Redmi Note Android – use a micro SD card as internal memory

I bought a Redmi Note 9 for testing my React Native apps out on Android (I use an iPhone mainly), however it only had 32 GB, so I bought a 128GB microSD card, added it, then noticed that I couldn’t use it as internal storage as the setting wasn’t there 😐!

Not a problem. Just a bit of a pain. This process will replace and not add to your internal memory, so in my instance my total memory will be 128GB.

You’ll need the Android Debug Bridge installed (adb command). Maybe also first take a backup if you need to.

First up, go into settings, about phone, then tap on the MIUI version multiple times, eventually you will see “You are a developer”.

Come back out and go to Additional Settings, then Developer Options. .

– Turn on Don’t Lock Screen
– Turn on USB debugging
– Scroll to the bottom, turn off MIUI optimisation.

Now plug the phone into the computer, fire up a terminnal, and check you can see the device by typing:

adb devices

If you can see a device, continue with the following commands:

adb shell
sm set-force-adoptable true
sm list-disks

You should see something like disk:179,96 or similar.

Now prepare the SD card:

sm  partition disk:179,96 private

Now type in the following, you should see what looks like some sort of uuid 3c15a-43bf6-etc-etc

sm list-volumes

Copy the ID and paste it in this last command. This one may take a while, but let it run, and then restart your phone.

pm move-primary-storage 3c15a-43bf6-etc-etc

Once you’ve restarted, go into your settings, and check out your new improved phone’s storage!