only move stuff (apps and their data, as well as some media files) off to the SD card. It's still not "formatted/designated" as internal storage. Apps moved to the SD card do run from it.

You should definitely set any storage intensive app, the camera being the main one, that creates files to use the SD card as its primary storage. In the case of my phone that's under the Storage settings toward the end, but Android, much like Windows, tends to give you several methods to accomplish this end.