Android file direction: An piece of cake-to-follow guide

From managing files on your phone to seamlessly syncing folders with your computer, this guide will turn you lot into a certified Android file chief.

Contributing Editor, Computerworld |

hand reaching out to folders and files
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Table of Contents
  • Managing files on your Android phone
  • Supplementing your telephone's local storage
  • Transferring files between your phone and computer
  • Transferring files wirelessly betwixt devices
  • Syncing your Android phone'south storage with a computer

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When yous call up nigh your smartphone, apps and interfaces are probably the get-go things that come to heed. Below all that surface-level stuff, though, our mod mobile devices are filled with files — folders upon folders of 'em! — just like the clunky ol' computers we've relied upon for ages.

We may not come face to face with our phones' file systems besides oftentimes, but information technology'southward valuable to know they're there — and to know how they can work for us when the need arises. Afterwards all, your Android device is a productivity powerhouse. It tin can juggle everything from PDFs and PSDs to presentations and podcasts. It tin even deed every bit a portable hard drive and house any sort of of import files you might need in your pocket (and not merely on some far-away deject). Your mobile device tin can carry an awful lot of data, and there may come a time when yous desire to dig in and deal directly with it.

Here's everything you need to know to get under the hood and tap into your telephone's file managing powers.

Managing files on your Android telephone

You might not realize it at a glance, simply Android actually allows you to access a device's entire file arrangement — even from the device itself.

The operating organization has had its own native file managing director since 2015's Android 6.0 Marshmallow release, and what started out as an experimental-seeming effort has evolved into a capable tool for bones data manipulation. With Android half dozen.0 through seven.1, the system-level file manager is somewhat subconscious: You have to look in the Storage section of your system settings, and so coil all the way to the bottom and tap the line labeled "Explore" to find it.

With Google's Android viii.0 Oreo release, meanwhile, the file managing director lives in Android'due south Downloads app. All you take to do is open up that app and select the "Evidence internal storage" option in its carte to scan through your phone's total internal storage. You can and so open up, move, rename, copy, delete, and share files every bit needed.

And if you take Android 9 or college on your phone, things get fifty-fifty easier: In those recent Android versions, the file manager exists in its ain sensibly named Files app. Merely open information technology up to scan whatever area of your local storage or a continued Drive account; y'all can either utilise the file blazon icons at the top of the screen or, if you want to look folder by folder, tap the three-dot menu icon in the upper-right corner and select "Prove internal storage" — and then tap the iii-line menu icon in the upper-left corner and look for your phone's name.

android file management files app JR Raphael/IDG

The most recent version of the organisation-level Files app lets you browse through files in a variety of ways, including via a traditional binder-past-folder view.

If you don't see the Files app on your phone, odds are you're using a device by a manufacturer — such as Samsung — that opts not to include this system-level Android chemical element in its software and instead to provide its own self-made alternative (ostensibly with the goal of pushing its own cloud storage service and/or a paid partner's deject storage service alongside Google Bulldoze). Such an app might exist within a binder bearing the manufacturer's proper noun, in your app drawer, and might be called My Files — or something along those lines. You'll probably find the same bones sort of file management functionality within it, only with a somewhat different interface and set of options.

If y'all want to do more than the most basic on-device file management, meanwhile, a third-political party file manager is the way to go. You can observe my latest recommendations for various needs in my separate roundup of the best Android file manager apps.

Supplementing your phone'due south local storage

Ane little-known characteristic of Android is its ability to connect with external storage devices like USB memory sticks and even larger-capacity portable hard drives. A phone just has to support something known as USB On-The-Get, or USB OTG, in order for the connection to work.

A off-white number of devices, including Google'due south Pixel phones and many Samsung Galaxy products, offer such back up. If you aren't certain if your telephone does, your all-time bet is to Google its name forth with "USB OTG"; odds are, y'all'll find the answer fairly rapidly.

Provided your device supports USB OTG, all you demand is a USB-A to USB-C adapter similar this one made past Amazon. (If yous have an older device that doesn't have USB-C, you'll need a USB-A to micro-USB adapter instead; you can detect plenty such options on Amazon or at pretty much any electronics retailer.) Use the adapter to plug the external bulldoze into your phone, and so look for a notification confirming the drive is connected.

Tap the "Explore" selection within the notification, and that's it: You lot tin now browse and access all the files on your external drive.

android file management usb otg JR Raphael/IDG

Look for the notification that pops upward when an external drive is connected, and yous'll be browsing the drive's contents in no time.

When you're finished, don't forget to get back to the notification and tap "Squirt" before disconnecting the drive.

Transferring files between your phone and computer

In addition to supporting external hard drives, your Android phone can deed as an external hard drive. Simply plug your device into whatever Windows, Mac, or Chrome OS computer, and you can access its entire file system and drag and drop files betwixt information technology and your desktop with ease.

With a Windows or Chrome OS system, it's essentially as elementary as plug and play. With a Mac, y'all'll first demand to install a special plan on your reckoner earlier the connection can exist established.

For footstep-by-footstep instructions on any of those fronts, click over to my comprehensive Android file transfer guide.

Transferring files wirelessly between devices

Want to transfer files between your Android phone and a computer (or some other Android phone, iPhone, etc.) without the demand for wires? No problem.

Your most basic selection is to encompass a middleman — specifically, a cloud storage service like Google Drive, Dropbox, or Microsoft OneDrive. Just upload the files to a folder within the respective app on your Android telephone, then find the folder within the same app on the receiving device (or vice versa).

You tin can get more advanced than that, though — and make your life significantly easier equally a upshot. If you're transferring between 2 Android devices in the same physical surface area, Google's own Files app (which, confusingly, is non the same as the aforementioned Files app that comes preinstalled on many devices) will become the chore done with minimal fuss and hassle. But install the app on both devices, tap the Share tab at its lesser, and then tap the Transport or Receive button to fix up the transfer. The app will automatically encrypt any data it sends.

If you're using devices on different platforms — and/or devices that aren't in the aforementioned concrete location — a handy tool worth considering is a multiplatform app called Join (which also has the power to encrypt its transfers, though you'll demand to wait inside the app'due south settings to activate that option). Install the app on your Android device and and so install that aforementioned app, the Chrome version, or the Windows x version on whatsoever other device with which you lot want to share files. You lot tin can likewise access the service via a regular website on any desktop reckoner — if, for instance, you utilize a Mac along with a browser other than Chrome.

Once you've signed into the apps on both ends, you're ready to initiate hassle-gratuitous file transfers in either direction. On Android, just share a file from whatever app — a file manager, an image gallery, or any other sort of file-using utility — and select Join every bit the destination. The file will appear on your desktop within seconds.

On a calculator, meanwhile, sending a file is as simple as opening the Join app or extension, selecting your telephone as the receiving device, and and then dragging the file into the window.

android file management join app JR Raphael / IDG

Driblet a file into Bring together on your desktop (left), and it'll appear on your Android device a second later (right).

Join has a bunch of other functions — including the ability to ship a "Notation to self"-style notification from a estimator to your telephone and even to paste text from a calculator directly into your phone's clipboard — but even if you just employ information technology for wireless file transfers, it's well worth keeping effectually. The app comes with a free (advert-supported) one-month trial so requires a quondam $5 purchase if y'all want to keep using it.

Syncing your Android telephone's storage with a computer

Perhaps you like having certain files stored locally on your Android telephone, but you too want those files to exist backed up and saved on your computer. The best of both worlds, correct?

Believe it or non, this is actually quite easy to pull off. Just grab an Android app called AutoSync, which is bachelor for use with Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox, and Box. It'll let you lot create pairings betwixt a local folder on your phone and a deject-based binder — for gratuitous with a unmarried folder pair and files smaller than 10MB or for a i-fourth dimension $v payment without any real restrictions.

Install the advisable estimator-side app for whichever service you prefer, make certain it'southward gear up to sync with your computer's hard bulldoze — and there ya have information technology: Your Android device's folder is at present effectively office of your PC.

Y'all can fifty-fifty have the folders stay constantly synced in both directions — so if you add or update a file on the estimator, the same changes will appear on your phone as well.

That'southward a wrap!

Congratulations: You lot've officially earned the championship of Android file master. (For real — yous tin fifty-fifty type it into a document, print it out, and tape it to your desk and then everyone knows.)

Next upward: Make sure you sympathize the ins and outs of Android backups. They're ultimately fabricated up of files, too, after all — and pretty of import ones, at that.

This commodity was originally published in September 2017 and most recently updated in February 2020.

Contributing Editor JR Raphael serves up tasty morsels near the human being side of applied science. Hungry for more? Join him on Twitter or sign up for his weekly newsletter to get fresh tips and insight in your inbox every Friday.

Copyright © 2020 IDG Communications, Inc.