If you are using a phone or a tablet running on Android OS and are a geek wanting to try out various applications in Market, then you are bound to see an error message pop up on your device “Insufficient Storage Available” and the application installation fails. Or, suddenly your GMail would stop sync’ing mails.
This is one of the very common problems with Android OS as all applications, by default, get installed on your phone memory that isn’t too large. [As a matter of fact, Windows Phones do not have any such issue]. So whichever Android phone/tablet you take up, you will end up with the same problem – and yes, with one quick solution.
With a broadband speed of 20MBPS or more, my bet would be a fix that would take you not more than 15 minutes, around 200 MB of your disk space on your laptop/desktop on which you have Administrator privilege. So here’s it!
Step 1: Download and Install Java Development Kit from Oracle’s website. I downloaded JDK 7u2 for Windows x64 (approximately 87 MB)
Step 2: Download and Install Android SDK from Google’s website. I preferred the recommended Windows Installer
Step 3: Run Command Prompt with Administrator Privileges on Windows 7 or Windows 8 OS. [Start Menu –> type in cmd –> Right click the Command Prompt –> Run as Administrator. The UAC will prompt you with a dialog which you should click as ‘Yes’]
Step 4: If you have installed the latest version of Android SDK (SDK Manager Revision 16 or later), then type in following commands on cmd
cd C:\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools
You may want to verify & replace the folder on which you have installed the SDK. If you are using an older version of Android SDK, you may want to give a try at following path C:\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk\tools
Step 5: On your Android phone/tablet, go to Settings –> Applications –> Development and enable USB Debugging. Once done, connect the phone/tablet to your laptop/desktop via USB cable.
Step 6: Execute following commands (highlighted in blue only) in sequence
adb shell pm getInstallLocation
You would get an output as: 0[auto]
In Android, Install Location has 3 values
0[auto] – Let the system decide the best location
1[internal] – Install the application on internal device storage. This means any internal storage provided with your device
2[external] – Install the application on external media. This means any SD, microSD cards attached to your device.
Step 7: So let’s change the default location to 2[external]
adb shell pm setInstallLocation 2
This will change the default installation location to SD card of all the applications that you install henceforth. What about those that are already installed on device storage? I am sure you were unable to move all of them to SD card earlier. You can give it a try now! Alternatively, you can download an application Apps2SD and manually move them to SD card.
To check if the settings changed or not, you can execute Step 6 again and check the results
Step 8: Disable USB debugging on your phone/tablet. Close the Command Prompt and enjoy!
Step 9: Drop in a comment, if this helped you. If there was something else you would like to say, drop in a comment.
It didn’t work on my samsung galaxy S. I did all what you said but still having same error with skype. I was able to install angry bird however that takes 16.46 MB but not skype that only takes 14 MB…Please help!
Did you try un-installing all your installed apps and then trying this solution?
- Apply the fix mentioned in the blog post
- Go in to the settings and then go in to application manage.
- After that go in to the market place and then force stop and then also clear all the data and the cache.
- After that reboot your phone and then again try to do the same and check if you are getting any error.
If you are still getting the error, the only way would be to root the device. let me know if you would want that fix?
But in cmd its showing no adb device found
Did not work. Samsung Dart from T-Mobile. SD card free space = 7.21GB, Internal memory free space = 65MB. Cannot install many apps… trying to install Angry Birds Space shows “Downloading” for 5 minutes… then it fails with insufficient storage again. Those responsible for the Android OS really need to get their act together… it shouldn’t be this difficult to install a silly game.
oops I forget to install HTC driver from HTC.com. “error: device not found” is solved.
I think I know how to install android driver, which is by going to SDK manager and check Google USB driver package to install it.
what do you do when it says “error: device not found”?
Thank you. It worked flawlessly, I think I can recommend this to everybody who has problems with their internal memory.
Hi just tell me whether it required windows 7 64 bit as i am having 32 bit
It should work on both versions of Windows
Worked like a charm, thanks lots!
adb is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable progress or batch file.
If you’re using 32-bit Windows, you need to install the 32-bit USB driver for adb. The USB driver is included in the SDK package. To install it, follow these steps:
ya i had finished changing location but when i install apps it installs in phone memory. i had resetted my mobile and the phone memory was filled upto 9 mb. Now when i installed 5 or 6 apps the phone memory filled upto 33 mb so what should i do? my mobile model is samsung galaxy y duos
If you are still getting the error, the only way would be to root the device. let me know if you would want that fix?