How to transfer games to a memory card on Xiaomi

Owners of budget and mid-budget smartphones Xiaomi, Redmi and Poco often face a lack of built-in storage.Modern gaming projects weigh gigabytes, and the system partition quickly fills up, causing interface brakes and the inability to update applications. The solution lies in the competent use of external SD-This allows you to free up precious interior space.

However, unlike older versions of Android, the MIUI shell does not provide a simple Move to SD button for all applications. Google's security system and manufacturers' policies limit direct transfer of executable files, but workarounds do exist. You will need to not just copy files, but properly configure the system so that it perceives the external drive as part of the system partition.

In this guide, we’ll take a look at all the methods available, from standard settings to USB debugging, how to avoid data loss and why some games will still have to be left in internal memory for stable operation.

Preparation of the storage device and compatibility check

Before you start transferring data, you need to make sure that your memory card meets the speed requirements. 3D-The speed class of the game is critical, otherwise the textures will be loaded with jerks and the levels will freeze. UHS-I, for heavy projects such as Genshin Impact or PUBG Mobile is better to use cards with markings A2, optimized for applications.

Insert the card into the slot and wait for the system to notify. If the card was previously used on another device, it is better to format it to avoid file system conflicts. Note that formatting will completely remove all data from the media, so back up photos and documents in advance.

⚠️ Warning: Do not use cheap memory cards of unknown brands. They may have real capacity declared, which will damage the cache of games and drop out applications on Xiaomi.

The formatting process in MIUI is standard and takes a couple of minutes, and when it's finished, the system will suggest using the drive as a portable storage or as internal memory, and for our purposes, we're opting for portable storage, because the complete partition merging will require more complex manipulations.

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Use the SD Insights utility from Google Play to check the actual write speed of your card before installing heavy games.

Basic storage settings in MIUI

The first step to freeing up space is to change the default save location. Many users ignore this option by continuing to upload gigabytes of cache to internal memory. To change this, go to the Settings menu, then select About Phone and click on the MIUI version several times to activate the developer's advanced settings if they are hidden.

Then you have to find storage settings. Depending on the version of the shell, the path may be different. Usually it's a Memory or a Storage section. Here you have detailed statistics: how many apps are occupied, how many are images and system files, and this is where you can force some data to move, if that's available for a particular application.

However, standard Android 10 and above tools to transfer the game itself (APK-file SD-The system allows only cache or media files to be transferred. To fully transfer the game's executable code, you need to change the system flags through the developer menu.

• 📱 Go to Settings. → Advanced settings → For developers.
• 🔍 Find Force allow apps on external (Forced to allow placement in external storage).
• 💾 Activate the switch and restart the device.
• 🔄 After resetting to the application settings, some games will have a “Change” button to select storage.

This method doesn’t work for all applications, as game developers can specify the installation path in the program manifest, but for many Google Play projects, it allows you to move a significant amount of data.

Use of Adoptable Storage

The most radical and effective method is transformation. SD-In this case, the system encrypts the card and considers it a system partition, and all new games and applications will automatically install on the card, ignoring the internal storage restriction.

Unfortunately, in the shell. MIUI This feature is often hidden by default, and to activate it, you'll need to connect to your computer and use a debugging bridge. ADB. It's a safe procedure if you follow the instructions, but it requires care, USB-cable and on-debugging USB smartphone.

Once you connect your phone to your computer and install the drivers, open the command line. Enter the command to check the connection: adb devices. If the device is displayed with device status, you can proceed to formatting. The command adb shell sm partition sdcard:private 100 completely re-marks the card, making it internal memory.

adb shell sm list-disks


adb shell sm partition disk:179,64 private 100

Instead of disk:179.64, substitute your card ID, which you can find out through the first command of the list of disks, and after you do the operation, the phone will reboot, and the card will become an integral part of the system, the old data on it will be lost, but the amount of memory available for games will increase significantly.

⚠️ Note: After using Adoptable Storage, the card cannot be simply removed or moved to another phone without losing access to data and possible system errors.

Transferring cache and data to specific games

Even if you don’t use full map integration mode, you can manually transfer heavy cache files (usually obb and data folders).Many games, such as Asphalt 9 or Call of Duty Mobile, download additional resources once installed that take up the bulk of the space.

To do this, use a file manager with access to system folders, such as Total Commander or MT Manager. You need to find the Android/obb and Android/data folder in the internal storage, and inside these are folders with the names of game packages (for example, com.garena.game.codm).

Copy these folders to a memory card, create a similar directory structure there. Then delete the originals from internal memory. Some games will find the files in a new place when they start, but others will require creating a symbolic link, which requires root rights.

This approach allows you to free up 5 to 20 GB of internal memory, transferring heavy resources to an external medium, which is especially true for devices with basic 64 GB of memory.