Hi, it’s been a few months that I bought a Fairphone 3. So far I haven’t had any important issue but a couple weeks back my microSD card stopped being recognized by the phone. I decided to buy a new one (Philipps, 64Gb V10, I1, Class 10).
Yesterday I installed it and after switching on my phone it asked me if I wanted to transfer my data on the SD card. I marked yes and it started transferring all my data (I thought I would at least have an option to choose which data to transfer). Once the transfer finished, some things stopped working.
I cannot take pictures anymore, nor can I take screenshots or download Whatsapp images. When I try taking screenshots, I get the error message “Impossible to save the screenshot because the storage is limited”. I went in the options of my phone and couldn’t find where the issue comes from, especially knowing that there is 30Gb+ free space both on the SD card and the internal storage space.
Would it please possible to have help? Maybe there is an option I don’t know of… I’d like to avoid resetting my phone back to its factory version…
We forum regulars (Fairphoner users, too) are all too familiar recently with what you are describing. Without any furter ado: You have most likely formatted the SD card as part of your phone storage (internal storage), right? This way to format the card has proven to cause problems like the one you have described. I recommend that you save the contents on your SD card (if necessary) and then re-format the card as portable/external storage.
It might also become necessary to (virtually and/or physically) eject the SD card afterwards in order to make the phone realize the change completely.
Hi, thanks a bunch for your very quick answer. Really appreciate it!
Yes indeed. How can I save the contents of my SD card? Do you have any step-by-step guide I could follow to avoid further issues and data loss? Thanks a bunch!
I cannot give you a comprehensive set of instructions, the basic process is described here (some terms might be different by now):
Basically, if there is enough free space on the built-in storage, you can save your SD card data there. If you need more space, you can connect your FP3 to a computer (with hopefully enough space left ) and transfer the remaining data that way via “file transfer”.
Hi! Again, thanks a bunch for your reply. So here is where I have my issues:
Move all apps installed on the SD card to Internal Storage (if any). You can do that in Settings / Storage / SD card / Apps. You have to move each app individually.
When I go in Settings / Storage / SD card / Apps it tells me “No apps”, while on the previous page it indicates me that 15Gb of data on the SD Card is in “Apps”.
Migrate your data from the SD card to Internal Storage (only if you migrated your data to the SD card before). In Settings / Storage / Internal Storage, open the 3-dot-menu and select Migrate data.
When I click on the 3-dot-menu I have only three options: Rename, Eject, Format as external storage.
I really feel f**ked although it seems I haven’t done anything wrong
Transfer the data to or from the SD card?
From the SD could mean that a lot of media files were moved from the SD to the internal storage and hence “Impossible to save the screenshot because the storage is limited” due to space restrictions.
If that’s the case I hope the guidance provide by @urs_lesse works.
Transfer the data to the SD card. Currently there is about 30Gb free space in the internal storage, and about 40Gb free space on the SD card. So I can’t see any space restriction here unfortunately.
) and transfer the remaining data that way via “file transfer”.