Manage & Transfer Files

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In this guide, we’ll show you how to use the Files app to manage files on your Above Phone. You’ll also learn how to connect and use a USB drive to transfer files to and from the device.

By the end of the video, you’ll have a clear understanding of where your data is stored, how to access it directly, and how to move files between different folder locations.

Open / Eject USB Drive

Opening or ejecting a USB drive

Method 1:

Plug the drive into the Above Phone. A USB icon should appear in the top-left corner.
Swipe down to open the Notification Section and expand the System UI notification.
Expand the notification using the arrow on the right.
Tap Explore to open the drive in File Explorer.
When finished, tap Eject to safely disconnect the USB drive.

Method 2:

Alternatively, after plugging in your USB drive, open the Files app.
Tap the ☰ three bars menu icon top left to open the navigation sidebar.
You should see all storage listed and accessible from there.

Copy / Move Files to USB Drive

File Explorer navigation

Tap the ☰ three bars menu icon
Navigate to the folder containing the files you want to copy.
Tap and hold a file to select it.
Use the Share icon to send the file via an installed app.
Use the Delete icon to remove selected files.
Copying files to a new location
Tap additional files to select or deselect them as needed.

Tap the three-dot icon to open more options.
Select Copy To to duplicate the file, or Move To to transfer it.
You'll be redirected to a destination picker.
Tap the ☰ three bars menu icon to browse locations.
Creating a new folder and copying files
Select the USB Drive or your desired folder.
Tap the New Folder icon if you want to create a new directory.

Enter a name for the new folder.
Tap OK.
Once inside the desired location, tap Copy or Move to proceed.
You'll be redirected to the original location, and a notification will appear showing the transfer is in progress.
The process typically completes quickly. Open the destination folder to confirm the files were successfully copied or moved.

Phone to Desktop

In order to access your files from a computer, just connect your phone through an USB-C cable. By default, this will just charge your device. To access the files, you'll have to enable File Transfer on the phone.

Most modern Linux and Windows computers should be able to automatically recognize the phone once connected in File Transfer mode.

For macOS we recommend to use the open source software OpenMTP.

This can be downloaded and installed for free. It will allow to drag & drop files from the computer storage (left) to the phone storage (right) and vice versa. Here is a basic video tutorial explaining how to set up and use OpenMTP.

access the USB options via notifications or Settings > Connected Devices > USB

We can enable File Transfer by pulling down the notification menu from the top of the screen. There should be a notification saying 'Charging this device via USB'. Tap on this notification to make a menu pop up, allowing us to define different ways of how the USB connection will be used.

By selecting 'File Transfer', we enable for the computer to mount the device, and in effect it should show up in the computer's file explorer.

Example showing all folders from a Pixel 4 phone on a Linux machine

Note: Depending on your machine, you may need to install drivers for this.

Learn more about other methods: File Transfer

For remote file transfer consider using LocalSend