When you’re using Android, you can use a USB flash drive as your primary storage device. This means that you can easily access your files and keep them safe from being lost or stolen. Here are some tips on how to use a USB flash drive with Android:
- Choose the right USB flash drive for your needs. There are many different USB flash drives available on the market, so it’s important to choose one that will fit your needs. If you need a small and lightweight drive, go for an SD card instead. If you need a more powerful and durable drive, go for an HDD or SSD.
- Format the drive if needed. If you want to use a USB flash drive with Android, it’s important to format it first so that it can be used correctly. To format the drive: a) Open the Android system Preferences and select Storage > Format > FAT32 (or FAT16 if you’re using an older Android device). b) Select the desired size of the disk (in bytes) and click OK. c) Click on OK again to finish formatting the disk. d) Now insert the disk into your computer and reboot your device in order to take effect of the new format!
While most modern Android devices aren’t necessarily lacking storage options, there may come a time when you need to use a flash drive with your phone. Fortunately, this is easy—Android natively supports external drives.
There are a couple of different ways to go about accessing a flash drive on Android, depending on your situation. But we’re going to talk about them all, so let’s get started.
How to Connect a Flash Drive to Your Phone
How you connect the flash drive to your phone depends on what type of USB port your phone has—USB-C or Micro USB.
RELATED: How to Use a USB Flash Drive with Your iPhone
If Your Phone has USB-C
If you’re on the cusp of new tech and have a modern phone with a USB-C port, you have a couple of simple options. If you’re in the market for a new flash drive then you can just buy one with both USB-C and A connections. Those are becoming more and more prolific, and you can use the same drive on your computer and your phone without the need for an adapter.
Seriously, that’s it: just plug it into your phone, and you’re good to go.
Once you have the appropriate adapter, just throw it onto the drive and plug it into your phone.
If Your Phone has Micro-USB
Like with USB-C, you could buy a Micro USB flash drive if you’re in the market for a new one, though those aren’t nearly as common. In fact, you’ll have such limited choices, we think it’s best to just get a more traditional USB-A drive and an adapter.
How to Access a Flash Drive on Android
Regardless of what kind of drive or phone you’re using, once it’s plugged in, you should get a notification that the drive is connected.
If the drive isn’t properly formatted, you’ll get a notification letting you know that. Fortunately, you can take care of that right from your phone—just tap the notification to jump into the format screen.
Note: Just keep in mind that formatting completely erases the drive, so if the goal is to get something off of it and onto your phone, formatting it is not a good idea. Instead, you’ll need to copy the data off the drive onto your computer, format the drive properly, and then copy the data back onto it.
If your flash drive is properly formatted, tapping the notification opens the file explorer where you can interact with the contents of the drive as if they were natively stored on the phone.
You can long-press on items and them copy/cut and paste them to and from the flash drive, just like you would locally. Nothing to it.
