How to Enable Adoptable SD Card Storage on Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge

The Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge comes with Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow out of the box, but doesn’t support all of Marshmallow goodness.

Marshmallow has this beautiful feature called adoptable SD Card storage, which basically treats your SD Card as internal storage, giving you easier management of files, plus added security.

However, “for user convenience”, Samsung chose to do away with Marshmallow’s adoptable SD Card storage on the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge. But we know most of you would have been more happy and convenient with adoptable storage enabled on your S7 devices.

Thanks to PaulOBrien over at Modaco, there’s a simple workaround to enable adoptable storage on Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge. And the best part is, it doesn’t require root access.

Follow the instructions below to get adopt SD card as internal storage on your S7 as well.

Note: Before you begin, know that the process of adopting SD card as internal storage will format your SD card. So make sure you backup your photos, videos and all other important files before proceeding with the instructions below:

How to Enable adoptable SD Card Storage on Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge
  1. Setup ADB and Fastboot on your PC.
  2. Enable USB debugging on your S7:
    1. Go to Settings » About tablet » and tap Build number 7 times to enableDeveloper options.
    2. Go back to Settings » select Developer options » enable USB debugging.
  3. Open a command window on your PC and connect your S7 to PC using a USB cable.
    └ If a prompt appears on your device, asking for your permission to allow USB debugging, select “Ok”.
  4. Now type the following command to see disks available for adoption:
    adb shell
    sm list-disks
  5. Once you get disks listed, note down the Disk ID for your SD Card. It’ll look something like this — disk:179:160.
    └ Note: Disk ID could be different for each device.
  6. Now issue the following command to adopt your SD card as internal storage on the device:
    sm partition disk:179:160 private

    └ Here make sure you use the disk id for your device that we discovered in Step 5 above.

  7. The process will take some time, but when it’s done, go to Settings » Additional settings » Storage to see your SD card being adopted as Internal storage.
Posted by
Shivam Malani

Shivam is our resident designer and web developer who also enjoys writing. He loves to meditate, drive on the freeways and hunt for snipers during his Call Of Duty playtime. Email: [email protected]