Viewing Files on an OTG Drive...

[billykac]

I must be missing something here!

My Pixel XL sees my OTG drive just fine from within the native file explorer - the one that comes up when you first plug the drive in. But curiously, Astro File Manager can't find the drive, either can PowerAmp. They only see internal storage.

I am careful to select "File Transfer" when the drive is first plugged in, so it doesn't think the drive is a power source.
Any ideas why the drive can't be seen via other means other than the native file explorer?

 

[billykac]

After some investigation, it appears that having an app access, or play, a file on an OTG drive since Android 6.0 has been a non-starter. Security and permissions in the OS seem to be at the root of it (no pun). Getting 6.0+ devices to see and execute files on an OTG drive - beyond the capability provided by the native file browser - seems to need root and/or other interventions that don't seem worth the effort for me.

If anyone else knows different, please let me know.

For me, having an OTG drive handy has value as I can easily copy files to internal memory in a snap when on-the-go, and simply play them from there with the app of my choice. Alternatively, if I were to push my Pixel to capacity by taking tons of pix and 4K video (not likely) I could easily off-load them to OTG.