Wondering how to move or copy the photos, videos, music or just about any type of media file currently saved on your LG Android 4.4 cell phone? Then you’ve come to the right place. This guide will show you step-by-step with pictures, using an LG G3 smartphone operating on the Android 4.4 KitKat, how to move files from your LG phone to its SD card without having to use a computer and without having to download an application. All you will need is a charged phone and a working memory card.
What this guide is useful for
This guide is the perfect resource for many different situations as moving information to an SD card can be extremely useful when:
- You have been having issues with your LG cell phone and are looking for a way to backup your information before performing a hard reset.
~Note: Remember that a factory data reset erases all user data from a cell phone so before performing a reset you should make sure to copy all of your important information to somewhere other than your cell phone and an SD card is often one of the best places to do so. If this is what you need to do on your LG smartphone then you are in the right place and after you have followed the advice in this guide I recommend that you also check out How to Backup and Reset an Android smartphone for some additional backup suggestions and advice that I think you might find helpful.~
- If you just bought a new memory card and you are looking for instructions on how to move all of the preexisting and original camera photos to that memory card.
~Note: Inserting a memory card into an LG smartphone might prompt you to set the new default storage to that SD card but all of your original camera photos are going to be saved to the phones internal storage and they will not transfer to the new memory card automatically. This guide will show you step-by-step exactly how to move those original photos to the SD card.~
- If you are trying to clear up space on your LGs internal storage space by moving information and data to the external storage aka a memory card.
~Note: If an Android phones memory is full not only can your phone start displaying error messages but all kinds of unpleasant and unexpected things can happen. This includes sluggishness, freezing, hanging, force closing, and even crashing or a loss of data. None of which can be a fun situation to be in. If this is a possible reason as to why you would like to move media files from your internal storage then after you are finished with this article you might find the tips and tricks listed HERE helpful as well.~
- You would simply like to learn how to copy pictures, videos, music or any other media files to and from the memory card on an LG smartphone.
~Note: Intellectual curiosity and a desire for knowledge is a wonderful way to continue to grow as a person, thank you for visiting the site and once you have gone through this guide don’t hesitate to check out some of the other wonderful guides and articles available else ware on the site as well.~
Before we begin check your SD card
Before we begin transferring information from your LG phone to its SD card we are going to want to verify that your LG has an external memory card and that it is inserted, mounted, and communicating with your LG smartphone properly. If for some reason your memory card is not mounted or communicating with your cell phone like it’s supposed to then you are going to want to resolve that issue first.
If you are not sure how to check to make sure that your memory card is mounted and reading correctly then I suggests taking a moment to review How to Check the Memory Card on an Android Smartphone. Once you have verified that everything is working as it should you can start moving things to your SD card.
Locate the Files that you would like to Copy
Before we start transferring information the first thing that you need to do is find the pictures, videos, music, or other media file(s) that you would like to move. You will find that this is really easy to do once you know how and where to begin looking.
Locating media files saved on your phones storage: Quick instructions
Apps > Tools > File Manager > All Files > Device Storage > Pictures/DCIM/Music/Movies/etc
Locating media files saved on your phones storage: Detailed instructions with pictures
Luckily for us LG smartphones have a built in application that will allow us to find, manage, and work with the files saved to both the phone and its SD card. It’s called “File Manager”. A shortcut for this application has been created on the LG G3 Android smartphone used in this example so that it’s quicker to open but you will likely need to find this feature under your LGs list of applications.
Start out by opening your LG’s list of Applications.
Find and tap on the Tools icon.
Tap and open the File manager.
This is an important screen as it can lead you to just about any media file saved on your cell phone or its memory card. For this tutorial we are going to choose to open and view the All files option.
This is also an important screen as it lets you view the data stored to your “Internal storage” (the information stored on your phone) as well as the information stored to your “SD card” (the external/removable memory card).
Since we want to locate files stored on the phone, so that we can select and copy that information to the SD card, we are going to tap the Internal storage option.
You will then see a list of the data that is stored to your phones internal storage and this is where you can search and browse for the file(s) that you would like to copy from your phone to your SD card.
Some common folders of interest from this list include the:
Pictures – which should contain your LG’s Screenshots folder.
Music – often contains the music downloaded to your LG smartphone.
Movies – as the name suggests this is a good place to look for movies that you may have added to your phone.
DCIM – this is the default storage location for photos taken with the camera of an Android smartphone. It is, in my opinion, the best place to start when transferring photos from an Android phone to its SD card.
~Important Note: if you downloaded Music, Movies, Videos, Pictures, etc. using a third party application (an app that didn’t originally come with the phone) then those files might be stored in a different folder other than the Music folder, Movies folder, etc. I suggest looking for the name of the application that you used to download the file(s) as that data is most likely going to be stored in that location. Please also remember that applications can be configured differently than one another depending on who created the app so you might have to do some browsing/searching in order to find the exact file(s) that you are hoping to backup.~
Moving files from an LG phone to its Memory Card
Open the folder that contains the file(s) you wish to move. In this example I am going to chose to move pictures taken with the camera before inserting a memory card…
Moving select files from the phone to the SD card: Quick instructions
Internal storage > DCIM > Camera > Copy icon> Select desired pictures > Copy > SD card > DCIM > Camera > OK.
Moving photos from the phones storage to an SD card: Detailed instructions with pictures
In this example I am going to perform the same transfer, as I am going to locate the pictures taken with the camera which are stored on the phones internal storage and copy those images to the SD card.
~Continuing from the steps shown above~
While still viewing the data saved to the “Internal storage” I am going to select the DCIM folder from that list of options.
Then I am going to tap on the Camera folder.
This folder should show all pictures taken with the camera before inserting a memory card and changing the phones default storage location to the SD card.
We now need to tell the phone that we want to Copy some of these images so we are going to tap on the Copy icon.
This icon is located on the bottom center of the display screen right above the Home button and looks like two squares resting on top of one another.
After tapping the “Copy” icon you should then see the option to select the images that you would like to transfer to the memory card. You can choose to select specific photos or select all of the images by tapping on the “Select all” option in the upper left hand corner of the screen.
Once the pictures that you want to move are selected tap on the Copy option shown on the bottom of the screen.
Your LG will then ask you where you would like to save your copied pictures and you should be presented with a familiar screen where you can choose whether you want to copy them to your “Internal storage” or your “SD card”.
Since we already copied them from the phone and want to move them to the memory card we are going to tap SD card.
This screen may look very similar to the screen that you saw when browsing through your phones internal storage and just like we did before we are going to want to find and open the DCIM folder.
~Note: you should have a DCIM folder located on both your phone and its SD card. If however you cannot locate a DCIM folder on your memory card feel free to create one. Typically your phone will create one for you automatically but I just thought I would mention this for good measure in case you don’t see one on your LG smartphone.~
Next tap on the Camera option.
Then press OK.
~Note: If the memory card is new or you have not taken any photos after setting the default storage to the memory card then this folder may still be empty. The LG smartphone used in this tutorial already has pictures stored to the memory card (that’s why there are pictures already in this folder). By pressing OK the phone will simply paste and add the images that we copied earlier to this folder.~
You might see a “Copying…” message to let you know that your photos are copying to your memory card; once it’s completed you will have successfully transferred those files to the SD card.
Congratulations you now know how to successfully copy files from your LG to its memory card!
But you might not be done yet. Don’t forget to…
Erase the originals
Since we used the “Copy” feature (which I ALWAYS recommend using “Copy” as opposed to a “Move” or “Cut” option as it helps prevent a loss of data during a transfer) you should still have your original information saved on your cell phones internal storage. As we basically just made a copy of that information and then pasted that copy onto the SD card.
Unless you want two copies of the same photo(s), then don’t forget to verify that everything copied to the SD card successfully and then you can go back to where the original files are saved and erase those files from your internal storage. This is especially important if you are trying to do some cleaning and trying to clear up some space on your cell phone.
Set up the default storage location
You will also want to check your camera settings to make sure that it’s configured to save all of the new camera photos directly to the memory card. If you would like some help confirming that your LG is already setup to do this, or if you need to set this up then you should find How to setup the default camera storage location on an LG Android phone very useful.
Share this guide with others ;)
Thank you for visiting the site and reading this tutorial. If you found this guide informative, instructive, and or helpful and would like to show me that you liked it then don’t forget to press the Facebook Like and Google + buttons below. Feel free to also leave a friendly remark in the comments section as well. I look forward to reading your comments and don’t forget to let me know what model of LG smartphone you have and if the steps were a little different on your phone or if they were the same as the LG G3 used in this tutorial.
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