How to move almost all Android apps to SD card (no root required) - By Sergey Povzner

Moving (almost) all Android apps to SD card

To run commands which will enable Move to SD card button for most installed apps, you need to have adb executable on your computer. Adb stands for Android Debug Bridge and is used for Android software development, but it is a very useful tool to have for any advanced Android user. You do not need to have a rooted phone to run adb commands.

1. To download the latest version of Android SDK (which includes adb executable), follow instructions from step 2 in the Installing the SDK article from the official Android development site. Note: you do not need to install any other software such as Eclipse for this procedure.
2. After downloading the archive of the SDK, unzip it to any folder and remember its location (let’s call this folder ).
3. If you are installing Android SDK on Windows machine, you also need to install USB driver as described in USB driver for Windows section.
4. Connect the phone using USB cable and do not enable USB storage mode. Go to Settings -> Applications -> Development and enable USB debugging.
5. Start terminal window on your computer (on Windows: click Start, type “cmd” and press Enter).
6. In the terminal window, navigate to folder containing file named “adb” (\platform-tools folder) using this command: cd “full-path-to-sdk-platform-tools” (replace “full-path-to-sdk-platform-tools” with an actual path as shown in the screenshot below).
7. Type the following lines in the terminal window and press Enter after each line:
   • adb devices
   • This checks that the phone is connected and is in the correct mode. You should see one entry in the list of the attached devices. If you get “device not found” error, see Troubleshooting section below.
   • adb shell
   • If you get “cannot find file” error and are using Mac or Linux, instead type: ./adb shell
   • pm set-install-location 2 
   • (If this command doesn’t work try using the “old” command: pm setInstallLocation 2. Thanks to polosco for the tip.)
   • exit
   •  
   • 1. Now on your phone go to Settings->Applications->Manage Applications.
     • If you have Android 2.3 or later, click on USB Storage tab (may be called SD card). This tab shows a list of apps that either can be installed to SD card or are already on SD card. The ones that have checkbox on the right side are already moved to SD card (credit to Michael Scully for the tip).
     • On Android 2.2 and earlier if you don’s see USB Storage or SD Card tab, click on All tab.
     • Press hardware Menu button and select Sort by Size.
     • Tap on each app that is taking significant amount of space and tap Move to SD card button. Press hardware Back button and repeat.
     • (optional) To change the default installation location for new apps back to the internal phone memory,  go back to your terminal window and type:
       • pm setInstallLocation 0
     • (important) Go to Settings -> Applications -> Development and disable USB debugging. Leaving USB debugging enabled makes your phone vulnerable (e.g. lock pattern can be reset).
     • Enjoy!