Android Apps That Can Be Moved to an SD Card

App Storage

When you download an app to your Android device, your device saves the app saves to its own built-in memory, not the SD card. Originally Android devices couldn't move apps to any storage cards, but updates to the system now let you transfer them to the SD card, which frees up valuable space in the phone's memory to keep the phone operating smoothly and to allow room for you to install additional apps.

Moving an App

To move an app, tap the 'apps' button, then 'Settings,' then 'Applications,' then 'Manage applications.' If you want to move a specific app, you could locate it in the alphabetized lists in the 'Downloaded' or 'All' tabs, or if you want to move multiple apps, you can tap the 'SD card' tab and view every app that capable of transfering to the SD card. No matter which tab you view, just tap on one of the apps to view information about it; then tap the 'Move to SD' button to transfer it to the storage card. Application developers decide whether or not their apps can be stored on an SD card, and some apps cannot be moved to an SD card. If you view an app that cannot transfer to the card, the move button will be unavailable.

App Storage Limitations

Unfortunately there's no simple way to know if you can store an app on the SD card without downloading the app and attempting to transfer it to the card. You can look for the information on the Android Market in the app's 'Overview' section or in the user reviews, but often you won't find information about storing the app on the SD card, so you may have to download the app and then try to move it. You should only need to spend a few moments moving an app, though depending on its size, your device may need a few seconds to transfer everything to the card.

Common SD Card Apps

Since you can find hundreds of thousands of Android apps in the Android Market and in other places, a full list of apps that you can store on an SD card would be enormous, but you may be interested in knowing about some of the more popular apps that have this option. Apps that do transfer to the SD card include all three Angry Birds games (the original, Seasons and Rio), Cut the Rope, Fruit Ninja and the ubiquitous Jewels. Many productivity apps have the SD card storage option, including some of the popular browser alternatives like Mozilla Firefox, SkyFire and Dolphin, as well as apps like PayPal and Adobe Reader.