With Android Marshmallow, Google introduced the so-called Adoptable Storage feature, which merges the internal memory of a phone with the external storage in the form of a microSD card (if the device has such a memory slot), and treats the resulting cumulative memory as a one total partition. In theory, this would prevent user confusion as to how much exactly free space they have in total on the phone, instead of trying to calculate microSD storage and internal storage separately, or wondering in general what the heck are those.
It is up to the manufacturer to implement the option, though, and both the Galaxy S7 or the Galaxy S7 edge don't support Adoptable Storage, despite shipping with Marshmallow on board. They simply treat the microSD card as a separate entity, instead of lumping it together with the internal memory in the storage menu. Samsung did this as it prevents users with slow, cheaper memory cards from experiencing issues and hiccups that often occur with Adoptable Storage, as the internal storage is much faster and more reliable.
There is a way around this, of course, which doesn't require rooting your phone, yet we don't recommend using it to enable Adoptable Storage on your Galaxy S7 or S7 edge if you don't have one of the faster memory card standards out there. In case you want to simply free some memory from your internal storage by moving the apps that have installed there by default to the microSD card, here's what you need to do:
1. Put a microSD card with enough free storage on it for the apps you want moved in your phone (duh);
2. With the memory card in your Galaxy S7 or S7 edge, go to Settings>Storage>Used space>Apps;
3. Get to the app whose data you want transferred to the microSD card and choose "Change Storage" from its internal options;
4. Change the storage space to microSD card, and let the phone guide you while it moves the app there.
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Bear in mind that not all apps can be moved to the microSD card, as some require internal storage to function, but as you can see in our example above, Implosion is a pretty big game, occupying about a gig and a half of your precious internal memory, so moving it to the memory card will free up quite a bit of space there. Naturally, if you remove the microSD card for some reason, the game won't function, but the phone will prompt you to put it back in, and take it from there anyway.
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Daniel, a devoted tech writer at PhoneArena since 2010, has been engrossed in mobile technology since the Windows Mobile era. His expertise spans mobile hardware, software, and carrier networks, and he's keenly interested in the future of digital health, car connectivity, and 5G. Beyond his professional pursuits, Daniel finds balance in travel, reading, and exploring new tech innovations, while contemplating the ethical and privacy implications of our digital future.
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