As of Chrome OS version 78 the method used to enable SD card access on a Chromebook has changed. This guide will show you how to allow Android Apps to access and use your SD card on a Chromebook.
Since your Chromebook probably doesn’t have a particularly large hard drive, it can be very handy to store things like audio and video files on an SD Card instead of the internal drive. When Google rolled out version 78 of Chrome OS, they changed the way Android Apps access an SD card on a Chromebook. It’s a bit more buried now, but it’s still totally possible to let apps like Netflix store downloaded files on an SD card instead of the hard drive. Here’s how –
- Open the Settings on your Chromebook.
- Select Device from the navigation panel on the left side of the window, and then Storage management in the Device section on the right side of the window.
- Select External storage preferences
- Toggle the SD Card switch to ON
- Now select Apps from the navigation panel on the right, and then Google Play Store from the panel on the right.
- Choose Manage Android preferences
- Select Apps & notifications
- Locate the App you want to allow to use your SD card. In this example we’re going to use Netflix. Note: you’ll need to perform the next 2 steps with each app that you want to be able to use your SD card.
- Select Permissions
- Toggle the Storage switch to ON
- At this point Netflix has been granted ‘permission’ to use your SD card. Depending on the App you may not be done quite yet. With Netflix, you need to configure the App itself to start saving data on the SD card rather than the internal drive. To do that, open Netflix and click the More icon at the bottom of the window.
- Choose App Settings
- Scroll down and select Download location
- Now choose SD Card
- Confirm that the Download location has changed to SD Card
- Going forward, when you download a video with Netflix to watch while you’re offline, it’ll be stored on your SD card instead of your internal hard drive.
- Remember – you’ll need to repeat steps 7-9 with each Android App that you wish to grant access to your SD card.
- You should be able to use your SD card to store files from Spotify as well, but there seems to be an ongoing issue which may cause you headaches.
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