yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] Taas:
it says that you need to make 2 partitions. I have 64g card, what size did you make your partitions? If you not use all of 64g, when you make partitions, what happens to the rest of the space left on the card? thanks
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] kevinrubio1:
Foldermount also works perfectly
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] rawintellect:
I listed my ext4 partition in my OP. It's in big red letters in point 3. I made it 10gb but have since reduced it to 5gb. The rest is normal FAT32. I too have a 64gb card. Any unallocated space will simply not be accessed.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] mw86:
What do you use to fomat as Ext4 as the app I found for PC just had up to Ext3, which has been working fine. I set a 8.4 gb originally as my secondary partition. I think I will end up using a smaller one if I can format in ext4. Im using about 3gb already with a ton of games and extra apps linked. So yeah I am thinking 5-6gb is a good range. Folder mount is outstanding and has been amazing transferring and linking gb of data from these apps.

I left the original format of my sd card for the first partition as exfat. The performance seems to be good on exfat. The recovery and the kernel loaded works on exfat so it seems to be good compatibility as well as on pc including the performance of the card on pc file tranfers. So is there any drawback to exfat I have not noticed Raw Intellect?

Edit: I just realized I missed the here link to the partition app you suggested. http://m.download.cnet.com/MiniTool-Partition-Wizard-Home-Edition/3000-2094_4-10962200.html I will try this for ext4.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] trubl1:
install link2sd beforeTiBu...more better

1. On previous devices, I have flashed new roms often and I generally wipe between flashes to avoid issues. Can you help me understand all that's required here to restore all my apps after a wipe and new rom is installed? My method before was to restore apps via Titanium Backup. Then, for a phone w/ an SD, I could just use App2SD to move apps over to the SD card.

1. The answer to that is in two parts.

(a) For all of your data you have moved with foldermount there is no need to back it up. It's already on your SDCARD. I backup the contents of my SDCARD on my pc should I lose my card. But you can do a full wipe of your system, restore the APKs from TiBu and relink them to your sdcard with link2sd. Once that's done resinstall foldermount. Then restore your settings in foldermount. You're done.

(b) for the APKs and link2sd using the above full system wipe as an example, simply restore your apps via TiBu the same way you would if they resided on your internal card. TiBu doesn't know the difference when it backs them up and will restore them to your INTERNAL card. Then just select all and relink them to your SDCARD. You're done.

To expedite the above answer, simply install Links2sd and in settings enable "Auto link". Restore apks from TiBu and everything will be restored AND linked at the same time. Remember to restore app only (no data) for 99% trouble free restore.[/COLOR]
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] Stauf99:
:confused:

should we move the link2sd and foldermount apps to this partition as well
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] rawintellect:
Link2sd cannot link itself. You can however link the foldermount app.

The reason you can't link link2sd.apk is because if something happened and you needed to recreate the mount scripts you'd be screwed. And so would every apk you had linked. It gives you the ability to recreate the mount scripts.

I suppose you could use foldermount to move the link2sd.apk to the sdcard. But if you have foldermount.apk linked and the mount scripts went bye bye so does foldermount.apk.

Short answer? Link one or the other. Not both. See screenshots.

Sent from the rabbit hole.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] Stauf99:
haha thanks, I can't wait to try this all out. Thank you so much for sharing ur knowledge, the read/write limit would have never occurred to me
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] killerz298:
With this method though if your SD card takes a dump or your phone can't mount/read the card for some reason you pretty much can't use the phone until that is remedied right?
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] rawintellect:
How is that any different than any other situation? If you had these on your internal card and that takes a dump you're done right? In fact if you backed up your sd card you'd be in better shape than if you put apps on your internal card. If your internal card dies you're taking your phone to sprint. If your external sd card dies you're back in business after buying a new card. Which you could get from Wal-Mart these days.

I guess my point is that everything wears out. You would be in a better position just replacing the external card than you would replacing or servicing your phone.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] killerz298:
I have yet to have an internal card die while I have had SD cards fail on me. I am not saying it isn't still the better method (or that the cons outweigh the pros) I just wanted to confirm that the phone would technically be a brick until you popped a backed up card in that bad boy. Would anything still work on the phone?
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] rawintellect:
I've not had an internal card die on me either. But then again I rarely store info on my internal card. But googling it I see that it's a pretty common occurrence.

Your phone would NOT be a brick. The apps that you have linked simply wouldn't be there. All other apps would be there and function just fine. It would be easy to recover from this. Buy a new card. Copy the contents from a backup and you're back in business.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] mw86:
This method has been nothing but phenomenal.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] mirvashstorm:
Longer Load Time

i tried to use the folder mount from playstore

initial obervation is that the load time was significantly longer

but during gameplay there is no lag at all. I am using a Sandisk 32gb Class 4 card.

i am waiting for my class 10 card. I am on the int'l S4 9505
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] mw86:
Yeah bud, boot time increases slightly due to the scripts involved but it's incredible having all that extra space and yes when actually using these apps off of sd it runs great.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] martuseich:
Link2sd could not obtain root access

After starting link2sd app it asks if I want to grant Superuser permission. I selected "yes", then selected ext4, then I get

Root Access Warning

Link2SD could not obtain root access.

If you have root access make sure you respond 'Allow' or 'Grant' the Superuser request.

-Samsung Galaxy S4

-rooted via CF-Auto-Root method

-TWRP recovery

-Sandisk 32GB UHS-1 microSDHC partitoned 5GB ext4, remaining partition FAT32

Superuser app shows # as Link2SD app having been granted permission.

Any ideas on solution?
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] mw86:
I have i9500 and it works, you could try an alternative root. Im using root via kernel.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] pcgardner:
Not necessarily - I used Paragon Hard Disk Manager to shrink the FAT32 partition and create a new Ext4 partition, and the data in the FAT32 partition remained intact. There are several other utilities that will do the same.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] martuseich:
Swiftkey predicitive word function not working

Everything but Swiftkey seems to be working well. Thanks rawintellect! I have used Foldermount to move the Swiftkey file from the data file over, but have lost the predictive text/word function? I think I got a message about Swiftkey couldn't access the language packs.

When running a search for "Swiftkey" with Root Explorer I found another Swiftkey file

/system/lib/libswiftkeysdk-java.so, using 2.06MB, should I move this file over using folder mount or undo my Swiftkey move from internal data file to extsd (restoring the Swiftkey data file back to it's original location)?
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] rawintellect:
You can try to move it. What's the harm? Worst case scenario you have to move it all back :) Unfortunately I don't know much about swiftkey to give you an informed response.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] mw86:
I ended up moving apps that were more secondary than main apps. Like large games or various random apps. I use swiftkey i didn't no link to sd for that app but i did convert it to a system app so it is on system partition :) not data :)
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] SquareBare:
Hey Raw, thanks for the great guide.

I am getting a Butterfly S quite soon, but I haven't had to deal with a SD card since Android 2.2.

I was going to ask, is there a good reason not to use a solution such as https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.codlab.int2ext&hl=en where you don't have to micromanage 3 partitions?

I am also getting a 64 gig card and could care less about the little bit of internal storage that HTC provides... so does this cause problems?
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] rawintellect:
eek! I'm not a fan of swapping the external sd card with the internal. I'm sure it's fine as long as you're aware of it when pulling the card out of the phone but what if your external card dies? I don't want to start a whole debate on what's better. If you like it go with it. When I wrote this thread it was the best solution for ME. It still is. It's all a matter of personal taste. I'm also not "micro managing" anything. link2sd is a set it and forget it type of thing. As for foldermount if I install a LARGE game on my phone then yes you bet I'm moving that data over to my external. But that's no different than using MF9's move to SD (and this moves more IMHO).

As for your 64gb. I have a 64gb class 10 and it runs just fine.

So use whatever method works for you. I'm simply putting this out there to give people choices.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] crawrj:
Excellent tutorial. I am finally going to get around to trying this out. Curious question for you. What happens if you do a factory reset or upgrade os versions? I am assuming a factory reset would wipe the sdcard out. But maybe not since I believe the actual wipe, from the software, uses recovery to perform the wiping. Been a long time since I have done it so I don't recall.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] rawintellect:
I believe a factory reset wipes the /data partition correct? or does it do /data and /system and the sdcard? I haven't used stock recovery in quite some time so I'm not sure. I use TWRP and when I do wipe I never wipe /data. Just /system. So I'm not quite sure what would happen if you wiped /data and then tried to relink those files after re-installing them. I do know this: I just recently (tonight in fact) wiped /system /data and /cache and then restored from my nandroid in TWRP. I had no issues with foldermount or link2sd after this. So I don't think there's any issues with restoring /data from a backup as whatever pointers are stored are retained in the backup.

As for upgrading OS? I had no issues updating from MDL to MF9. I used your no data wipe version of MF9 to upgrade everything except the modem. I flashed that separately. When I was finished all of my linked files and folders remained intact. Hope this helps :)
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] crawrj:
I had one of those moments last night :). I had just read the other post about the app from Playstore and still had that on my mind. Your method doesn't replace the internal storage with external storage so it wouldn't matter on factory reset. I was thinking about the other app which swaps the two. Sorry about that and thanks again for the info.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] Stauf99:
Could we just Mount the whole Android folder and be done with it?

Is it a better idea to Mount the folders to the smaller partition?
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] rawintellect:
You COULD do that. I prefer to leave some apps on my internal card.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] Stauf99:
why's that?

Edit: just to be uber clear, i'm not talking about system apps. Just the android folder in 'internal storage', not the root directory.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] rawintellect:
Because quite simply if I pull my card I'd prefer that some apps like "com.dropbox.android" be there and others but I'm not going to list them all. Say I pulled my sdcard (for whatever reason). No dropbox for me. No access to my files in the cloud from my phone.

Hey it's all about YOUR choice and what you want to do with YOUR phone. If you are ok with losing whatever apps are in your Android folder when the sdcard is pulled or mounted then so be it. I'm not.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] Stauf99:
I'm dumb, FolderMount refuses to mount the whole 'android' folder anyway.

When i try to mount a folder to my smaller external partition (data -> sdext2), FolderMount keeps giving me "unknown error mounting"
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] zasy99:
To mount the entire data or obb folder uncheck the 'destination folder check' option in settings (premium version only).

Good write-up though, I also have been using this two app combo to manage my phone storage, works great.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] crawrj:
OK I finally got around to trying this. I partitioned 10GB to ext4. I ran link and it showed about 350 apps. It was taking way too long to run, more than an hour. I don't know if it was hanging because I had too many apps or just being impatient. I killed it and tried about three times. I mainly did it just to see how it worked because all I really cared about was game data. So I stopped messing with it. Put the card back to fat32 and just did folder mount. Now I have 5.5GB free, had about 500MB before, so all is good. Thanks again for the post. The phone feels snappier now also. I don't think it is placebo either because it was noticeably faster right after the change.

Sent from my Galaxy S4
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] rawintellect:
I have about 314 apps. It took about 10 minutes to run through them all and link them with link2sd. Still I feel it was worth the wait. I only had to do it once and now that I have it set up to automatically link it I never had to deal with the wait again. I'm glad it's working for you...sort of lol!
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] seth586:
Anyone else having an issue moving data with foldermount to the second ext4 partition? I can move data to the fat32 partition, but I keep getting an unknown error when trying to link apps to the ext4 partition. I am also unable to create a directory in my ext4 partition in foldermount, I get a "Create Folder Failed. Permission Problem?" message.

I'm using a SanDisk Ultra 64GB microSD

My FAT32 partition is 27.4G,located at /storage/sdcard1

my ext4 partition is 32GB, located at /data/sdext2. Foldermount only shows 30G total under 'partition sizes'...is that its limit?
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] crawrj:
The ext4 partition is for link2sd. To my knowledge, foldermount doesn't work with ext4.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] rawintellect:
^this
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] electmadscientist:
Is there a diferent app to partition your sd card. I have tried the one you recomend on 3 different computers and the all say that they are partitioning it but, when i try to access them the card is not partitioned. Help.:(
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] rawintellect:
Did you press the "Apply" check mark in the upper left hand corner after you selected the size of your partition?

Sent from the rabbit hole.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] electmadscientist:
Yes. Everytime. And when i put it back in the phone it would say that it was damaged and wanted to re-formate it. I also tried activating the partition and that didn't help either.

I tried apply after each partition, I tried apply after making both partitions. I tried just 1 partition. I tried fat 32, ext 2/3/4, ntfs. None of them stuck. i tried re-downloading the software and starting all over, still nothing sticks.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] rawintellect:
Maybe try asking this question in the original thread in point 3 of my instructions? I've never heard of the situation. It always works for me. maybe it's your card?

Sent from the rabbit hole.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] dustinyo:
This worked great for me! I didn't go quite as aggressive but it still saved me around 4 gigs of internal memory!

I took a screen shot to show it off but xda won't let me post links :(
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] rawintellect:
That is awesome! Thank you for your feedback sir!
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] CiberwolF3000:
what about the "GL to SD (root)" app?

I've been using this app since my last LG p500 (great warrior, must say it) as the appdata mounter for the pholdermount app function, and it is, by all means, AUTOMATIC to find and bind the data from apps. Right now, I have a class10 32gb sd card, with 4.5 GB ext4 part and 25gb FAT32 part, and with Link2SD, my Galaxy S4 9500 is a MONSTER in speed and HD space... (I personaly use lots of rooted required apps, like Seeder, RAM manager Pro, Memory Locker, SetCPU, DS batterySaver, Juice Defender Ultimate, etc... Go for it, guys! ;) )

Is it ok to continue using GL to SD, or Pholdermount has more/better features?

And, why there are apps (mostly games) that doesn't work when linked by Link2SD? Like Ski Safary, Final Fantasy 3/4, Color Sheep, Human Booy Atlas? Is there a problem with some apps, or am I doing something wrong at link point?

Other: is there an order to use the apps? Like, first the Pholdermount/GL to SD, then Link2SD? Or it doesn't matter?
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] Jerika:
after flashing pacman rom

i've been using foldermount + link2sd right after i rooted my device, and it worked well with

source: sdcard0/

destination: extsd/

however, after i flashed pacman rom, it worked but it seems wrong.

i am confused of what to use for source and destination since i now have:

sdcard0, sdcard1, extsd, emulated/0
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] rawintellect:
those are mount points and they are created by the ROM. It's perfectly fine. In fact it's what foldermount uses to "fake" out the system. It creates a mount point that you name to fool the system to think that your data is still stored in that location.

your source should be found in /system/sdcard or /sdcard0 or /sdcard1.look for it. your destination should be /extsd/
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] rawintellect:
I'll try and address these as you asked them:

Foldermount has better features. I'm not sure why you're spelling it PHoldermount but it's awesome. I've used GL to SD on other phones but I have NOT tested it on this device (SGS4) feel free to do so. :) This works for me.

Link2SD moves APPS. Not data. A link isn't a mount point. You can try the "move to sd" option in Link2SD but it will NOT work on SGS4 due to the fact that the phone uses EMULATED external storage. Try it and you will get a message explaining this very thing.

I believe I explained how I do it in the OP. But it really doesn't matter since both of these apps are moving different things. One moves the APP (link2sd) and the other moves the data (foldermount).
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] Jerika:
Thank you

thanks! :good:
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] JrQuesh:
Wrong place. Please delete this or tell me how to delete my own posts.

Thanks,

JrQuesh
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] jdaudlin:
Am I supposed to see the linked apps in /data/app, /data/dalvic-cache and /data/data or should those internal directories be empty? I ask because after moving my apps to the sd card I still only have less than 3GB of internal memory free. How do I know that Link2sd is using the files off my ext sd card?
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] rawintellect:
Are you using just link2sd? Or are you using foldermount as well? link2sd moves JUST THE APPS. Which isn't much. foldermount moves the data which is more noticeable.

to see what your current space is use link2sd. click menu, then storage info. I have over 300 apps installed and still have 85% free in my internal card. see the attached screenshot.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] jdaudlin:
I am using Link2sd and foldermount. When I did this the first time I had a lot more free memory. I had some trouble with my phone and had to copy the external directories to the internal directories than reflash my backup ROM. After that it seems like I am not getting very much free internal memory. I attached a screenshot of my storage. Hope that helps.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] rawintellect:
You said it yourself. You copied your external directories to the internal card. That's why your card is full buddy. Just follow my OP from step 1. You'll be fine.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] blade22:
OK, so far I know from your comments

Link2SD moves only apps

FolderMount moves data.

I know how folder mount works..it just moves the game/app data to internal storage when mounted.

for e.g: if I want to play Angry Birds then I will mount the app using foldermount and it will mount the data files in internal storage.and on unmount it removes the data from internal storage though the data files will be there in sd card bcoz apps needed the internal storage to work (correct me I'm my assumption is wrong)

so here are my doubts (i hope u understand my queries :D) :confused:

consider this

internal storage: sdcard0

external sd card: sdcard1 (primary)

2nd partition: sdcard2 (primary)

Note: as written by author of link2sd we need both partitions to be primary for it to work

Q: If I use link2sd to move apps to sdcard1 (then my app will be moved to sdcard1 freeing that much amount of space in sdcard0)

and folder mount to move game data (e.g: oob/data) or does link2sd just creates link to sd (just like foldermount)?

also I want to know more about 'Emulated Storage"?