Most Android TV devices have a USB port, but the TV home screen gives you no obvious way to see what’s on a drive. Here is how to get at your files, and what to check when the drive doesn’t show up.
1. Plug it in
Connect the drive directly to the TV or streamer. Avoid unpowered USB hubs, since many TVs can’t supply enough power for a hub plus a drive. A portable hard drive that needs more power than the port gives may not spin up at all; a flash drive almost always works.
2. Open it with a file manager
Android TV has no built-in file browser worth the name. Install a file manager made for the remote, such as Trunk , and the drive appears as its own storage next to the TV’s internal storage. Use the D-pad to open folders and select a video, photo, song or document to open it in your TV’s player or viewer.
3. If the drive doesn’t appear
- Check the format. Android TV reads FAT32 and exFAT drives reliably. NTFS support varies by manufacturer, and drives formatted for Mac (APFS, HFS+) or Linux (ext4) are usually not readable.
- Try another port. Some TVs have one port that is faster or better powered than the others.
- Reconnect it. Unplug, wait a few seconds, plug back in, and reopen your file manager.
- Test the drive on a computer. If a PC can’t read it either, the drive or its file system is the problem, not the TV.
- Restart the TV. It fixes a surprising number of mount problems.
4. Remove it safely
Eject from the TV’s storage settings before you pull the drive, especially if you were writing to it, to avoid corrupted files.
Trunk: TV File Manager is a free file manager built for Android TV and a remote control. Get it on Google Play .