Link2SD – never worry
about internal memory limits
again
One of the most
common gripes we hear from Android phone owners is that it
doesn’t take too long before you fill
up the phone’s internal memory.
Whilst most of the 2011 Android phones
range has a 1GB ROM, only around
380MB can be used for apps or
games. Obviously manually moving
your apps to the SD card is one
answer to this problem, but this can
be a pain to manage and sometimes
part of the app will remain in internal
memory.
To get round this problem, we’ve
written the following guide on
Link2SD . In layman terms, Link2SD
uses a secondary partition on your
SD card and uses it as another
segment of internal memory.
Link2SD moves and links apk files,
dalvik-cache (.dex) files and lib files
onto this partition, which the OS
mounts on boot. The great thing is
that these linked apps remain
available when your phone is
connected in mass storage mode as
Android only unmounts the first
partition. Also, you don’t need to
worry about linking something you
weren’t meant to as Link2SD doesn’t
allow you to link certain system
applications.
Instructions:
1. Install Link2SD from Android
Market onto your smartphone and Download and install MiniTool
Partition Wizard onto your PC
2. ROOT your device (tutorial available in this site)
3. BACKUP MEMORY CARD
As we will be creating a partition on
your microSD memory card, make
sure you create a backup just in case
anything goes wrong.
a) Create a new folder on your PC
and name it anything you want, such
as ‘SD_Backup’
b) Connect your phone to the PC,
navigate to your memory card and
copy the contents to the backup
folder.
4. CREATE SECONDARY PARTITION
You now need to create a secondary
partition on your microSD memory
card that will enable you to use
Link2SD.
Note: We will use MiniTool Partition
Wizard to create a secondary
partition on your microSD card. This
partition can be ext2, ext3, ext4 or
FAT32. We will use FAT32 as it is
supported on all phones and should
lead to less troubleshooting later.
You can use any partition manager of
your choosing, but the steps below
guide you through MiniTool Partition
Wizard.
There is no need to wipe your
memory card when going through this
process, just ensure you have at least
0.5GB to 1.0GB of free space to
make it worthwhile. You also do not
need to use a microSD card adaptor
as the process below creates the
partition whilst the phone is
connected to your PC.
a) Connect your handset to the PC
via USB and then launch MiniTool.
You should see the details pop up
under ‘Disk 2′.
b) Click on the memory card under
Disk 2 in MiniTool and then in the
left pane, press ‘Move/Resize
Partition’. On the blue bar under
‘Size and Location’, move the right
arrow towards the left to create the
size of the secondary partition
desired. In the example below we
created a secondary partition with
1018.63MB of space. This value can
also be typed in manually in
‘Unallocate Space After’.
c) Once this is done you should see
that your memory card is now split
into two partitions under Disk 2 of
MiniTool. Right click this new
partition and then press ‘Create’.
d) You should then see this ‘Create
New Partition’ window. Under
‘Create As’ click Primary and then
under ‘File System’ click FAT32.
Leave the cluster size as default and
you can assign whichever drive letter
you want. Once finished press OK.
e) This should bring you back to the
main MiniTool screen. Now hit the
‘Apply’ button on the top-left of the
screen, denoted by a tick symbol.
This will bring up another pop-up
window and will take several minutes
to both resize and create the
secondary partition.
If successful, you should see
message below. Congratulations your
card is ready to use in conjunction
with Link2SD. Restart your handset
before moving to the next step.
5. LINK2SD
This application makes it easy for
users with root privileges on their
phone to move applications to the SD
card.
a) Open the Link2SD app on your
phone. You should be greeted with
the following menu, check the FAT32
option and click OK.
You will then see the Superuser
Request, click ‘Allow’.
Once you see the following message,
restart your phone. The app should
now be ready to use.
b) To make sure everything is
installed correctly. Click the Menu
button and go to ‘Storage Info’. This
will show you the internal memory
and your two partitions on the
memory card. In our case, you can
see that the second partition has 1GB
free.
c) Now you need to move the apps of
your choice to the memory card.
Click the Menu button and press
‘Multi-select’.
Choose which apps you want to move
by clicking the tick box next to the
app. System apps are greyed out and
cannot be selected. Link2SD can
only move apps that are already on
the internal memory. If you have
apps already on your SD card, you
will need to move them back to the
internal memory before you can link
them with Link2SD.
If you want to move all of your apps,
pressing the menu button will bring
up another menu allowing you to do
this.
d) Once you have chosen which apps
you want to move, you then need to
hit the menu button and press
‘Actions’, which will bring up the
following menu. Press ‘Create Link’.
Leave all three check boxes ticked
and press OK. Link2SD will now do
its work and move/link the selected
apps to your memory card.
Once finished, you should see that
the apps you have moved have
‘Linked -> SD Card’ in red font in
the Link2SD app list. Reboot your
phone.
e) Congratulations your phone is now
using Link2SD! You should now go
to Settings by pressing the menu
button and configure how you would
like Link2SD to work. The main
decision here is whether you want to
Auto Link newly installed apps to the
memory card. Given that you’ve
gone through the hassle of installing
Link2SD we suggest you enable Auto
Link and make worrying about your
internal memory a thing of the past.
