[Moto G7 Power Questions & Answers] flug32:
I have the US version G7 power with 3/32 GB memory. I knew I would fill that 32 GB up right away, and did. But no problem--just put a card in the SD card slot, move things over, and all is well.

In working through that, I realized there are quite a lot of options and documentation on them is not that easy to find. So I though it would be helpful to create a thread with resources, information, and questions asked and answered.

FORMATTING SD CARD AS ADOPTABLE, PORTABLE, OR SPLIT BETWEEN THE TWO

When I put my the card in, I realized you can format the card as portable, adoptable, or split between the two.

So I have a 256 GB SD card and formatted split: 50 GB adoptable, 206 GB portable.

You can reformat an SD card as adoptable or as portable by installing it and then going to Settings/Storage. Note: Reformatting will erase the card and all information on it.

If you want to split the card between adoptable and portable, you'll have to follow instructions like these: https://stackoverflow.com/questions...sd-card-into-internal-storage-via-adb-command

WHAT IS ADOPTABLE VS PORTABLE MEMORY

Adoptable memory is supposed to act almost as ordinary internal memory on your device, but it is linked to your device and will be erased if you factory reset your device, or install a new ROM etc. It is encrypted and can't be read by any external device--or even your own device after factory reset, installing a new ROM, etc.

Most guides to Adoptable Memory give dire warnings that you will lose all contents of the Adoptable Memory if you do a factory reset, update your Rom, etc. This is true--but simply makes it the equivalent of your device's internal memory, which is also wiped in those same situations.

Portable memory is the the 'ordinary' type of SD card storage we are accustomed to on an Android phone: You can save files to it, but usually not apps. You can just pop the card into any computer or another phone and read anything off of it.

Splitting the SD card between portable & adoptable seems a good compromise to me: It gives you a good-sized portion of internal memory (32 GB built in plus 50 GB adoptable, in my case) while still leaving you 205 GB as portable memory that works like a regular SD card.

ONLINE RESOURCES FOR PORTABLE VS ADOPTABLE STORAGE

Here is some background on portable vs adoptable storage:

Gadget Guide Online - best one-stop explanation of how to set up an SD card as adoptable storage

Gadget Guide Online - good explanation of whether or not to set up your SD card as adoptable storage

Motorola customer support info on portable vs adoptable

Android.com general info about adoptable storage

Article on adoptable vs portable storage and pluses/minuses of each

Android Central article about portable vs adoptable storage

Short explanation of adoptable storage

Once you format the SD as described above, you can go into Settings/Storage and you'll see something like this:

[IMG="Settings/Storage with adoptable memory"]https://imgur.com/CpSnxhP[/IMG]

For some reason, the internal partition lists the full size of the SD card but 205 GB (the portable partition) is listed as "system".

When you load a new app, supposedly it will load onto either internal storage or SD Card/adoptable, whichever has more space (for apps that can be installed in either location--some apps seem to require being installed on internal storage).

If you set up ADB, you can issue commands like these to control where apps are installed:

adb shell pm get-install-location Gets current install location

adb shell pm set-install-location 0 Sets current install location to auto (install to internal or adoptable, whichever has most empty space)

adb shell pm set-install-location 1 Force install apps to internal memory

adb shell pm set-install-location 2 Force install apps to adoptable/SD Card

If you have root you can just execute the same shell commands in a terminal on your phone.

The Questions/Problems/Issues with Adoptable Storage

So this brings me to my questions:

Generally this option seems to be very poorly documented. You can find guides, such as the ones I've linked to above, that tell you how to set it up. But nothing that will give much detail beyond that--how Adoptable Storage really works on the phone in detail. Any links, guides, detailed information about using this feature?

Specifically, is there anything the user needs to do to use or manage this adoptable internal memory space?

Can you just set it and forget it, assuming you have another extra 50 GB (or whatever) of internal memory and the phone and apps will just figure it out?

If you click on SanDisk SD Card (internal Partition) in settings, there is an option to "Migrate data". Once you do that, there is an option in Internal Storage to "Migrate Data" which presumably migrates it all back, if there is room. I did the first Migrate Data after creating the Adoptable Memory on the SD Card and it seems to migrate some data and apps from internal storage to the SD Card adoptable storage. It migrated a relatively small fraction of all data--perhaps 1/3? So is that necessary, helpful, not helpful?

I went into Settings/Apps and found a number of apps that were moved to SD Card, but also a number that list themselves as potentially able to move to SD card, but not moved. But every time I click the button to move those, tries to move and gets mostly through the procedure, but finally returns "Couldn't move app. Internal error." The app stays on the internal storage. Is there any way to fix this problem (or does it even need to be fixed?)

When you take a TWRP Nandroid backup, does it include the Adoptable Storage apps & data?

Answer: If your entire SD card is adoptable storage, then TWRP should backup apps on the adoptable storage.

However, if you are set up with a mixed adoptable/portable SD card then TWRP seems to miss the adoptable partition. It doesn't back up those apps. A suggestion would be to use Titanium Backup to back up those apps & data.