While most modern Android devices aren't necessarily lacking storage options, there may come a time when y'all need to employ 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 state of affairs. But we're going to talk about them all, then let's go started.

How to Connect a Flash Drive to Your Telephone

How yous connect the flash drive to your phone depends on what type of USB port your telephone has—USB-C or Micro USB.

RELATED: How to Use a USB Flash Bulldoze with Your iPhone

If Your Phone has USB-C

If yous're on the cusp of new tech and have a modern phone with a USB-C port, you lot have a couple of unproblematic options. If you lot're in the market place for a new flash drive and then you tin just buy 1 with both USB-C and A connections. Those are becoming more and more than prolific, and you tin can use the same drive on your estimator 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.

If you already have a traditional USB Blazon-A wink drive, so you'll need an A-to-C adapter. You can catch those from Amazon for just a few bucks.

Once yous have the appropriate adapter, but throw information technology onto the bulldoze and plug it into your telephone.

If Your Phone has Micro-USB

Like with USB-C, you lot could buy a Micro USB flash drive if you're in the market for a new one, though those aren't most as common. In fact, you'll have such limited choices, nosotros think it'southward best to simply get a more than traditional USB-A drive and an adapter.

For the adapter, you'll demand a USB OTG cable. This cable has a male micro USB connector on ane side and female person USB A jack on the other. Plug your flash bulldoze into the USB A jack, and so plug the other terminate of the adapter into your phone. You tin grab them from Amazon for cheap—they're great to have around.

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 lotshould become a notification that the drive is continued.

If the drive isn't properly formatted, y'all'll get a notification letting y'all know that. Fortunately, y'all can take care of that right from your telephone—simply tap the notification to jump into the format screen.

Note: Just go on in listen that formatting completely erases the drive, so if the goal is to go something off of it and onto your phone, formatting information technology is non a good idea. Instead, you'll need to copy the data off the drive onto your calculator, format the drive properly, then copy the information dorsum 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 bulldoze as if they were natively stored on the phone.

You can long-press on items and them copy/cutting and paste them to and from the flash bulldoze, only like you would locally. Zero to it.

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