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As this question Why is the SD-card mounted to "/sdcard/external_sd" instead of "/sdcard" (or "/mnt/sdcard")? points out, newer versions of Android often point the /mnt/sdcard path to internal storage instead of the SD card, and the location for the sd storage is not clearly defined and varies from device to device.

Is it possible to modify my phone so that /mnt/sdcard would actually point to the SD card instead of some arbitrary location on internal storage? (would this require rooting the phone?)

Since the new specifications are so vague about what the mount point should be for sd cards, many apps do not work properly, or have features (such as backup and restore or export) that are completely useless if the /mnt/sdcard path doesn't actually point to a removable piece of memory that you can move to another device.

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up vote 3 down vote accepted

As eldarerathis noted in his comment, this will require root. But you don't need to manually edit the vold.fstab file for this, as there are some nice little helpers available:

Root External 2 Internal SD can swap your cards (i.e. exchange their mount points):


Root External 2 Internal SD (Source: Google Play)

Note that this app requires Android 4.0 or higher.

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