How to Migrate Data to SD Card [Fast]?

Want to migrate data to SD card from internal storage or PC but don’t know how to? This post offers easy ways to help you to transfer data from PC or SD card to SD card.

Bryce

By Bryce / Updated on May 12, 2023

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Content
When need to migrate data to SD card?
Migrate data to SD card with different ways
A quick and easy way to migrate data to SD card

When need to migrate data to SD card?

There are many SD card brands in the market, such as Samsung, Kingston, Toshiba, PNY, etc. SD card is widely used in portable devices, like digital camera, Multiplemedia player, and smartphone. You may choose to transfer data to SD card under those conditions:

  • Move data from Smartphone internal storage to SD card: When Android smartphone internal storage is full, it can report that “Memory Full Not enough phone storage space. To fix this issue, you can transfer data or apps to SD card.

  • Transfer data from SD card to another SD card: If the SD card in use it too small to satisfy storage demand, you may want to replace it with a larger one and migrate data to the larger SD card.

  • Move data from PC to SD card: You want to use the files saved on your PC on Smartphone or release space on PC hard drive, thus you move data from computer hard drive to SD card.

Migrate data to SD card with different ways

It’s necessary to take different ways to transfer files or apps to SD card under various situations.

Transfer files & apps from internal storage to SD card

Those steps are about how to migrate files from internal storage to SD card and the SD card should have been installed in your Smartphone.

Step 1. On the Home screen of your smartphone, tap “Apps” and “My Files”.

Step 2. Choose one among the listed file types.

Step 3. Tap 3 dots icon at the upper right side.

Step 4. Choose Select and then check the files that you want to move.

Step 5. Tap Move and then tap SD card.

Step 6. Go to your desired folder on SD card and tap “Move HERE”.

If you want to move apps to SD card, go to “Settings” > “Apps”> “App Info”. Then, tap the app that is going to be moved and choose “Storage”. Finally, tap “Change” and select “SD card “and tap “Move” (If the “Change” option becomes greyed out, it means that the app that you choose is not allowed to be moved.

Notes:

  • After you move files or apps to SD card through the steps mentioned above, the files or apps won’t exist on internal storage anymore.

  • The steps can be different on Android smartphones belong to different brands or models.

  • If there is a PC, you can connect the Android smartphone to your PC via a USB cable and then transfer data from internal storage to SD card.

Migrate files from SD card to SD card without computer

This tutorial is about how to move files from one SD card to another without PC. And it requires an OTG SD card reader or USB OTG cable plus SD card reader for Android smartphones.

Step 1. Enable OTG storage at first to allows your smartphone to read external storage.

Step 2. Put the larger SD card in OTG SD card and then put the reader in your phone, or insert the larger SD card to the SD card reader and connect the SD card reader to your phone via USB OTG cable.

Step 3. Tap “Files” on Home Screen. And then navigate to Local > SD card (the small one).

Step 4. Choose the wanted files, tap 3 dots icon at the upper right, and select Cut or Copy.

Step 4. Then select the large SD card as the destination place to paste the copied or cut files.

Step 5. After the migration process is completed, you can go to "Settings" > "Storage"> "SD card" and tap Eject to eject the new larger SD card. Finally, power off your smartphone and replace the small SD card with the larger one.

Notes:

  • You can connect the two SD cards to your PC and then migrate data from one SD card to another on PC.

  • After Cut, the files won't exist in the original place, after Copy, the files still exist.

Transfer files from PC to SD card

This tutorial shows you how to transfer data from PC hard drive to SD card.

Step 1. Connect the SD card to your computer and ensure that it can be detected by operating system.

Step 2. Double click “This PC” or “My Computer” to open File Explorer.

Step 3. Locate the files that you want to transfer. Then, you can Cut/Copy and paste the selected files to transfer them from PC hard drive to the SD card.

Step 4. After file migration, safely remove your SD card.

Note: Cut and Paste transfer files to SD card and free up space on PC hard drive. Copy and Paste make a duplicate of desired files on SD card.

A safe and quick way to migrate data to SD card

It’s OK to transfer data from SD card or hard drive to SD card through Cut/Copy and Paste. However, some installed programs might be unusable due to invisible files when you transferring data in this way. Therefore, AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard, a free data migration tool for Windows PC is highly recommended. It can transfer all data from the original drive to the target disk easily and fast through cloning the disk. Free download it and have a look at how it works (Take migrate data from SD card to another SD card as an example):

Download Freeware Win 10/8.1/8/7/XP
Secure Download

Step 1. Connect the two SD cards to your PC and make sure that they can be detected; Install and run AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard; then click “Clone” and "Clone Disk".

Step 2. Here you need to choose a copy method between “Clone Disk Quickly” and “Sector-by-Sector Clone”. Then, click Next.

Step 3. Choose the small SD card as your source disk and the large SD card as your destination disk.

PS.: When clone to SSD, you can check Optimize the performance to make partition alignment.

Step 4. Now, you can adjust the partitions on the destination SD card or leave it alone.

Step 5. Finally, click “Apply” and “Proceed” to execute the operation.

Tips:

  • If the source disk is formatted with exFAT, Ext2, Ext3, or Ext4, you need to choose “Sector-by-Sector Clone” in Step 2.

  • All data will be erased on the destination SD card, you’d better back up the desired data in advance.

  • You can clone GPT system disk, convert logical partition as primary, recover deleted partition on SD card, if you upgrade to Professional version.

Bryce
Bryce · Staff Editor
Bryce is an editor of AOMEI Technology, he covers backup & restore, hard disk & partitions management, cloud files transfer, website & database backup and so on for AOMEI. He enjoys helping people find solutions to their problems. He loves traveling, Sleeping, reserching and so on. He enjoys helping people find solutions to their problems. He loves traveling, Sleeping, reserching and so on. He would like to spend all time on reaserching computer problems. He is a very cute boy.