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How to Move Apps to the Galaxy S7 MicroSD Card

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One of the most exciting features of Samsung’s new Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge aside from the camera and IP68 water-resistance, is the return of the microSD slot for owners to expand storage. This quick guide will explain how to move apps, games and more to the Galaxy S7 microSD card.

After ditching the feature on last years Galaxy S6, many were extremely happy to see Samsung returned the micro-SD card slot on the Galaxy S7. However, it doesn’t use Android 6.0 Marshmallow adoptable storage feature where the phone thinks it’s internal storage. As a result, many thought we wouldn’t be able to move apps to the SD card, but you can. It just takes some digging around in the storage settings.

Read: 5 Exciting Galaxy S7 Edge Screen Protectors

The 32GB Galaxy S7 has under 22GB of space available out of the box because of apps, and the user interface. Halfway through setup I was down to 15GB remaining. Thankfully I was able to add a 200GB micro-SD card, move all my photos to it, and start transferring apps and games as well. Read on to find out how.

Galaxy-S7-microSD

While it looks like there is already a few hacks floating around to get the Galaxy S7 to use the micro-SD as adoptable storage, average users are better off just loading up the micro-SD card with apps, games, music, movies and video and tossing it inside the phone.

Once you start installing hit popular games like Asphalt 8, Clash of Clans, Clash Royale, Alto’s Adventure and many others, the Galaxy S7 and its small 32GB of storage starts to run out quick. Thankfully a few taps in settings will let us transfer most “downloaded” apps to the micro-SD card. All pre-installed or system apps have to stay on the phone, but most from the Google Play Store can safely be moved to the micro-SD card in a matter of seconds. Grab a 200GB SanDisk micro-SD card on sale today.

Instructions

Once you’ve added a micro-SD card to the Galaxy S7 we’ll need to navigate into settings and move apps or big games to the micro-SD card and free up space. It’s a bit of a hassle and takes some time if you have multiple apps and games, but it’s relatively easy.

To start users need to pull down the notification bar and hit the gear-shaped settings button, or open the app tray and find “Settings”. My settings menu may look different from yours, as I’ve installed a theme on the Galaxy S7 Edge to look like stock Android, called Material Design in the Theme Store.

From settings navigate to the “Device” column and select “Applications” then “Application Manager”. Next up owners will see a list of all of their apps on the smartphone. I’m moving Clash Royale to the SD card.

S7-apps2d

Once you’re in the application manager simply scroll through and select any app or game that was downloaded from the Google Play Store. Select the app, tap the first option called storage, and under “Storage used” where it’s set to internal storage tap the big “Change” icon as shown below. Then select “SD card” and proceed.

Screen Shot 2016-03-10 at 2.07.41 PM

Here’s the full set of instructions and steps.

  1. Settings
  2. Device Column > select Applications
  3. Application Manager
  4. Select “Downloaded App”
  5. Click “Storage”
  6. Choose “Change” storage and select “SD card”
  7. Confirm you’d like to move app to SD, tap “Move” and let it export
  8. Repeat 4-7 for any downloaded app on the Galaxy S7

That’s it. We’ve now successfully moved multiple apps from the Galaxy S7 to the micro-SD card to free up storage. It’s worth noting that any of those apps will no longer function if the micro-SD card is removed, so keep that in mind. We’ve noticed no loss in performance from this, even in intensive games like Asphalt 8, so feel free to transfer as many apps as possible.

Read: 10 Exciting Galaxy S7 Edge Cases

It’s worth noting to clean up the application tray owners can go through that same “application manager” list seen above and manually disable (and hide) any app from Amazon, AT&T, Verizon and more, called bloatware, to make the application tray easier to manage and look through. These apps can’t be removed or uninstalled to free up space, but it cleans up the application tray.

That’s it. We’ve now successfully moved apps or games on the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge to the micro-SD card.  Stay tuned for more details, how tos, and more in the coming days and weeks.

30 Comments

30 Comments

  1. Angelatphoenix

    03/10/2016 at 6:00 pm

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    see post… See More

  2. William Craig

    03/10/2016 at 10:55 pm

    Big problem: I received my s7 edge today. Added a 64 gb samsung micro SD card and began moving apps. Everything worked perfectly.

    Then I restarted the phone. On coming back my phone notified me that it recognized an SD card for transferring pictures and videos. When everything finally booted up, all of the apps I had previously moved to the SD care were grey and inoperable.

    I would warn any user to text this on one app and restart the phone before deciding to move all of them.

    • Reece Dorton

      03/17/2016 at 11:37 am

      Same thing happened to me

  3. Will

    03/11/2016 at 4:04 am

    I tried to move an app and it doesn’t seem to work… it’s been displaying the “in the progress of moving” screen for over 5mins now for a 50MB app.

  4. JODI ALAN SCHRAN

    03/11/2016 at 8:44 pm

    I’m having the same issues! Just says moving app and never actually does anything.

    • JAY

      03/14/2016 at 12:15 pm

      I FOUND THE SOLUTION!

      Theres a black bar at the bottom ( I think its suppose to have text on it but it doenst)
      just tap around the black bar it will take you to the next screen!

      I hope this helped

      • Joe

        03/20/2016 at 10:21 pm

        I totally agree with (Jay) I had the same problem and followed what Jay said and worked…… But the strange thing is. When I got my new Samsung s7 showed move on the bottom section

  5. Zachary Scott

    03/11/2016 at 9:38 pm

    I’m having the same issue – seems to be stuck on app export. Small app around 70MB, tried other apps same issue.

    • Zachary Scott

      03/12/2016 at 7:14 am

      Update – it says it completes the transfer, but the internal storage space used doesn’t reflect the export to the SD card. Also, the SD folder that was created is empty at 0 bytes.

  6. Calvin Nguyen

    03/12/2016 at 7:48 pm

    Does anyone know why some apps can’t be moved to the SD? I can move only selected apps. I’m trying to move my Spotify since it takes up the most storage.

    • David J

      04/17/2016 at 8:33 am

      Spotify has its own setting within the app to store music on SD card.

  7. cesar

    03/12/2016 at 10:06 pm

    i just got my galaxy s7 edge and i have a few issues with it:
    1- i transfers 100 songs to my SD card and for some reason i cant play any song
    2- i moved all apps that takes most of my internal memory to my SD card and i cant use them if they are not saved in the internal memory
    3- IM NOT LIKING THIS GALAXY S7 EDGE.
    HELP
    EMAIL ME. [email protected]
    thanks

  8. chaik

    03/13/2016 at 11:29 am

    S7 internal memory grave
    problems

  9. David

    03/14/2016 at 2:33 pm

    Moving music to sd card my phone has only lyrics 7gb of memory left not a happy chappy

  10. greg

    03/16/2016 at 8:38 am

    My s7 is not even displaying the “change” option when I try this. So I can’t seem to move anything to the SD card. I’m calling samsung support, but can somebody here offer help?

    • vladtepesblog

      03/20/2016 at 9:50 am

      Greg I contacted text tech help. They tried to weasel out of answering but finally they said only apps of over 1 gig can be moved and the button won’t appear for apps smaller than that. I smell fertilizer on this. How many cell phone apps are over 1 gig? Maybe just huge games but I have none. She told me the SD card is really for photos and videos only. So basically Samsung lied when they said they re-added the removable storage. They didn’t really at all in terms of adding to storage capability. Its just a way of paying to store your phone pics and videos.

      As for the Camera Im still not sure its an upgrade. I had the GS5 before this and I think this camera is just a set of trade offs. Higher saturation for lower pixels. not as much detail for higher yokel factor. Jury still out on that though. It will take more time till I can tell.

      Battery life seems better though but I resent very much that even the button to change storage locations whic I have seen in multiple instruction pages is MISSING on my phone altogether.

      I think we are being had in some ways.

  11. JULIUS K

    04/01/2016 at 6:56 am

    I have the same problems and some apps are not even compatible with the new phone

  12. danza

    04/01/2016 at 1:01 pm

    I have had luck moving “smaller” apps to my S7, but only a few, like Adobe, Alphabear, a couple other games, and Messenger. I upgraded from the S5, and I used to have Facebook on my SD card, but that is no longer an option on the S7, which is disappointing because it’s one of my larger apps.

  13. M Metzler

    04/03/2016 at 6:50 am

    I can’t find an app icon on my screen after I just downloaded but it appears in the google play store search and I can open app from there. The app icon should be with all the others or at the end of the list but it only appears in the search box for google play store

    • James Cohen

      04/03/2016 at 8:51 am

      I have the same problem. A couple of apps do not seem to have icons anywhere. To open I have to search the store and click open

  14. angeljs

    04/29/2016 at 9:58 pm

    I’ve managed to move apps, but as soon as they are updated they move back to internal memory! Grr! I had this problem with the previous android version and hoped this one would fix that very annoying issue.

    • Dave Hubbard

      06/05/2016 at 2:47 am

      This is exactly what is happening to me as well. It doesn’t do me. Much good toove then. When evety week or so I have to do each one all over again.. With as often as they update….. *sigh* really?

  15. Raymond Packard

    05/30/2016 at 9:43 pm

    I have a Galaxy s7 and cannot get any app to go to my SD card–In storage I have no select “sd card”. All i can get into my SD card is photos which go straight into my SD card. I have no “change storage” as illustration on how to move apps.
    any hel[ appreciated Ray P

  16. Alex

    08/17/2016 at 1:47 pm

    On my S7 once I get to the point of selecting the desired apps/data to be moved it doesn’t even give me the “Change” button.

  17. Bailey CC

    08/21/2016 at 7:07 am

    Angeles & Dave, thank you. Thought I was losing my mind. I try to immediately move all down loaded Apps to SD card and occasionally forget, so occasionally check catch those I may have missed. I found myself moving things I thought I had previously moved. Now I know why. I hope that can be fixed. It’s annoying.

  18. Keila

    09/27/2016 at 12:41 pm

    My phone doesn’t give me the option to change what should I do?

  19. Paul Parkins

    10/05/2016 at 10:11 am

    My settings menu is stock and there is no change optopn for storage and i have a 32g sd in my s7 edge. Help!

  20. Duckers

    12/10/2016 at 12:43 pm

    That only works for the apk, not game data. It only moves the 20MB apk’s to the sdcard, not the several GB’s of gamedata in the android/obb.

  21. Tomas

    04/05/2017 at 3:36 am

    You forgot to mention that every time an app that has been moved to the sd card is updated, it will revert back to the internal memory. I miss the older phones with all apps that could be moved to the sd card grouped together, with a clear indication of where each app was stored.

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