LG K51 comes with 32GB of internal storage space out of which almost half the space is occupied by system storage. Around 16GB is left as the free usable storage space. As per today’s standards, 16GB space is quite insufficient considering the huge size of games.
You can increase the media storage with an SD Card but the apps and games will still occupy the internal storage space. The solution to this problem is the adoptable storage feature. This feature is disabled on K51 and can be turned on by writing certain ADB commands.
Let’s see how to move apps to the SD card on K51 and set it as the default storage space –
Make sure to check out the LG K51 secret dialer codes & hidden features as well –
Top 34 LG K51 Hidden features, Secret & Hacks
LG K51 Secret Dialer Codes & Hidden Menu
How to move apps to SD Card on LG K51
First of all, we need to get hold of the SD Card we are going to format as internal storage. You should get a high-speed Micro SD card for this purpose. At least a Class 10 Micro SD is preferred.
Remove the LG K51 SIM tray using the SIM ejector tool as shown above.
Insert the Micro SD card in its respective slot and push back the SIM tray with your finger.
Now, that you have installed the SD card we need to enable USB Debugging.
Open Settings & click “System”.
Tap “Developer Options” on the “System” page.
If you’ve not yet enabled the developer options on your K51, learn how to do that using the below link –
LG K51 Developer Options – How to turn on
Look for USB Debugging on the Developer Options page and toggle it on.
Tap “OK” to allow USB debugging.
Now, we are ready to connect our K51 to the computer.
For USB Debugging, we need to install the LG K51 ADB Driver.
You can see the “LGE Mobile ADB Interface” driver is installed successfully.
To download & install the LG K51 ADB drivers, please follow the below link –
Keep a check on your LG K51 screen. You’ll be prompted to allow USB debugging from this computer. We need to approve this request.
Now install and run the “Minimal ADB and Fastboot” tool on your computer.
You can Download Minimal ADB & Fastboot from below link –
“Minimal ADB & Fastboot” launches the cmd command prompt window as shown above.
We need to write the ADB commands on this black screen.
Type adb devices and hit enter on your computer keyboard.
Keep a check on your screen, if you were not prompted before, this time you may get the “Allow USB debugging” pop-up on your K51.
Tap “Allow” as shown above.
After approving the “Allow USB Debugging” request, again type adb devices and hit Enter.
The connected device is visible as LMK500 which is the model number of LG K51.
Now type this ADB command using your computer keyboard adb shell sm list-disks and click enter.
Note the disk name. In my case, it’s disk:179,128
It can be 179,64 in your case. It can vary depending upon the memory card used.
Make note of this, we have to use it in the future command lines accordingly.
The next command line is adb shell sm list-volumes all
type the above command and press enter.
To enable adoptable storage, write this command line adb shell sm set-force-adoptable true
The next step is a crucial step –
Based on the disk name we have to write this command.
In my case, the disk name is 179,128
I”m partitioning 60% of the SD Card space as internal storage and the remaining 40% as External storage.
So the command line would be –
adb shell sm partition disk:179,128 mixed 60
If you wish to use the whole of the SD card space as internal storage, change the command line to –
adb shell sm partition disk:179,128 private
The partitioning process will take a minute or 2. Wait for it to complete.
The SD card is partitioned. One final step is to migrate the old internal storage data to this newly created partition on the SD card.
Type this command line using your PC keyboard adb shell sm list-volumes and tap Enter.
From the command output, we need to copy the UUID code as marked in the above screenshot.
This code will be different in your case.
Using the above UUID code we have to write the next command line as follows –
adb shell pm move-primary-storage 2900f5c0-0c4c-4799-a237-3a690779403b
The UUID code will be different in your case, make sure you copy-paste the right code.
We have successfully set the SD Card as default storage on K51.
Pull down the notification bar on your K51 and check the notification. It reads “Content transfer is done”.
Now, tap the Settings icon on the top-right to open the Settings app.
Tap “Storage” a shown above.
You can see the SD Card is partitioned into 2 parts – Device & External.
The SD Card under Device is the new default internal storage space for Apps & Games.
How to format the SD card as Portable / External Storage
To revert the changes & to use the SD Card as Portable storage we can format it.
Tap “SD card” under the Device Storage.
Hit the “3 dots” icon at the top-right corner.
Tap “Format as portable” and finally “Format” to remove the partition on the SD card.
Now, the whole of the SD card space is available as external storage.
Have you moved the apps to SD card on your K51? How was your day to day experience? Please share in the comment section below.
How do i move files on phone to. sd card
Everything went great with step by step details! Except, my camera would no longer open. I ended up having to format SD card, to get camera to work again. Maybe there was something else I could have done to keep is partitioned and have the camera work.
i followed the instructions and now my sd card has 40 already taken up and my camera app keeps stopping
Why in the hell would they make a phone that you have to link up to a freekin computer JUT TO MOVE AN APP TO YOUR SD CARD ??
DOES NO ONE ELSE SEE A PROBLEM AND TOTAL LOSS OF CONTROL BY THE MANUFACTURERS AND THE STEADY PROGRESSION OF LIMITED CONTROL IN EVERY NEW MODEL OF PHONES ???
OR IS THE MENTALITY OF PEOPLE USING THESE PHONES. DEGRADED THAT MUCH ?? it’s like people have become blind to the fact that these companies taking total control of what we do and taking away our ways to decide what we want to keep private and the options to do so
WAKE UP PEOPLE. OR HAVE YOU ALL BECOME TECHNOLOGICALLY LOBOTOMIES ?????
Agreed.
Lol David, my thought exactly!!!! Freaking ridiculous to have to do all of that just to move apps.
Thankful though for these PERFECT STEP BY STEP instructions!!!!! There’s not a snowballs chance in HELL I would have figured it out otherwise.
i followed instructions now camera wont load from default app however i was able to install a camera app and that seems to be working fine.
Took a while to figure out because I was blocked from downloading the programs, it said that they violated Google Drive’s terms of service. Anyways, I put in a 128gb card and once everything was done suddenly 78gbs were already used up. It said that it was system files. Anyone know what’s going on??
ok i decided to read the comments first…
umm so how did you fix your cameras because ….
This is B*LL SH*T!!! Excuse my language but ive just spent the last hour going in circles through my phone settings trying to figure out where in the hell the option to transfer everything to my new sd card is only to finally get fed up and google it and figure out that I ACTUALLY CANT AND THIS PIECE OF CRAP PHONE ONLY STORES PICS AND VIDS TO THE DAMN EXTERNAL MEMORY?!?! IM NEVER BUYING ANOTHER LG AGAIN THEY JUST LOST A VERY LOYAL CUSTOMER FOR LIFE AND IM TELLING EVERYBODY SO THAT THEY LOSE OUT ON ALL THEIR POSSIBLE FUTURE COULDVE BEEN CUSTOMERS TOO!! SHAME ON YOU LG!!! I PAID GOOD MONEY FOR THIS DAMN PHONE HOW DARE YOU THINK ITS OK TO DICTATE HOW I STORE MY DATA!!!
This issue is not restricted to LG. It’s a common Android problem.
What! and WHY???
At the command:
adb shell pm move-primary-storage I get a Failure [ -6]. What does that mean and how do I fix?
Is your phone running on Android 9 or 10? This doesn’t work on Android 9
Android 10. Thank you for assisting. The card has files on it FYI. Does it need to have a clean reformat maybe? If not – what else could it be?
Update:
I got it to work. BUT – the card is 64 GB and storage now reports – SD card: 65 GB used out of 128 GB. How can that be? The 65 GB is all reported as system files and I can’t delete. Any ideas? Thanks,
That is not true and not a xommon Andriod problem. Yall are limited us from saving information. I have plenty of andriod and LG phones and never had a problem until I got this phone. Why the heck it doesn’t even the storage app in the settings as it does in the first illustrations??? They are now doing like game boxes. Separating everything foe purchase.
Someone has dual SIM carded me and added an emulated storage to my phone how do I get this off my phone
There is no Developer Options on my LG K51 that I got through T-Mobile. Also no USB Debugging option. Is there any other way I can move apps? I found a workaround for photos and downloads but no way to move apps. Ridiculous! Thanks for any help!
Turn on developer options and USB debugging as per the below tutorial –
https://lgk20.com/lg-k51-developer-options-usb-debugging-oem-unlock/
i keep getting an error :
android.os.deadobjectexception
and then my phone restarts…
I found the following:
1. After completing the instructions you should be able to move some apps from the internal storage to the SD card but not all of them, for instance, all the Google apps cannot be moved but Telegram, Amazon shopping, Fb, Instagram can be moved. To enable this option, you need to go to the App info menu where you will see all your apps, then select Telegram or Amazon shopping and click on the storage option and you will see a button called Change which will allow you to move the app from the phone to the SD card.
2. My default app camera doesn’t work but I downloaded the Open Camera app which is a nice workaround.
LG THIS IS CRUEL TO MAKE US GO TO THESE LENGTHS TO MOVE A APPS AND GAMES LIKE THIS WHEN IT SHOULD BE A SIMPLE INSERT AND MOVE, BUT IT IS COOL BLOCKING THE GOOGLE FRP!!!!
I cant seem to get the UUID code to pop up when entering the command adb shell sm list-volumes. Can anyone help me with getting the UUID code
When entering the prompt adb shell sm list-volumes i get no UUID code. What do i do next
Before I jump right up and turn in about 12 circles touch my nose bend down and touch my toes then stick out my middle finger is there really no other way.
I messed up and accidently formatted it and it wont let me do it again how do i fix
CRAZY!! Should be able to move apps without having to go through all of this.
Apart from having to install an additional camera app, things were going well, but since the last Android update all of my pictures in internal memory have become inaccessible and unfortunately the Google Sync was switched off so they seem to be lost. The phone’s camera app somehow switched to putting pictures in internal storage and when I try to switch back, it says there is not enough storage on my SD card even though 189G is still available. My new phone app doesn’t have a setting to store to SD. Any ideas? Thanks!
Were you able to recover everything in internal memory?
how do i undo this because now ALL OF MY PICS AND VIDEOS have been erased from my sd card!!!!
just did this on my phone, pretty cool ! everything worked fine. Couple of things:
*on my phone, information for device storage and new partitions on SD card is kinda confusing, but it’s there.
*default camera app, closes when opened, so downloaded a free app and it works.
*i have to say that phone is working faster, restarted phone and it was very quick. opened a few apps and it feels more responsive. i was always struggling with less than 1gb of internal storage.
so far, i’m glad i found this, im tired of paying lots of money for higher end phones, when this one can do the job. if only they would make it more efficient from the beginning would be great. but this was not that complicated.
thank you whoever decided to share this information.
We are loosing all our freedom due to businesses buying information to send you ads and emails . our microphones are on listening to what you talk about and key words pick up and send you ads . WE ARE NOT FREE THEY ARE WATCHING AND NOW HAVE YOUR FINGERPRINTS AND FACIAL FEATURES
YOOOOOO! IT worked! Thank you!
Everything worked the first time. But the SD card didn’t partition. Formatted it, tried again, couldn’t get the long code unique to me after doing a mixed 60 command. Android 11
It’s a damn shame that now you can’t even move a freekin app to an sd card. And even worse. In every new phone that come’s out. More and more permission options are taken away to the point that your privacy and control or should i say. LACK OF is almost at zero
But . the sad part about it all is no one say’s or does a single freekin thing about it. It’s sad that people anymore just go along like Lamb’s to slauter. And do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to fix or change a single thing. WAKE THE HELL UP PEOPLE AND OPEN YOUR EYES AND SEE WHAT IS BEING TAKEN AWAY FROM YOU.