Feature Request for Android App: Store Data on external memory (SD Card)

That pretty much sums it up. Downloaded areas can take up a lot of memory, especially if we download photos. Currently this is all stored on internal memory. For some of us especially with older phones, we have very limited internal memory, and being able to store all the data or at least photos on external memory means the difference from being able to download photos or not, or even being able to install the app or not. 

Most Android phones have an SD card slot, and the ones that don't tend to be newer and have more internal memory anyway. Since not all dirtbag climbers can afford the latest shiny phones, please please help out those of us with limited memory and add a toggle switch under settings to let us store data on external memory! Many other apps have this feature, or even automatically use external memory by default.

Also a related but separate feature: Allow moving the app itself to external memory. Android makes it simple to move the entire app to external memory, but only if the app developer chooses to allow this by marking the app as movable. It may not run quite as fast and efficient, but in my experience most apps run fine on external memory, and again for those of us that are running out of memory and need to delete apps every week just to keep up with increasingly bloated app updates, it may mean we will be forced to delete the app otherwise. (especially as other climbing apps become more useful and newer versions of MP become increasingly tedious to use.. )

Thanks to Dan for suggesting this.  Hikers, climbers, etc shouldn't have to limit their challenges for fear of smashing or dunking an expensive phone.  Sometimes I'll store data for a lot of hikes on a long trip and being able to store them on an big sd card would be a big advantage.  Please ask your programmers to work their magic.

Well my app is already on my SD card.... Sure there's no setting in the app that just says put it on a card but going through your phones storage options there's probably a way ( that's what I did)

Mike13, thanks for helping with this.  Maybe it depends on the phone.  Mine doesn't allow moving the app to the sd card, even though it does allow moving some other apps.  And it doesn't offer an option for saving data on the sd card.

Mike13 wrote:

Well my app is already on my SD card.... Sure there's no setting in the app that just says put it on a card but going through your phones storage options there's probably a way ( that's what I did)

No there isn't a setting unless the developers enable it. See the two screenshots below from the 'storage' section of the application settings for two different apps, Mountain Project and Facebook Messenger lite (Settings\Applications\Application manager\[app name]\Storage). On the FB Messanger app, and many if not most other apps, I can just click 'change' and choose to move the app to external storage. Note the missing 'Stored in' section on the MP app:

PS- I had to re-write this entire post because when I was writing it within the app and then switched tasks to look at the screenshots, it deleted everything I wrote.. yet another annoyance with the app..

++1 for bing able to move the app/data to SD card. I have a cheapo phone, and I cant use the app anymore because of the amount of starorage it takes up

Same issue with the maps taking up space in my internal memory.  I too wish they could be stored on the SD Card.

Add me to the List. I want to move it move it!

I would also like this.

A few years ago I tried transferring it to the SD card and when I looked at my files and pictures the did not move them they got copied and I had to remove the program.

Same issue here.  It is very annoying that this app won't save to my SD card!

Please change this! I like this app but Mountain Project takes up all the room on my internal memory!

Saving to the SD card would be awesome!  I have an older phone without much internal storage, but for most apps that's not a problem since I can save to the SD card.  Hopefully Mountain Project will enable this and I won't have to delete area guides as I move from state to state during road trips anymore.

+1 great suggestion 

We like to move it, move it.
You let us move it, move it.
We want to move it, move it.

Wow what an incredible idea! Man wouldn't that be the cat's pajamas! 

Seriously developers, it's been a year and no response about this? I don't know much about app development, but if I'm not mistaken this doesn't involve much more than changing a permission setting..

I'm at the point where my phone is thoroughly crippled due to lack of memory, and very soon I will have to either delete the MP app or buy a new phone. And I'm probably going to hold off on the new phone for a while... I actually paid for this app in the brief period after it was free and before REI took it over and made it free again, so it kind of sucks to be disregarded by the developers, and to have to delete if for (apparently) no good reason..

Indeed, WTF! This is ludicrous. The old version of the app allowed SD card storage. What's the problem?

O Man I hope they do this and release it on Dec 24th @ midnight. Gonna be like Christmas! 

Dear Santa,

Could you also do it for the other "project APPS"? I have a dirty secret and actually mountain bike project takes up the most space on my phone! Or perhaps you could allow me to download areas and not entire states? I promise I'll be good next year!

Thanks
Ryan

So I recently deleted all downloaded areas in Mountain Project, but kept the app. I wouldn't exactly call this a workaround, since I no longer have access to the data offline, or without using data from my plan, but it did free up a couple hundred megabytes while still allowing functionality as long as I have service. I was surprised how much data was being taken up, considering I had already deleted all areas except New York. I freed up more room on my phone than I've had in years.. It goes to show how much impact this has. Perhaps developers will eventually read this thread..

In the meantime, for others in my position, I suggest doing the same if you need the space. Of course now I will use the app even less than before..

Okay disregard the above, I was mistaken- I realized the app doesn't work at all unless you have the area downloaded! I had assumed that downloading an area just enables it to work offline, but no you can't use the app at all unless that area is downloaded. This is even worse than I thought. So now I am not using the app at all. If I want to check Mountain Project, I have to use the browser on my phone.

This app has the trifecta of horrible memory management: It stores all the data on internal memory (and doesn't let you move it to SD card), it is not functional at all without the data downloaded, and you can only download entire states at a time (not areas within the state). Fixing any one of these three things would make the app somewhat usable and tolerable. Fixing all three is such an obvious and simple solution, it is baffling why that isn't the case.