Can android apps save their data onto a sd card?

General
1

(XA2, 3.4.0.24)
I would like to “persuade” android apps (threema, Here WeGo, OpenCamera) to save their data to the sd card. But I do not find a way to do this.

  • Is it possible ?
  • And if yes: what exactly must I do to achieve this?
  • I made a folder on the sd card for this: /run/media/nemo/SDCARD/Android/…
    What has to be owner:group? Is it “media_rw:media_rw” or is it “nemo:nemo” ?

Another possibility would be to map the complete folder android_storage in /home/nemo to the sd card. This I did in 3.2.0.12 without problems.
But with all following versions of SFOS I never got it working.
Is this possible in 3.4.0.24?
If yes, what exactly is to do?

If someone in this community could help to solve this issues I would be very happy…

Best regrads, Uwe.

2

Since 3.3 it is no problem IF the android app supports it. Just go to settings in Here.

3

Thank you very much for your help. Yes I found the setting in Here WeGo.
OpenCamera seem not to work perfectly. The settings are behaving strangely.
So there remains Threema…
Best regards, Uwe.

4

Threema has no control to choose a location for messages and backups. I move my backups manually to the SD card. Maybe a soft link for

/home/nemo/android_storage/Android/data/ch.threema.app/files/data
and
/home/nemo/android_storage/Android/data/ch.threema.app/files/tmp

to some location on your ID-Card can help. Maybe not. Make sure to backup your data before.

5

Thank you very much for your answer. If I understand you right, this would be something like:

cd /home/nemo/android_storage/Android/data/ch.threema.app/files
ln -s /run/media/nemo/SDKARTE/Android/data/ch.threema.app/files/data data

and analog for tmp.
In the original locations owner:group is “media_rw 30054”. I guess I would have to set the same for the new folders on the sd card?
Best regards, Uwe.

1 Like
6

In the meantime I tried the symbolic link.
But:
I think it might be a problem with the owner:group. The link shows as:

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 62 Oct 24 11:50 data -> /run/media/nemo/SDKARTE/Android/data/ch.threema.app/files/data

When trying to send a picture to threema it can’t be downloaded. So the root:root might be the reason…

So it’s root:root and it is not possible the change this with the chown command.

7

ok, I missed the -h switch in chown. But this does’nt help either. Even with the same owner:group as the original data folder for the symolic link, it’s not working.

8

Yes. I am sorry. That does not work. I tried it myself by twisting the path of the Threema backup a few days ago. It was worth a try, though. :slight_smile:

I have got around 2.5 GB of Threema data in my phone’s main memory. I understand that this might become an issue. I keep all my backups -usually 2- of Sailfish, Signal and Threema on the SD card.

9

It’s a pity that saving pictures etc. to a sd card in Threema seems not to be possible. I also wrote to the Threema support. But the answer was evasive.
Not safe enough to use a sd card and so on…
Anyway, thanks for trying.
Best regards, Uwe.