LG Stylo 4 & 5 Move Apps to SD Card – Boost, Metro, Cricket

Both LG Stylo 4 & 5 have 32GB internal storage space. Half the storage space is used by System memory. We are only left with around 16GB of usable storage space.

The good thing is we can increase the memory via a micro SD card. However, only the media and other files can be stored in the external memory. The app & game installation will still occupy the internal storage space.

The solution to this problem is the Adoptable storage feature. It allows us to move apps to the SD card and makes it the default storage space for apps & games.

Let’s see how to do this –

How to move apps to SD card on LG Stylo 4 & 5 – MetroPCS, Boost Mobile, Cricket, etc.

NOTE:

  • Use a high-speed micro SD card. At least Class 10 is preferable.
  • Make sure to backup your internal storage data before moving further.
  • The camera app may not work. A 3rd party camera app from the play store would work.
  • Keep the SD card inserted all the time to avoid app close errors.

 

 

First of all, let’s install the SD card.

Use a SIM ejector tool to remove the SIM tray.

Place the Micro SD card in its respective slot and push back the sim tray.

In the next step, we need to enable USB Debugging.

Open the Settings app and select the General tab.

Now scroll down to the bottom and open “Developer Options”.

Tap “OK” to accept the warning.

Now look for USB debugging and tap on it.

Hit “OK” to allow USB Debugging.

Now that USB Debugging is turned on, we are ready to connect our phone to the computer.

Connect your Stylo 4 to the computer via a USB C data cable.

A notification on the phone shows “USB debugging connected”.

Now, wait for the ADB Interface driver to install. You can check the installation status in Device Manager.

You can see the “LGE Mobile ADB Interface driver” is installed successfully on my PC.

Now, we need to install the “Minimal ADB & Fastboot tool” for USB Debugging.

You can Download Minimal ADB & Fastboot from the below download link –

DOWNLOAD

Install the software and launch it.

 

The “Minimal ADB and fastboot” tool opens the cmd command prompt window.

First of all, let’s check the ADB connection.

Type adb devices and hit enter on your computer keyboard.

The output of the above command is LMQ710MS unauthorized.

LMQ710 is the model number of LG Stylo 4.

We need to authorize the connected PC for USB debugging. Please check your phone screen.

There must be an “Allow USB Debugging” prompt on the phone screen.

Tap “OK” to authorize the connected PC for USB Debugging.

Now, that we have authorized the PC, type adb devices once again

The output has changed to LMQ710MS device

We are ready to proceed further.

The next command line is adb shell sm list-disks

Type the command and click enter.

Note the disk name. In my case, it’s 179,64

It’s can vary based on the SD card used.  The disk name can be 179,128 or something else. We need to use it in the command line after a few steps.

 

Now type the next command adb shell sm list-volumes all

To enable adoptable storage we need to write the command –

adb shell sm set-force-adoptable true

 

Now, comes the crucial stage – 

In this step, we are going to partition the SD card as internal storage.

You can use the whole SD card space as internal storage or reserve some space as external storage.

If using the complete SD card as internal storage, the next command line would be –

adb shell sm partition disk:179,64 private

If partitioning the SD card in 60:40 ratio (60% as internal storage), the command line would change to –

adb shell sm partition disk:179,64 mixed 60

 

Note: Use the correct disk name as obtained from the previous command. In my case, it’s 179,64

After writing the command you need to wait for a while. The partitioning will take some time.

 

After the partitioning is done, type the command

adb shell sm list-volumes 

and hit Enter on your PC keyboard.

Note the output of the above command. We need to copy the UUID from this command to use in the next step.  It’s marked in the above screenshot.

In my case it’s 84d09fe-69ee-4f82-9e97-dec9854f27c0

copy it to use in the next command line. It’ll be different in your case.

 

Using the UUID code from the previous step, the next command line would be –

adb shell pm move-primary-storage 84d09fe-69ee-4f82-9e97-dec9854f27c0

The output of the above command is “Success”. We are all done.

Now, check your phone screen.

 

 

There a notification on the phone “Move complete”. The internal storage data is moved to the SD card.

To check the SD card partition, open the Settings app and Go to Storage.

On the Storage page, you can see a part of the SD card is available as internal storage. It’s marked in the above screenshot.

We have successfully moved the apps, games, and other data to the SD card. It’s now the default storage space for apps and games.

To revert the changes format the SD card as Portable Storage

To use the SD card again as external storage, open the Settings app and select “Storage”.

Select the first “SD Card” as marked in the above screenshot.

Now tap the “3 dots icon” at the top-right corner.

Select “Format as Portable” to erase the SD card partition.

Now, the complete SD card space is available as External Storage.

If stuck at any stage, feel free to leave a comment below.

How practical do you think is the Adoptable storage feature on Stylo 4/5? Please share your experience in the comment section below.

 

 

8 thoughts on “LG Stylo 4 & 5 Move Apps to SD Card – Boost, Metro, Cricket

  1. I tried your method above and actually moved several apps over into the external storage area the first time around. However when I restarted my LG Stylo 5 those apps were no longer on my phone and the storage area was also gone.

    I went through the process again and here is what I am getting:
    C:\Program Files (x86)\Mini ADB and Fastboot>adb shell pm move-primary-storage 60034553-c118-4ce8-a828-7329e3bed968
    Failure [-6]

    Any suggestions on how to fix this.
    thanks,
    Ken

    • Is your Stylo 5 running on Android 9 or 10? I observed this method fails to work on Android 9. It works on Android 8 & 10.

  2. I had success following the instructions above, but now my camera app won’t open. Any clues on how to fix that?

  3. I’m also getting that problem the dude mentioned above me man. Hopefully this hasn’t caused a problem on my phone sheesh. So if all this process was done..and i also got the failure notification…what can be done after that?

  4. For the “adb shell sm partition disk:179,64 mixed 60” section, does that mean we want 60% to become usable internal storage? Is the 5 gb the usable or is it the 3 left over? (based off of some of the final step images)

Leave a Comment