Owners of the popular budget smartphone Xiaomi Redmi 5A often face a critical shortage of built-in storage. Standard memory capacity of 16 GB (of which the user can access about 11 GB) quickly filled with system files, messenger cache and photos. In this situation, installing new programs becomes impossible, and the system begins to work slower, requiring constant cleaning.
Fortunately, Android provides mechanisms to expand functionality through microSD, but the MIUI shell often hides these capabilities from the average user. Standard menu tools can not move a working application to an external drive, but there is a proven method using debugging over USB.
In this guide, we will discuss all the preparation steps and the process of changing the memory configuration itself. You do not need superuser rights or flashing the device, which makes the method safe for beginners, the main thing is to follow the instructions carefully to avoid file system errors.
Preparation of a memory card and smartphone
Before starting any manipulations with the file system, you need to make sure that the external drive is serviceable and compatible. Xiaomi Redmi 5A supports microSD cards up to 128 GB, although many users successfully use 256 GB. It is important that the card is original and has a high speed class, since the speed of the programs installed on it depends on this.
It is recommended to use Class 10 or higher (UHS-I) drives. If the write speed is low, applications can run for a long time or run with delays. Before installing the card on your phone, format the card on your computer in the FAT32 file system, if it has not been formatted before.
⚠️ Note: All data on the memory card will be deleted during the setup process. Be sure to back up photos and documents before starting the procedure.
After physically installing the card in the smartphone slot, the system will prompt you to select a mode of use. At this stage, select the option “Use as portable storage.” Do not agree to formatting as internal memory through the standard menu, as this method on MIUI often works incorrectly for porting system applications.
- 📱 Make sure that the battery of the smartphone is at least 50%.
- 💾 Check the memory card for errors using the utility h3testw PC-only.
- 🔌 Use the original. USB-computer-wire.
☑️ Checking readiness
Activation of the developer mode and debugging
To manage system memory, we will need access to Android hidden settings. Xiaomi’s standard interface does not allow you to change your preferred installation location without activating the developer menu, a process that takes only a few minutes and requires no special knowledge.
Go to your phone and find the "About Phone" option, and you need to click on MIUI 7 times quickly, and then you will see the "You've become a developer" notification, and now the new "Developers" menu will appear in the main settings menu, under "Advanced".
Inside this menu, you need to find the USB Debug option and activate it. When you first turn on, the system will warn you of the risks - confirm the action. It is also recommended to turn on the option "Do not turn off the screen" when connecting via USB so that the process does not interrupt accidentally.
⚠️ Warning: Do not connect your smartphone to suspicious public chargers with debugging enabled USB. This can lead to data theft.
Once you activate debugging, connect your phone to your computer, and you'll see a request on your smartphone screen for debugging permission from that computer, check "Always Allow" and click "OK." Now your Redmi 5A is ready to receive commands from your PC.
Installation of drivers and ADB on the computer
To perform the port command, we'll need Android Debug Bridge (ADB) tools, which is a standard Google utility that lets you control your device from a computer, and you don't have to download heavy development environments like Android Studio, which is a minimal set of tools.
Download the Platform Tools archive from the official developer site or trusted sources. Unpack the archive in the root of the C disk so that the path to the folder is short, such as C:\platform-tools. This will make it easier to enter commands later.
Problems with drivers
Open the command line. To do this, in the tool folder, press the Shift and right-click on the empty space, selecting "Open PowerShell window here" or "Open command prompt here." Enter the adb device command. If done correctly, you will see your device's serial number and device status.
- 💻 Download Platform Tools from the official Android repository.
- 📂 Unpack files in a folder without Cyrillic characters in the title.
- 🔍 Check the display of the device by the adb devices command.
The process of transferring applications through ADB
This is the most important step in the instruction. We're going to change the system variable, which tells the operating system where to install new apps by default and where to move existing ones, and the command is versatile and runs on most Android versions from 6.0 to 10.0.
In the command line where the ADB is already running, type the following command:
adb shell pm set-install-location 2Here, the number 2 is a forced installation on an external memory card. If you want to return everything as it was in the future, use the number 0 (automatic selection by the system) or 1 (internal memory only). Once you enter the command, do not expect an instant visual effect - the changes take effect for new installations and require manual movement of existing programs.
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The command changes the priority of the installation, but does not automatically transfer the data. You will need to go to each application and click the "Move" button manually.
To move the already installed applications, go to Settings → Annexes → All applications. Select the program you want (for example, a heavy game or a navigation device). If transfer is possible, the "Move to" button will appear. SD-If there is no button, then the app developer has banned the transfer, and it is impossible to get around this without Root rights.
Application compatibility analysis
Not all programs support external drives, which are limited by software developers for security and stability, and Xiaomi system applications like Camera, Gallery, or Phone cannot be moved.
However, many games, social networks and multimedia applications allow for movement. After completing the command from the previous section, carefully check the list of available actions for each program.
| Type of application | Possibility of transfer | Recommendation |
|---|---|---|
| Systemic (MIUI) | No. | Leave it in your internal memory. |
| Messengers (WhatsApp, Telegram) | Partially. | Transfer only media files in the application settings |
| Games (Asphalt, PUBG) | Yeah (often) | Recommended to move to vacate the place |
| Navigators (Yandex, Google) | Yes. | You have to move it because it takes up a lot of space. |
| Banking applications | No. | Requires high speed internal memory |
Features of the work and possible problems
Once you transfer some of the programs to the memory card, you may notice changes in the behavior of the smartphone. The speed of launching applications can decrease slightly if you use a cheap memory card. However, freeing up internal memory often gives a greater increase in overall system performance than losing the speed of downloading one program.
Sometimes, after you reboot your phone, the icons of the ported apps can disappear from your desktop. Don't panic, they're still there. Just find them in the general list of all the apps or the Tools widget and add shortcuts again. The system just drops shortcuts when you change the storage structure.
⚠️ Note: If you remove the memory card, all the ported applications will stop working. Do not remove the microSD until you return the programs back to internal memory.
Also, consider that some of the widgets from the ported apps may stop updating in real time, such as weather widgets, currency rates or news feeds, in which case the widget functionality should be turned off, leaving only the launch icon.
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For maximum speed, leave at least 1 GB of free space in internal memory. Fully filling the built-in storage will lead to a strong braking of the system, even if the applications are ported.
Return to factory memory settings
If you sold a memory card, it went down, or you just decided to give up the idea of porting, you have to go back to the original state, and it's very simple to do this by repeating the procedure with ADB, but with a different setting.
Connect the phone to the PC, open the command line and type:
adb shell pm set-install-location 0After that, the new apps will be automatically put back where they are, and the old programs will stay on the memory card until you manually move them back through the application management menu, which gives you flexibility in managing the space.
It is important to understand that formatting a memory card through the phone's settings will also reset all changes, as the system loses access to data and returns to default behavior. However, manual reset via ADB is more correct and does not require deleting files.
Optimizing data storage on Redmi 5A
App portability isn't the only way to fight for gigabytes: the owner of Xiaomi Redmi 5A must clean the cache regularly. Go to Settings → Memory and use the built-in cleaning utility. It will safely delete temporary files without affecting your personal data.
Use the app version's "Lite" feature. For social networks like Facebook or Messenger, there are lightweight versions that take up significantly less space and consume less CPU resources. For Redmi 5A, this can be a lifesaver.
- 🗑️ Regularly clean the folder “Downloads” and cache messengers.
- ☁️ Use cloud storage for photos and videos by removing them from your device.
- 📦 Remove unused games, they take up the most space.