External storage

[das479]

Since there is no internal slot for extra storage, I was told that I could buy an adapter for the USB 3 slot I have done that. I have inserted a large SD card I can see the SD card through a file manager, but I cannot get any music app or picture app to recognize that external storage.

I want to offload my pictures and music to the external drive.

I can click on the individual music files, and individual picture files, and I can hear and see them without problem. But no manager seems to be able to use them. I cannot even find a place to ask the Android system to move the applications to the external drive.

Has anyone had this problem, and if so what is the solution?

Google Pixel 3 XL with Android 9

 

[Hadron]

Welcome to the forum

Moving applications to a USB device isn't going to be possible. I can't see why viewing media stored that way shouldn't be: I've done such things with older phones. But playing with it now on my Pixel 2 with a USB-C flash drive all I can say is that it's a bit fiddly/fragile. A few of my apps were able to view it, after a little fiddling. Solid Explorer was able to gain access, which would allow me to copy content to it (it had to be granted permission, but it told you how to do it). The Piktures gallery app could view content, provided I selected the USB storage via the hamburger menu, but I didn't manage to get Simple Gallery, F-Stop or Google Photos to view it (though I think Simple Gallery did request permission, so maybe I messed-up setting that). None of my audio apps auto-detected it, but I admit that I didn't force any of them to rescan manually which would have been the next thing to do.

 

[mikedt]

I think apps many are just not built to use external removable USB storage("USB Drive") for their data and media. Sure they can use a micro-SD directly, but the Google phones don't have that of course

A USB adapter with a micro-SD inserted, is effectively a USB thumb drive. There's no way to move and run apps from that either. Sure you can use the file browser to copy files to and from, but that's pretty much it.

 

[das479]

Thanks. I was afraid of that.