How to read/write external USB storage on Android?

Nathan Walters picture Nathan Walters · Oct 26, 2013 · Viewed 11.8k times · Source

I am currently making an app that needs to be able to read from and write to a USB flash drive connected via a USB OTG adapter. Is there an easy way to access this storage via standard Java.io.File APIs? This app is only going to be run on a rooted Motorola Xoom running Android 4.2.2. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Answer

Matt Clark picture Matt Clark · Oct 26, 2013

USB Drives get mounted to your device just like an SDCard does essentially*.

The mount path usually resides at:

/storage/usb0/

I have not used this on many devices other then my Droid running CyanogenMod, your device may very. You can smiply use a file manager to explore this path. The directories will still exist even if there is no mount path, so you will be able to determine the path.