Beginning with API Level 8, you can allow your application to be installed on the
external storage (for example, the device's SD card). This is an optional feature you can declare
for your application with the android:installLocation
manifest attribute. If you do
not declare this attribute, your application will be installed on the internal storage
only and it cannot be moved to the external storage.
To allow the system to install your application on the external storage, modify your
manifest file to include the android:installLocation
attribute in the <manifest>
element,
with a value of either "preferExternal
" or "auto
". For example:
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" android:installLocation="preferExternal" ... >
If you declare "preferExternal
", you request that your application be installed on the
external storage, but the system does not guarantee that your application will be installed on
the external storage. If the external storage is full, the system will install it on the internal
storage. The user can also move your application between the two locations.
If you declare "auto
", you indicate that your application may be installed on the
external storage, but you don't have a preference of install location. The system will
decide where to install your application based on several factors. The user can also move your
application between the two locations.
When your application is installed on the external storage:
.apk
file is saved on the external storage, but all private user data,
databases, optimized .dex
files, and extracted native code are saved on the
internal device memory.Warning: When the user enables USB mass storage to share files with a computer or unmounts the SD card via the system settings, the external storage is unmounted from the device and all applications running on the external storage are immediately killed.
The ability for your application to install on the external storage is a feature available only on devices running API Level 8 (Android 2.2) or greater. Existing applications that were built prior to API Level 8 will always install on the internal storage and cannot be moved to the external storage (even on devices with API Level 8). However, if your application is designed to support an API Level lower than 8, you can choose to support this feature for devices with API Level 8 or greater and still be compatible with devices using an API Level lower than 8.
To allow installation on external storage and remain compatible with versions lower than API Level 8:
android:installLocation
attribute with a value of "auto
" or
"preferExternal
" in the <manifest>
element.android:minSdkVersion
attribute as is (something less
than "8") and be certain that your application code uses only APIs compatible with that
level.android:installLocation
attribute and will not compile your application when it's present.When your application is installed on a device with an API Level lower than 8, the android:installLocation
attribute is ignored and the application is installed on the internal
storage.
Caution: Although XML markup such as this will be ignored by
older platforms, you must be careful not to use programming APIs introduced in API Level 8
while your minSdkVersion
is less than "8", unless you perform the work necessary to
provide backward compatiblity in your code. For information about building
backward compatibility in your application code, see the Backward Compatibility
article.
When the user enables USB mass storage to share files with their computer (or otherwise unmounts or removes the external storage), any application installed on the external storage and currently running is killed. The system effectively becomes unaware of the application until mass storage is disabled and the external storage is remounted on the device. Besides killing the application and making it unavailable to the user, this can break some types of applications in a more serious way. In order for your application to consistently behave as expected, you should not allow your application to be installed on the external storage if it uses any of the following features, due to the cited consequences when the external storage is unmounted:
Service
will be killed and will not be restarted when
external storage is remounted. You can, however, register for the ACTION_EXTERNAL_APPLICATIONS_AVAILABLE
broadcast Intent, which will notify
your application when applications installed on external storage have become available to the
system again. At which time, you can restart your Service.AlarmManager
will be cancelled. You must
manually re-register any alarms when external storage is remounted.AccountManager
will disappear until
external storage is remounted.AbstractThreadedSyncAdapter
and all its sync functionality will
not work until external storage is remounted.DeviceAdminReceiver
and all its admin capabilities will
be disabled, which can have unforeseeable consequences for the device functionality, which may
persist after external storage is remounted.If your application uses any of the features listed above, you should not allow
your application to install on external storage. By default, the system will not allow your
application to install on the external storage, so you don't need to worry about your existing
applications. However, if you're certain that your application should never be installed on the
external storage, then you should make this clear by declaring android:installLocation
with a value of "internalOnly
". Though this does not
change the default behavior, it explicitly states that your application should only be installed
on the internal storage and serves as a reminder to you and other developers that this decision has
been made.
In simple terms, anything that does not use the features listed in the previous section are safe when installed on external storage. Large games are more commonly the types of applications that should allow installation on external storage, because games don't typically provide additional services when innactive. When external storage becomes unavailable and a game process is killed, there should be no visible effect when the storage becomes available again and the user restarts the game (assuming that the game properly saved its state during the normal Activity lifecycle).
If your application requires several megabytes for the APK file, you should carefully consider whether to enable the application to install on the external storage so that users can preserve space on their internal storage.