[Shield Android TV General] Neo3D:
Thanks, how do you do it?

---------- Post added at 09:47 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:42 AM ----------

Android 6.0 is like having Links2SD built into Android! It's way better than the previous implementation of Move App to SD.

Q. What is the difference between “Move To SD Card (Native to Android)" and “Create (Symbolic) Link” in Link2SD?

Which method conserves the greatest amount of internal memory, what are the advantages of "linking" over "moving" and vice versa?

Native apps2sd

Starting with Android 2.2 (Froyo) Google introduced native apps2SD.

This method moves

* apk file on Android 2.2

* apk + lib files on Android 2.3+

into a secure folder on your SD card in the main FAT partition.

It is the easiest method because it doesn't require you to partition your sdcard and root privilige.

It has some disadvantages though.

First disadvantage is that application files are just stored on the sdcard's main FAT partition.

When you enable USB mass storage to share files with your computer (or otherwise unmounts or removes the external storage), any application installed on the external storage and currently running is killed.

The system effectively becomes unaware of the application until mass storage is disabled and the external storage is remounted on the device.

Besides killing the application and making it unavailable to the user, this can break some types of applications in a more serious way.

So second disadvantage is that not all apps can be moved with native apps2sd method because of above reason.

In order for the application to consistently behave as expected, developer should not allow the application to be installed on the external storage if it uses any of the following features, due to the cited consequences when the external storage is unmounted:

Widgets, Services, Alarm Services, Live Wallpapers, Live Folders, Account Managers, Sync Adapters, Broadcast Receivers listening for "boot completed".

Force move (requires root);

You can force the apps move to SD card with native apps2SD even the application does not support moving as described above.

Link2SD and some other apps can force move apps if you have root privileges. But, note that this can break some applications, as described above.

Link2SD

Link2SD moves apk + dex + lib files of the application to the second partition and creates symbolic links in the original locations on internal storage.

First advantage is that it can free up more space from the internal storage compared to native apps2sd method because it moves the dex file as well.

The second advantage of Link2Sd over native apps2sd is that by creating symlinks you get Android assume these apps are installed into the internal memory, though in fact all the files are located on the SD.

Therefore you can link all applications to SD card; widgets, services, live wallpapers etc., all of them will work without any problem from SD card.

The third advantage is that, even when you mount the SD card to your PC your linked apps are all still live and working!

Because Android unmounts the first FAT partition to share files with your computer but the second partition remains mounted. Link2SD allows you to run all of your "SD apps" even when mounted to your computer as a disk drive.