Many files, including videos, music files, images, PDFs, and other documents can be opened directly from the external drive. There’s also a search button for quickly finding files. The options at the top right corner of the window allow you to change the view, so you can view a grid of thumbnail previews instead of a list of files and sort the files by file name, size, type, or date modified. Right-click inside the drive and select “New Folder”–or press Ctrl+E–to create a new folder on the drive. When you use the “Save As” dialog to download a file in Chrome OS, you can choose to download it directly to an external drive.Ĭommon keyboard shortcuts like Ctrl+A to select all files, Ctrl+C to copy files, Ctrl+X to cut files, and Ctrl+V to paste files also work here. To move files to the drive, you can either drag and drop them from the Downloads folder or Google Drive, or right-click them, select “Copy” and then right click in the drive and select “Paste”. The drive will appear in the left pane of the files app, below Google Drive and the Downloads folder, which contains all the files stored locally on your Chromebook. To use an external storage device on Chrome OS, just connect it to your Chromebook and open the Files app. How to Access a Drive and Work With Files In fact, if you format a USB drive or SD card from within Chrome OS, it will automatically format the drive as exFAT without even asking which file system you want to use. You’re probably best off formatting your external drive as exFAT.
Chromebooks support the MTP protocol for digital cameras and music players, and for external disc drives that connect via USB, Chromebooks can read the ISO9660 and UDF file systems on discs. It can also read the Mac HFS+ file system, but it can’t write to it. It also supports the Windows NTFS file system with full read and write support. It supports the cross-platform FAT16, FAT32, and exFAT file systems. RELATED: What's the Difference Between FAT32, exFAT, and NTFS?Ĭhrome OS supports a variety of file systems on removable devices.