The Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 is still a very good device and many of us use MIUI as it comes preinstalled and has many advantages. One major disadvantage for many of us is, that it does not support adoptable storage out-of-the-box. This means, that if you have a device with limited storage (e.g. 16GB), you have a problem once you run out of space. Fortunately there is a solution! With these few commands we can activate the adoptable storage feature so we can move apps to SD card and we are back in the game!
This should also work for other phones with Android 6 e.g. Samsung and Sony, that do no support this feature out-of-the-box.
NO ROOT NEEDED! NO FLASHING NEEDED!
Screenshots in the first comment!
What you need
- a computer
- a phone running Android 6 (or above)
- a fast microSD card (at least UHS class 1 recommended)
- a backup of all important files (especially from SD card - it’s going to be formatted during the process!)
Step-by-step guide
--- Warning: You are proceeding at your own risk! ---
- Enable developer options on your phone (in settings -> about phone -> tap “MIUI Version” 7 times)
- Enable „Stay awake“
- Enable „USB debugging“
- Disable „MIUI optimization“
- Download and install „ADB and fastboot“ on your computer
- Connect your phone via USB
- Run a command window (as administrator) and use the following commands
- adb shell
- sm set-force-adoptable true
- sm list-disks
- you are going to see a result like disk:179,64
- sm partition disk:xxx,xx private/mixed xx
- this is reformating your SD card, change xxx,xx according to prior result e.g. 179,64
- use private if you want to use the whole SD card as adoptable storage
- use mixed xx if you still want a specific percentage of the SD card formatted as “portable” storage e.g. mixed 60 (-> 40 percent adoptable storage)
- check success on your phone (setting -> storage)
- sm list-volumes
- you are going to see a result like private:179,67 mounted fb705131-c6a0-4e3a-959b-605a65334c8c
- pm move-primary-storage xxxxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxxxxxxx
- migrate data to adoptable storage, change xxxxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxxxxxxx according to prior result e.g. fb705131-c6a0-4e3a-959b-605a65334c8c
- check process on your phone („Moving data“ in the status bar)
- Install „QuickShortcutMaker“ from the Play Store.
- Find „com.android.settings“ in Activity-tab
- Find „com.android.settings.Applications.ManageApplications“
- Create a shortcut for it on your home screen
- Reboot!
- Use the shortcut to manage apps and move them to the adoptable storage (marked as “external storage”)
- Enjoy!
Note:
- Not all apps support to be moved!
- The system settings won't show the correct storage sizes. Use “Mi File Manager” instead.
- All icons of applications stored in the adoptable storage are going to be moved to your home screen after every reboot. You will have to move them back to their folders manually.
- In order to install new updates you will have to move the downloaded update file (from downloadad_rom) to your SD card manually and choose it as a source file in the Updater app.
Sources:
http://en.miui.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=820440
https://forum.xda-developers.com/android/software/auto-formatting-sdcard-to-internal-t3583875
Search: adoptable storage, shared storage, adaptable storage, app2sd, move app to sd card
