Surely you more than once had the need to connect a USB flash drive to your Android tablet or smartphone, but you didn't know how to do it. Yes, you will not find a full-size USB in almost any Android gadget, but you can still connect a drive to your device. Now I will tell you how.
Instructions: how to connect a USB flash drive to an Android tablet or smartphone
To open and view the contents of the flash drive, you will need file manager... If you do not have a built-in manager initially, you will have to download an external one. You can familiarize yourself with it on our website. The path to the files itself will look like this: / sdcard / usbStorage.
True, not always tablets or smartphones can identify a USB flash drive or hDD... In this case, you will have to download paid application Nexus Media Importer (works not only with Nexus), or StickMount application, which is free, but requires root (Superuser rights). Read about getting them in the posts: and. If you have previously rooted the device, then you can proceed. There is another great application for automatically mounting a USB flash drive. It is called USB OTG Helper and also requires root rights.
How to connect a USB flash drive to an Android tablet or smartphone via MicroUSB
If your tablet or smartphone uses Micro USB port, then connecting such a device will not be difficult. You just need to fork out a couple of dollars and buy a USB OTG cable. That is, you insert the corresponding end of the adapter into the connector of the device, and connect the USB flash drive to it. If your Android smartphone or tablet supports the OTG function, then the flash drive will be detected automatically.
How to connect a USB flash drive to an Android tablet or smartphone without MicroUSB
If your manufacturer was greedy for the USB connector, and instead equipped his device with only a proprietary connector for synchronization, then you will have to spend a little more. But even in such a situation, there is a solution: you will need another additional adapter, suitable for your connector. You will need to insert a USB OTG cable into it.
That's all, I hope my post was useful to you.
If you urgently need to drop some files from your Android phone, tablet or smartphone to a USB flash drive, for example, to clear the memory of your device or quickly transfer something to a friend's drive, then you can do this thanks to some additional purchases. Below we will tell you how you can connect a USB flash drive to an Android device, and what you need for this.
How to connect a USB flash drive to an Android smartphone or tablet
This will give you the ability to connect a USB flash drive to your device anytime, anywhere, but you have to buy a little.
OTG cable
The only thing you need to use this method is to walk to a store or order an OTG cable on the Internet. This is a kind of adapter from your MicroUSB input in the device to USB. It costs inexpensively, in the region of 150-300 rubles, so this option seems to be the most practical. But be careful, before buying a wire, check which input is in your phone / tablet. Pick up required adapter for your device, if this is not available, then you simply have to buy another adapter from the OTG cable to your gadget.
Left - input for USB, right - adapter for MicroUSB of your device
Types of MicroUSB and MiniUSB:
Through applications
After purchasing a complete set of cords, we simply connect all the components, and the flash drive will be automatically detected on your device. But the phone may not have built-in support for the OTG cable (in most modern mobile devices this function is present), then there are two outputs:
To work with Nexus Media Explorer, it is enough to launch the application when the flash drive is inserted into the OTG cable, and it is inserted into the phone. StickMount will have to be tweaked a bit:
Now that your tablet or phone has identified the USB flash drive, you can start browsing and moving everything from place to place by going into the explorer installed on your phone. If you don't have such a program, download ES File Explorer from Play Market (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id\u003dcom.estrongs.android.pop) or any other application with a similar functionality.
Installing the application from the Play Market
Video tutorial: connecting a USB storage device to an Android device
The only way to connect a USB flash drive to your Android tablet or phone is to use an OTG cable, which will serve as an adapter from the MicroUSB input to the drive connector. If the device does not see the USB flash drive, use one of the above programs. After successful detection, go to the explorer and perform any operations with the transfer and editing of files.
Today modern devices play a huge role in our life. We are not talking about computers or laptops, which are already starting to fade into the background. Smartphones and tablets - laptop computersthat have almost all the functions like laptops. Unfortunately, these modern devices are not suitable for office work. Typing on a tablet is pretty tricky, let alone on regular phones.
People began to think about how to connect a USB flash drive to an Android smartphone or a keyboard, mouse and others useful devices... It turns out that it can be done. However, not everyone knows how to connect additional device to your smartphone. Let's look at this using an example of a regular flash drive. As a rule, it is this device that many people try to connect to their device.
How to connect a USB flash drive to an Android smartphone
Modern devices running operating system Android have a standard microUSB connector. For a USB flash drive to work on your device, it must have USB On-The-Go technology installed. Manufacturers have started to implement this feature in Android OS since version 3.1.
As a rule, in modern tablets and even more so in phones, a USB connector is not installed. Therefore, you will need a USB OTG cable. Some manufacturers put an adapter for a USB flash drive in the kit, if you do not have one, you will have to buy it at any store that sells digital equipment.
The smartphone does not have a micro-USB connector
If you did not find a microUSB connector on your smartphone, then you will need to purchase a USB-OTG cable first, and then an adapter to it. Of course, this is quite inconvenient: if you need to connect an additional device, you will have to use several cables. But this is the only way that will allow you to connect a USB flash drive.
How to view the contents of an external drive
So, we looked at how to connect a USB flash drive to an Android smartphone. Now let's move on to opening an additional device. How to do it? We need to download a file manager. Perhaps you already have it, since in some devices the manufacturer installs a certain set of programs. Of course, if you don't have a file manager, you'll have to install. For smartphones running Android OS, the leading places are occupied by ES File Explorer, FX File Explorer and Total Commander... You can choose the application you like best.
How to open a USB flash drive on Android
As we have already found out, we will need it. After installing it, we can go into this utility and find a USB flash drive. If you can't find your external device, try entering the path to the files (/ sdcard / usbStorage). After successfully opening the flash drive, you can view, copy and move files like on a regular computer. Now you know how to connect a USB flash drive to an Android smartphone and open it, but, unfortunately, some devices have problems. Let's look at them and try to find ways to solve them.
"Android" tablet or smartphone does not see the USB flash drive
If you got to this point, then you are having problems connecting the flash drive to your smartphone. This can be for various reasons. Now we will consider the most common ones.
First. If the file manager should help him. Now there are applications that can eliminate this problem... The most effective program is a paid one, so we'll look at a free alternative. Unfortunately, it requires root rights. StickMount works not only with flash drives, but also with other additional devices.
If you and you have installed the necessary utility, you can connect an external device. When connecting, you must agree with the StickMount rules, after which it will automatically start and see the USB flash drive. How do I find my device? You can go to / sdcard / usbStorage / sda1 in the file manager. Do not forget to properly disconnect additional devices so that there will be no problems with them in the future. To do this, go to the program and click on the "Unmount" button.
It is worth noting another high-quality application - Helper, which works on a similar principle.
The second reason. Before installation additional programs and root rights, you should make sure that the problem is not in the USB flash drive. What is the reason for this? Your device simply does not see the USB flash drive, since it can be configured for another file system (possibly NTFS).
Let's say you don't have a laptop or computer: how do you connect an additional device then? You must download Paragon NTFS & HTS + - an application that supports desired format reading text data. Unfortunately, this app requires rooting. You can get them using the King Root program. However, not all devices can obtain superuser rights. Remember: you do this at your own peril and risk. because of of this application your smartphone may not start working correctly. If the device is still under warranty, then you do not need to obtain root rights, since the warranty will be lost in this case.
Conclusion
So, we looked at how to connect an external USB flash drive to an Android smartphone, and described some of the connection problems. As practice shows, questions arise on older devices. If you have a new device, there should be no problems. To use a flash drive, keyboard, mouse or other applications on your device, you must follow the rules and do everything carefully.
There are situations when you need to mount a regular USB flash drive on your portable gadget. Perhaps the reason is the lack of micro SD or you need to open some documents, but the computer is not nearby. But is it possible to connect a USB flash drive to a smartphone? Yes, nowadays it is possible to synchronize USB devices and Android devices. In addition, it may not necessarily be a drive, so you can connect a keyboard, mouse and, in general, any device to a smartphone. In general, how to connect a USB flash drive or other device to a smartphone is described in this article.
As already mentioned above, connecting a flash drive to a smartphone is possible, in order to do this, you will need additional cable... And if the device is quite old, you will also have to get superuser rights or, in other words, root rights and make a connection. How to connect a USB flash drive to a phone is described below.
OTG cable is the only way to connect
Since no company has yet released an Android with a large USB input, connecting such things is possible only with a special adapter, namely an OTG cable. Such a thing is not so expensive, from 150 to 300 rubles, you can buy an adapter in the City or in simple communication salons. On one side it has miniUSB, and on the other there is a regular, large connector. This adapter is not suitable for every device. The gadget must have oTG support and there should be a miniport on it. If the device is incompatible with OTG, there is nothing you can do about it.
IMPORTANT. To find out if the smartphone is supported by OTG, you can see it in the documents or go to the manufacturer's website.
But how to connect a USB flash drive to the phone through an adapter if there is no miniport on it? It's possible! To do this, you need a special adapter for OTG. There will be a lot of wires and all this will take up a lot of space! But the task is completed, since it was still possible to connect the USB flash drive to the phone.
Connecting without rooting
Without obtaining superuser rights, you can connect the drive only on new devices. On old devices, to connect a USB flash drive, you will need to obtain root rights. So, how to connect a USB flash drive to a new Android gadget:
There is also a way to save information from a gadget to removable media. To do this, find the settings on it and open "Storage & USB". Click on the internal drive, where you can move data from it to the device.
To take advantage of additional parameters, in the window where the files stored on the media are viewed, you need to click on the menu. There you can find the "Settings" option, there you can also format the media by clicking on "Format". This is how easy it is to mount removable media on a new gadget. For older devices, it is recommended to install the StickMount program and get root, since you will not be able to connect a USB flash drive without this, all the details are described in the subsection below.
Rooting connection
Devices with outdated Android: they have miniUSB, OTG is supported, but they still refuse to connect the device. But how to connect a USB flash drive to a smartphone that has a similar embarrassment. First you need to install the StickMount application, get root and, if there is no manager, download ES FileExplorer. Then follow the instructions below:
- As in the previous case, connect the OTG to the device and connect the media;
- StickMount will notify you that a device is connected to the gadget. Now you need to click on the OK button and the drive window will open.
Root-rights must be obtained on the phone, without them nothing can be done.
- In both pop-up windows, you need to click "YES", as a result of which "Usebydefault" is activated and now all devices will turn on automatically;
- After that, the program will inform you that the device is mounted.
IMPORTANT. Drive path: / sdcard / USBStorage.
- Now you need to find "USB Storge" in the manager and open it. This window will contain volumes that are used to distribute files on the device;
- You can open any directory and do whatever is required with them.
After working with the media, you need to click on the StickMount icon. The removable media is unmounted and can be safely removed. Also, thanks to this icon, you can determine the presence of any flash drives. Now it became clear how to connect a USB flash drive to a smartphone that has an old version of Android.
Do you want to watch a video on your tablet or smartphone without wasting space on the storage device built into the gadget? Or, perhaps you just need to view files with documents that a friend transferred on a USB flash drive? I hasten to please you that most modern Android devices support work with standard USB drives. You can connect your USB flash drive to your Android smartphone like an ordinary computer... How to do this will be discussed further. And to transfer data to a smartphone, you do not need to use the corresponding mail application... How to do this will be discussed further.
IN last generation Android devices support greatly improved external devices storage and display, but in some older devices this support requires additional intervention, such as "rooting" (rooting). By the way, the cable can be much easier, without this risky procedure. In this article, I will offer you two options at once on how to connect a USB flash drive to Android. And I'll start with the simplest thing - without the need for complex and risky ROOT operations.
The first option: we connect the flash drive to Android via USB OTG cable
I hope you are aware that the smartphone does not have a standard full-size USB port. Therefore, in order to connect a USB flash drive to a smartphone or tablet, you will need a USB on-the-go adapter cable or USB OTG for short. The cost of such a medium quality cable does not exceed $ 5 in a regular online store. It looks like a standard data cable and has a miniature MicroUSB connector on one side, and a large USB port on the other, suitable for connection standard connectors USB drives. Unfortunately, this connection option may not work on all devices! Your Android gadget must support a feature such as OTG. Some devices lack this support, so I recommend that you use an Internet search to make sure your smartphone is OTG compatible. This will save you money on cable purchases.
Once you buy a cable, just use it to connect to Android smartphone flash drive or other USB drive. By the way, this cable is also well suited for connecting various USB devices, such as USB keyboard, mouse or gamepad.
USB storage file system support
Ideally, if the USB flash drive connected to Android is formatted in the FAT32 file system. This will ensure maximum compatibility. In addition, some Android devices support the exFAT file system. And now I will sadden and surprise you - unfortunately, no Android gadget supports file nTFS system... But there is good news - for Android it does not matter which layout style of the external drive was used.
If your drive was not formatted correctly before connecting, you can do this later. But please note that formatting the drive destroys all content on it. So it will be great if you format the drive ahead of time before copying files from your gadget to it.
Second option: no rooting, only works on new smartphones
On modern Android devices, at the time of connecting an external drive, you will most likely see a message that it is suitable for transferring photos and media data “for transferring photos and media”. After that, the "Explore" button will appear, by clicking on which you will see a window for viewing files on the drive. In addition, the "Eject" button will also be available to safely remove the USB drive.
If you are using older android version, to connect a flash drive to a smartphone, I recommend using the additional StickMount application. I warn you right away - for it to function, you must complete the rooting procedure.
- Tap on the "Explore" button. A new file will open android manager and will show the content recorded on external drive... You can view and manage files normally like on a computer. Long press on one or more files or directories to select them.
- If you have music or videos on your USB drive, you can tap on them. As a result, the file will open in one of the default media players in the gadget. It will be very convenient on a long trip. Of course, you can install any other file manager from third party developers and use it instead of the standard utility.
- I will give you one hint. Open the window android settings and tap on "Storage & USB" to see full list internal drives, as well as connected external drives. Tap on internal storage and you will see in the file manager all the files stored in it. You can also copy and move files to a USB drive right there. Some applications also allow you to save files to any storage device or open files directly from it. These apps will handle any file exchange between internal and external USB storage. When you're done with the external drive, you can connect it to your computer or other Android device to transfer data.
- If you want to access additional features, tap on the file manager menu button while browsing content on the USB drive, and then select "Settings". Here you will see the "Format" option, which will allow you to format the external drive without using a computer.
Third option: with rooting the smartphone when it does not see the USB drive
Some devices, despite the possible support for USB OTG technology, for some unknown reason refuse to mount a USB flash drive or USB-disk (usually these are devices on old version Android). In such cases, you need to "root" the smartphone and use the special StickMount application to read files on external storage... And further. If your Android version does not have a built-in file manager, I suggest you use a separate application like ES File Explorer.
I have successfully tested the process of rooting and accessing a USB drive on an old Nexus 7 running 4.1 Jelly Bean. But I can't guarantee that everything will run as smoothly on other devices. The older your gadget is, the more steps will need to be done, starting with installing drivers and other things. Anything can happen!
- Once you install both apps, plug in one end uSB cable OTG to the gadget, and the second to USB drive. After that, you will see a StickMount message stating that a flash drive is connected to Android. Tap on the "OK" button and StickMount will open access to the files on it. To do this, you need to have "root" access rights to the StickMount app. This cannot be done if you have not ROOT in advance.
- If you say “Yes” in both dialogs, and in the first dialog box you activate the “Use by default” option, you will never see any questions at the moment of connecting the USB-disk. That is, then everything will happen automatically.
- As a result, a message will appear on the screen of the gadget, which says that StickMount has successfully attached (mounted) the external disk volume. The path to it will be like this: / sdcard / usbStorage.
- Open the ES File Explorer file manager, find the "usbStorge" directory and tap on it.
- Inside the "usbStorge" directory, you will see at least one subdirectory. Each of them represents partitions (volumes) into which an external USB drive or USB stick is partitioned.
- Tap on one of the directories and you will see the files inside it. Tap on one of the files to perform the necessary actions with it.
- After you perform the necessary operations with the file (watch a movie, listen to an audiobook or do something else, tap on the StickMount icon in the message bar. So you can unmount the external drive and safely disconnect it. By this icon, you can always determine that there is an active connection to the USB disk and it is mounted in the operating system.
At the end of the article on how to connect a USB flash drive to a smartphone, I consider it necessary to note that the USB OTG cable is a rather bulky thing. But not enough to spoil the pleasure of watching videos on the plane or during your lunch break at work. It is equally convenient to use this cable for transferring and processing files for other purposes. Moreover, the OTG cable can be used to connect the USB disk to the computer.
Bonus
For the most curious, I would like to answer the question, what is the difference between a regular data cable suitable for connecting a smartphone to a computer from an OTG cable. Is it possible not to buy a separate USB OTG cable for connecting a flash drive to Android? The answer is NO! I cite the reason below, those who can read electronic circuits will find differences, and perhaps they will remake the cable themselves. Good luck!
Scheme of a conventional data cable for connecting to a computer and charging
