These solve different problems. An SD card gives you more room. The cloud gives you a copy that survives the phone. Knowing which you need saves a lot of confusion.
Moving files to an SD card
First check your phone even takes one. Many newer phones, and every iPhone, have no card slot at all.
To move things across:
- Open Files or My Files.
- Go to Internal storage, then the folder you want, usually DCIM for camera photos or Download.
- Select what you want to move, choose Move rather than Copy, and pick the SD card as the destination.
Most camera apps can also write straight to the card from then on. Look in the camera app's own settings for a storage or save location option.
Two things to know about cards
- Buy a decent one. Cheap unbranded cards sold at the roadside are frequently fakes that claim 128GB and hold far less, and they corrupt files without warning. Buy a known brand from a shop that will take it back.
- Do not use Adoptable Storage. Some Android phones offer to format the card as internal storage so apps can live on it. It sounds useful. What it actually does is tie the card permanently to that one phone and make it unreadable anywhere else, so if the phone dies the card dies with it. Format it as portable storage instead.
Before you remove a card, use Settings, Storage, then Eject or Unmount. Pulling it out while the phone is writing to it is how cards get corrupted.
Moving files to the cloud
The cloud is not extra space on your phone. It is a copy somewhere else. Used properly it frees space too, because you can delete the local copy afterwards.
Google Drive is on nearly every Android phone already. Open it, tap the plus, choose Upload, and pick your files. To free space afterwards, delete the phone copy once you have confirmed the upload finished.
Google Photos is the better choice for pictures specifically, because it handles them automatically. Once backup is on and finished, the app offers Free up space, which deletes only the local copies of photos it has already backed up. That option is safe and it is usually the fastest few gigabytes you will ever recover.
Check the backup has actually finished before you free up space. Google Photos tells you at the top of the app when it is done.
Which to use
| Situation | Use |
|---|---|
| Phone is full, you have a card slot | SD card |
| You are worried about losing the phone | Cloud |
| Large videos you rarely watch | SD card, or a computer |
| Documents you need from anywhere | Cloud |
| Photographs, generally | Cloud, with the local copies freed afterwards |
The honest answer for most people in Ghana is both: a card for bulk, and Google Photos on Storage saver over Wi-Fi for anything you would be upset to lose.