Samsung Galaxy J3 2017

[Members_0SZ5WVe]

Hi,

I have a Galaxy J3 which ive formatted a sd card for external storage, ive got a game on there from playstore that has a lot of updates needed for it nearly on a weekly basis, my SD card is 32gig, the game im updating needs 233mb... my question is:

Why is my phone saying not enough storage to update the game yet theres adequate... way way adequate room for this game to be installed lots of times..... the only way I get to update is by uninstalling the whole game and then installing it from the start, the game is about half a gig in size so how come it can install that on internal storage when it cant update a 233mb update into the game on my SD card?

Thanks guy's

Storm.

[Pugs1957]

That will be to do with how the app is compiled. Most apps don't allow using the SD card for storage as they are too slow for most games and are not designed for rapid writing of data so you are lucky to find a game that allows this.
Unfortunately, there's nothing you can do apart from moving the game completely to internal storage.

[PaulC59]

Most apps and games default to install app updates and files to the devices internal storage which causes issues when storage is limited. You can sometimes get round this on some phones by selecting to format the memory card as internal storage when you first put the card in the phone before you install the game most later version of Android let you do this I think. The disadvantage is it will slow down the phone a bit as memory cards run slower, the advantage is it can let you use the phone for a while longer which is particularly useful if you have an older phone and need to wait a while before you can buy a new one. If your using an SD card as external storage then it's best to move your photos and other space hungry files to the SD card especially videos or movie clips etc which have minimal impact on speed but gobble up storage. Also look at some of your apps that save files to your phone such as social media like WhatsApp etc that save a lot of files to your phone that you usually don't need you can clear these files in the app which creates storage space. When you uninstall the app, that creates a bit of empty storage space so it lets you iinstall the updated version. Other habits to develop when using a smaller storage is to review what apps you have and uninstall any you don't need, they can be re downloaded if you ever need them again, also good housekeeping by clearing the phones cache and unimportant files etc helps you to keep the phone running smoothly. Other tricks that can help is keeping your important files in cloud storage such as OneDrive or Google drive etc many have a free allowance which you can use to keep your files safe and you can clear them from your phone. I hope this helps

[PaulC59]

Ps if you don't use cloud storage for your files it's important to keep backups of your important files. You can use external drives or connect to a pc to do this which keeps your files safe in an event that your phone or SD card fails

[Pugs1957]

IIRC adaptable storage only work on the S series phones and suppot was dropped in 2020.
I think the OP will soon need to upgrade their phone.