Transfer applications to the SD card in Xiaomi Redmi 9: the complete guide

Owners of the popular budget model Xiaomi Redmi 9 often face a lack of built-in storage. Standard volume of 32 or 64 gigabytes is catastrophically insufficient for the installation of modern “heavy” games, navigators and social networks, which over time overgrow gigabytes of cache. The MIUI system installed on the device, by default, aggressively stores all data in internal memory, ignoring the user-installed flash card.

There is a common misconception that moving an application to an external medium in modern versions of Android is impossible without root rights. This is not quite true, although this cannot really be done with the standard Settings menu tools. However, using the hidden capabilities of the Android 10 operating system and special utilities, you can force the phone to count. SD-map part of system section.

In this detailed guide, we will take a look at all the available methods, from standard storage settings to the advanced Adoptable Storage method through ADB. You will learn how to properly prepare a memory card, what risks exist when you modify the system and how to return everything back if the result does not suit you.

Preparation of memory card and diagnostics of storage

Before you start any manipulation of the file system, you need to make sure that your external drive is working properly and quickly. For the comfortable operation of applications that will be transferred to the card, you need high speed reading and writing. Cheap Class 10 cards may not cope with the flow of data, which will lead to a freeze of programs or the phone itself.

It is recommended to use UHS-I or UHS-II cards from proven brands such as SanDisk, Samsung or Kingston. Before installing on a smartphone, it is better to check the card on your computer using the h2testw utility to exclude the presence of broken sectors or fake volume. If the memory card was previously used in another device, it must be formatted.

Insert the card into the Xiaomi Redmi 9 slot and wait for the notification. The system will suggest using the drive as portable storage or as internal memory. At this stage, select Portable Storage, as formatting for internal memory through the standard menu is often not available or does not work correctly on global MIUI firmware.

• 📱 Make sure the phone is turned off before retrieving or installing SIM-card-tray.
• 💾 Format the map into the file system FAT32 or exFAT via the phone menu.
• ⚡ Check the speed of the recording: it must be at least 20-30 MB/s for stable work.

⚠️ Attention: The formatting process will completely destroy all data on the memory card.

After preparation, you can go to analyzing what exactly takes up space. Go to Settings → Memory to see the detail. Often it turns out that the lion's share of the space is occupied by the messenger cache, which you can also try to optimize.

Standard methods of transfer and their limitations in MIUI

In pure Android there was a button "Move to" SD-map in the properties of each application. MIUI The 12 on the Redmi 9, the developers removed this feature from the user interface, and this is done to ensure the stability of the system, since slow memory cards can cause interface lags.

You can try to move the data of individual applications if the developer left this option. To do this, go to Settings → Apps → All applications. Select the desired program (for example, a gallery or voice recorder) and click on Storage. If the Change button is active, you are lucky, and you can choose an external map.

Unfortunately, for most popular apps, such as Instagram, Telegram or games like PUBG, this button will be inactive (gray). The system blocks the transfer of system and mission-critical components, in which case, with standard menu tools, nothing can be done, and you need to connect to the debugging menu.

There's also the option to save photos and videos directly to the map. Go to the Camera app, click on the three menu bars and select settings. SD-It won't carry the camera app itself, but it will free up gigabytes in the internal storage.

Adoptable Storage (ADB) with no Root

The most effective way to get around the limitations of MIUI is to use the Adoptable Storage command via a computer and USB debugging, which forces Android to consider an external card as part of the internal system partition, and then the system will decide which applications and data to put on the map and which to leave inside.

First, you need to activate the developer mode. Go to Settings. → About the phone and quickly press 7 times on the item "Version" MIUI». You'll see a notification that says, "You've become a developer." Then, in the "Additional" menu, look for "Developers" and turn on the item. USB-debugging.

adb shell pm set-install-location 2

This command prioritizes the installation of new applications on an external drive, but to transfer the programs already installed, you need to perform a more complex formatting procedure, you need to download Platform Tools (ADB) to your computer and connect the phone with a cable.

• 💻 Connect your phone to your PC and confirm the debugging permission on your smartphone screen.
• 🔍 In the command line, enter adb devices to make sure the device is visible.
• 🗑️ Enter the command adb shell sm list-disks to receive ID your card (for example, disk:179,64).

Then comes the critical point: the sm partition command will completely rewrite the structure of the card, be prepared for the card to become unreadable on conventional card readers without special drivers or re-formatting. This is the price for integration into the system.

⚠️ Note: After applying the Adoptable Storage method, it will be impossible to remove the map without losing application data. If you remove the map, all the transferred applications will stop running.

Using third-party utilities for migration

If you think it's too hard to mess around with the command line, you can try specialized assistant apps. One of the most famous is Apps2SD or FolderMount. They don't require superuser rights for basic features, but their effectiveness depends on the Android version and the specific model.

Annex Apps2SD It can analyze the system and suggest moving cache files or creating symbolic links, and it allows you to free up space without formally moving the application itself (APK-It's a file, and it's only carrying its heavy data, and it's safer than fully formatting the map.

Also worth mentioning is Activity Launcher, which allows you to access hidden Android settings menus that the manufacturer has hidden from the user, and search activity "Storage Manager" or "Manage Applications" for old port menus that work at the kernel level.

Choose your method based on your confidence. For most Xiaomi Redmi 9 users, the best balance between risk and outcome is using Activity Launcher bundle and manual media transfer.

Transferring the cache of games and messengers manually

Many users don't know that the most voluminous data is often not in the app itself, but in the Android/obb and Android/data folders, where the resources of games (textures, music) and downloaded messenger files are located, and they can be moved manually through the file manager.

Use the built-in MIUI Explorer or install a more advanced one, like Total Commander or FX File Explorer. Find a folder with the game, like com.tencent.ig (PUBG), and move its contents to a memory card. However, just moving the file is not enough - the application will not see the data.

To make the game work, you need to create a symbolic link. This still requires root rights or the use of special features of file managers that support working with links to Android 10.+. Without root rights, you can try cheating: delete the game, install it again, choosing the path to the first installation. SD-card (if the game supports path selection when loading resources).

In the messenger Telegram you can change the way to save files in the settings: Data and memory → The path to files → SD-WhatsApp has this feature built in, and it offers you to move media when you don't have enough space, and it's the safest way to free up gigabytes without risking putting the system down.

⚠️ Note: Do not delete files from folders Android/obb and Android/data, If you're not sure if they're remote games, it could cause the remaining apps to malfunction.

💡

Use the Cleanup feature in Xiaomi’s Security app before transferring.It often finds several gigabytes of junk files that can be deleted without risk.

Possible problems and ways to solve them

After transferring applications, users often experience a slowdown in the phone, which is because the speed of the MIUI interface and the launch of programs is directly dependent on the speed of reading the drive, and if the memory card is slow, the phone will slow down when opening the ported applications.

Another common problem is that widgets disappear or notifications fail, because the system reads the memory card a little longer than the internal chip, when you load the phone, some services may not be able to start, the solution is one: after turning on the phone, wait 1-2 minutes before you work.

If the phone stops seeing the map or the apps go out right at launch, maybe the file system is damaged or the card is incompatible, and then you have to go back, and for ADB, this is done by adb shell sm forget [ID], and then you have to format the map again.

• 🐌 The application is slow – it means that the speed of the card is not enough to run the code.
• 🔒 “Unlocking required” error – the card is encrypted and tied to this phone.
• 📉 Fast battery discharge – Constantly polling a slow memory card increases power consumption.

It is important to understand that a memory card cannot completely replace a high-speed internal drive. UFS, which is used by Redmi 9. The difference in speed can be achieved 5-10 once that is critical for heavy 3D-game.

💡

Using a fast memory card (Class 10 U3) is critical for the stable operation of portable applications, otherwise the phone will run slower than before optimization.

Return to the factory storage settings

If you don't have the results you want, or if you decide to sell your phone, you have to get the system back to its original state, and if you're a card that's formatted as an internal storage, a simple menu format won't help, you have to reset the binding.

Go to Settings. → Warehouse, select yours. SD-In the menu (three dots), select Format. If the system warns you of application data loss, confirm the action. All transferred programs will be removed from the map, but there will be shortcuts on the desktop that will need to be manually removed.

If you use ADB, run the command adb shell pm set-install-location 0 to return the standard behavior of the system. After that, delete any remaining files in the root directory of the map that the assistant applications may have created.

A full reset of your phone’s Wipe Data will also return everything to its original state, but remember that it will delete all your personal data, contacts and photos. Use this method only as a last resort, having made a full backup to your computer beforehand.