External Drive Improvements Coming to Files in iPadOS 17

[Kal Madda]

I noticed new and improved options for external drives in the Files app on the second developer beta of iPadOS 17. When you right click or hold press a drive in the sidebar of the Files app, the pop-up menu now includes options for “Rename” and “Erase”. Also, under the “Get Info” option, it now shows the total storage space of the drive, as well as the remaining storage space on the drive. Obviously the “Date Created” is way off in the screenshot, but this could be due to a bug in the beta. I have not tried the “Erase” option, so I don’t know if it gives you a choice of re-formatting it or not, but just the ability to rename and erase external drives is going to be nice. Also, since this is still an early beta, these options could possibly be expanded on in future betas or 17.x updates. I’m interested in seeing how this feature continues to evolve in future updates. What do you think about these new options? Do you think it could be indicative of more options coming in the future?

 

[xxFoxtail]

I erased one of my drives. After this prompt, it asks if you’re sure and says do not disconnect the drive until the erase is complete. No option to choose what to format it as. I forgot to check what the drive was formatted as before erasing it, I assume it was MS-DOS FAT as this drive was used as an old Bootcamp driver drive. After it was done erasing, it was still formatted as MS-DOS FAT.

 

[Kal Madda]

I erased one of my drives. After this prompt, it asks if you’re sure and says do not disconnect the drive until the erase is complete. No option to choose what to format it as. I forgot to check what the drive was formatted as before erasing it, I assume it was MS-DOS FAT as this drive was used as an old Bootcamp driver drive. After it was done erasing, it was still formatted as MS-DOS FAT.

Thanks for sharing, that’s nice to know! 👍🏻.

 

[Kal Madda]

The icon at the top under the “Get Info” option on external drives has been updated in the iPadOS 17 Developer Beta 3! Now the new icon is similar to the macOS icon for external drives! I haven’t noticed any new options for formatting, but I think this could be setting up for that. On MacOS in the Disc Utility app, you click the “erase” button (which has the exact same symbol as the “erase” option in the Files app, and it opens a pop-up that allows you to enter a name and format type for the drive. It seems like iPadOS 17 may be laying the groundwork for a functionality like that, perhaps we won’t see it in iPadOS 17, but I think that the attention Apple seems to be paying to options for external drives already in the first betas of iPadOS 17 may be indicative of more options to come for handling external drives. It’s obviously still far too early to call whether or not these changes could show up in iPadOS 17 or not, but it definitely seems like a foundation is being laid to incorporate at least some of the basic Disc Utility functions into the Files app, similar to how Preview app functions have been integrated into Files.

 

[xxFoxtail]

It’s interesting that they’re updating this more, even if it is just the icon. Just to try it out, I did try erasing my extra drive again, unfortunately still no options to select what you want to format it as. While it’s not really something I’d personally use all that much, I know drive formatting has been a requested feature. I’d like to see them go all out and port Disk Utility over to the iPad.

 

[Kal Madda]

It’s interesting that they’re updating this more, even if it is just the icon. Just to try it out, I did try erasing my extra drive again, unfortunately still no options to select what you want to format it as. While it’s not really something I’d personally use all that much, I know drive formatting has been a requested feature. I’d like to see them go all out and port Disk Utility over to the iPad.

Ya, I agree, it would be awesome if they at least integrate all of Disc Utility’s basic features into the Files app! 👍🏻. It seems like they could do that since they already have the erase button, and the erase button in Disc Utility is how you reformat drives. All they have to do is add a pop-up after you tap erase that allows you to type in a new name and format for the disk. Hopefully they at least do that at some point! 👍🏻

 

[Populus]

Hey @Kal Madda I was about to open a thread related to external drives management on iPadOS 17, but then I saw that you already opened one, so I’m using this.

My question, for those using the latest beta, is: has improved the management of drives when it comes to disconnecting them? I remember @vadimyuryev complaining about external drives losing the format after some disconnections, and they were vocal about the need of a “safe unplug” button on iPad OS. I imagine this hasn’t been implemented on iPadOS 17 but I wanted to ask if you had problems with external drives after unplugging them.

Thank you.

 

[Kal Madda]

Hey @Kal Madda I was about to open a thread related to external drives management on iPadOS 17, but then I saw that you already opened one, so I’m using this.

My question, for those using the latest beta, is: has improved the management of drives when it comes to disconnecting them? I remember @vadimyuryev complaining about external drives losing the format after some disconnections, and they were vocal about the need of a “safe unplug” button on iPad OS. I imagine this hasn’t been implemented on iPadOS 17 but I wanted to ask if you had problems with external drives after unplugging them.

Thank you.

I haven’t had any issues with my drives after unplugging them so far. As long as you don’t unplug the drive while there’s a file transfer in progress, it should be safe as far as I’m aware. 👍🏻

 

[Populus]

I haven’t had any issues with my drives after unplugging them so far. As long as you don’t unplug the drive while there’s a file transfer in progress, it should be safe as far as I’m aware. 👍🏻

I read somewhere that a trick to avoid problems was to lock the iPad before unplugging the SSD. But I would really like to have the "eject" button.

 

[Kal Madda]

I read somewhere that a trick to avoid problems was to lock the iPad before unplugging the SSD. But I would really like to have the "eject" button.

Ya, and now that they’re adding right-click/hold-press options for external drives, they could add an eject option to that menu. 👍🏻. I think it would add peace of mind for many people. Maybe they’ll add that at some point in iPadOS 17. It is interesting that they seem to be re-visiting this menu with each beta version so far. With the last beta, they added a new icon for external drives under “Get Info” instead of the folder icon that used to be there. So maybe we’ll see more changes to this menu, and maybe an eject button could be included as well. 👍🏻

 

[Populus]

Ya, and now that they’re adding right-click/hold-press options for external drives, they could add an eject option to that menu. 👍🏻. I think it would add peace of mind for many people. Maybe they’ll add that at some point in iPadOS 17. It is interesting that they seem to be re-visiting this menu with each beta version so far. With the last beta, they added a new icon for external drives under “Get Info” instead of the folder icon that used to be there. So maybe we’ll see more changes to this menu, and maybe an eject button could be included as well. 👍🏻

Good, I know you’ll be keeping an eye during the beta period, and I’ll keep this thread on watching so that any new change you post, I’ll get a notification 🤙🏻

 

[Kal Madda]

Good, I know you’ll be keeping an eye during the beta period, and I’ll keep this thread on watching so that any new change you post, I’ll get a notification 🤙🏻

Thanks, I’ll keep you posted in this thread as I see anything new in this section with the betas! 👍🏻

 

[Kal Madda]

@Populus No Eject button yet on iPadOS 17 Developer Beta 4

 

[Kal Madda]

@xxFoxtail Have you had a chance to test on Beta 4 whether the Erase option allows you to reformat the drive after it’s erased?

 

[Kal Madda]

I tested the erase option on Beta 5, and it still just removed the content from the drive, there is no option to reformat a drive yet. There are no changes to this menu that I’ve noticed on this update.

 

[xxFoxtail]

I tested the erase option on Beta 5, and it still just removed the content from the drive, there is no option to reformat a drive yet. There are no changes to this menu that I’ve noticed on this update.

Sorry, I missed your last post. I ended up giving up on my M1 iPad Pro, sold it and bought a MacBook Air. Definitely miss that screen. Though, I still have my old A12Z iPP that I share with my partner, I wouldn’t want to risk a beta on it and messing with any of their stuff though.

I think at this point in the beta cycle, there probably won’t be any more substantial updates here. I’d be interested to know if they’re actually working on a way to format drives maybe on a iPadOS 17.x update. I’d personally like a disk utility app on the iPad, but I’m not holding my breath for one.

 

[Ctrlos]

Makes me wish they’d release disk utility for the iPad!

 

[Kal Madda]

Sorry, I missed your last post. I ended up giving up on my M1 iPad Pro, sold it and bought a MacBook Air. Definitely miss that screen. Though, I still have my old A12Z iPP that I share with my partner, I wouldn’t want to risk a beta on it and messing with any of their stuff though.

I think at this point in the beta cycle, there probably won’t be any more substantial updates here. I’d be interested to know if they’re actually working on a way to format drives maybe on a iPadOS 17.x update. I’d personally like a disk utility app on the iPad, but I’m not holding my breath for one.

No problem. 👍🏻. I hope you enjoy your MacBook! 👍🏻. The iPad is still holding up as a primary computer for me and my workflow, and I’m thinking I may just get a Mac desktop for more power/a few niche applications I’ll use every once in a while. As it is though, I don’t even pull my Mac out anymore, my iPad does everything I want it to. Of course people’s use cases are different, and I understand why a MacBook is a better fit for some people and some use cases, I was I guess just sharing my current experience, not trying to sound like I’m criticizing or questioning your decision to move over. Which MacBook Air did you get? The M1 version, or the M2? Both look like their nice laptops. 👍🏻. Probably one thing I’d consider using a Mac for would be some 3D softwares and for setting up microcontrollers such as the Arduino. Since these are the main things I’d probably be doing with a Mac, I’m considering getting a Mac Mini eventually. Plus, I still like MacOS, and it would be nice to still use it occasionally. 👍🏻. Anyways, sorry for the rambling, I hope you enjoy your new MacBook! 👍🏻.

 

[xxFoxtail]

No problem. 👍🏻. I hope you enjoy your MacBook! 👍🏻. The iPad is still holding up as a primary computer for me and my workflow, and I’m thinking I may just get a Mac desktop for more power/a few niche applications I’ll use every once in a while. As it is though, I don’t even pull my Mac out anymore, my iPad does everything I want it to. Of course people’s use cases are different, and I understand why a MacBook is a better fit for some people and some use cases, I was I guess just sharing my current experience, not trying to sound like I’m criticizing or questioning your decision to move over. Which MacBook Air did you get? The M1 version, or the M2? Both look like their nice laptops. 👍🏻. Probably one thing I’d consider using a Mac for would be some 3D softwares and for setting up microcontrollers such as the Arduino. Since these are the main things I’d probably be doing with a Mac, I’m considering getting a Mac Mini eventually. Plus, I still like MacOS, and it would be nice to still use it occasionally. 👍🏻. Anyways, sorry for the rambling, I hope you enjoy your new MacBook! 👍🏻.

I ended up with the M2 MBA baseline. There’s a lot I miss about using the iPad as my main device, but I was supplementing it with Shadow PC (a cloud Windows PC) for a few desktop applications. While this mostly worked fine for my needs, I had some concerns with Shadow PC like not end to end encrypted, iCloud would not stay signed in, and I’d need a stable internet connection to actually use it. And some of my heavier applications like Adobe Illustrator are just too slow on it. These same applications ran great on my partner’s M1 MBA and my previous M1 Mac mini (I briefly had this before settling on Shadow PC, figured out I’m not really a desktop person so I sent the mini back).

I could have lived with this setup, but found a pretty good deal on an open box MBA at Best Buy. Told myself I wouldn’t buy it unless I sold my iPP to cover most of the cost.

But, as mentioned, I still have my older 2020 iPP. I can always pull that out when I’m feeling like using an iPad again. I’ve switched most of my tablet-uses to my iPhone 14 Pro though. The iPad definitely got more use when I was using my old iPhone 12 mini, another device I kind of miss.

 

[Kal Madda]

I ended up with the M2 MBA baseline. There’s a lot I miss about using the iPad as my main device, but I was supplementing it with Shadow PC (a cloud Windows PC) for a few desktop applications. While this mostly worked fine for my needs, I had some concerns with Shadow PC like not end to end encrypted, iCloud would not stay signed in, and I’d need a stable internet connection to actually use it. And some of my heavier applications like Adobe Illustrator are just too slow on it. These same applications ran great on my partner’s M1 MBA and my previous M1 Mac mini (I briefly had this before settling on Shadow PC, figured out I’m not really a desktop person so I sent the mini back).

I could have lived with this setup, but found a pretty good deal on an open box MBA at Best Buy. Told myself I wouldn’t buy it unless I sold my iPP to cover most of the cost.

But, as mentioned, I still have my older 2020 iPP. I can always pull that out when I’m feeling like using an iPad again. I’ve switched most of my tablet-uses to my iPhone 14 Pro though. The iPad definitely got more use when I was using my old iPhone 12 mini, another device I kind of miss.

That’s awesome, the M2 MacBook Air looks really nice! 👍🏻. Perhaps an unpopular opinion, but I actually like that display notch on it, it makes it look cool in my opinion. I am kind of torn on whether I should eventually get a Mac Mini, or get a MacBook Air. I’m getting into 3D modeling, and so far I’ve been doing all of that stuff on my iPad with apps like Nomad Sculpt. I’ve actually been extremely impressed by the functionality of that app, it definitely seems desktop-class to me. But I might try Blender and Fusion 360 on a Mac, my current Mac is a Mid 2012 MacBook Pro, and it wouldn’t safely run those softwares. So if I do a bunch of power intensive things on it like Blender, then maybe I should consider doing a Mac Mini for the extra power and cooling. But the MacBook Air has the advantage of greater convenience, and being able to take it with me if I ever wanted or needed to, so that would be a plus to going that route. Most of my time is spent away from a desk, so I’m tempted to say a MacBook would be a better fit. I could always use it like a desktop by docking it with a desktop monitor. I do like that the Mac Mini is cheaper, and honestly my iPad has been able to so completely take over my workflow that I’m kind of unsure how often it will be used verses my iPad. I do a lot of graphic design, 3D sculpting, and writing, all of which the iPad works better for me for. So I’m kind of torn about which I will eventually buy.

 

[xxFoxtail]

That’s awesome, the M2 MacBook Air looks really nice! 👍🏻. Perhaps an unpopular opinion, but I actually like that display notch on it, it makes it look cool in my opinion. I am kind of torn on whether I should eventually get a Mac Mini, or get a MacBook Air. I’m getting into 3D modeling, and so far I’ve been doing all of that stuff on my iPad with apps like Nomad Sculpt. I’ve actually been extremely impressed by the functionality of that app, it definitely seems desktop-class to me. But I might try Blender and Fusion 360 on a Mac, my current Mac is a Mid 2012 MacBook Pro, and it wouldn’t safely run those softwares. So if I do a bunch of power intensive things on it like Blender, then maybe I should consider doing a Mac Mini for the extra power and cooling. But the MacBook Air has the advantage of greater convenience, and being able to take it with me if I ever wanted or needed to, so that would be a plus to going that route. Most of my time is spent away from a desk, so I’m tempted to say a MacBook would be a better fit. I could always use it like a desktop by docking it with a desktop monitor. I do like that the Mac Mini is cheaper, and honestly my iPad has been able to so completely take over my workflow that I’m kind of unsure how often it will be used verses my iPad. I do a lot of graphic design, 3D sculpting, and writing, all of which the iPad works better for me for. So I’m kind of torn about which I will eventually buy.

When I bought my Mac mini originally, I intended on using that for the few desktop apps I wanted to use. And just use the iPad for everything else. It turned into a machine I can remote connect into, then I’d be disappointed with the latency, etc and eventually just stopped using it. And restarted my Shadow PC subscription. The problem with a remote PC is you just can’t get a good connection to it anywhere. If my iPad had 5G cellular with unlimited data, I probably would have considering staying with this, but I think having a dedicated laptop for what I’m using it for is probably the best way to go.

My iPad exclusive app list was pretty small - mostly Procreate, but even that was something I hardly used (I use a lot of other apps like Photomator, etc that’s also available on iPhone and Mac).

3D sculpting was another thing I tried to get into, which I agree is a lot nicer to use with a touchscreen and Apple Pencil. I’d also hate to say it, but I also think using Pages and Numbers is a better experience on the iPad as well. Usually using them side by side with the Mail or Messages app, works great in Split View, I can mimic it on the Mac, but it’s just not the same.

If it helps your decision at all, I think I’m much happier with my M2 MBA versus the Mac mini and iPad Pro set up I was using it before. Or, if you have a reliable internet connection, you might even want to consider trying Shadow PC (I think it’s around $32/month).

If game design wasn’t one of my hobbies, the iPad without a Mac, and without Shadow PC would have been the perfect computer for me. If my current project fails miserably, I’ll probably be back using an iPad as my main device again anyway 😅

One of the reasons I sold the iPad to buy the MBA was because I thought owning both is a little redundant for me. To me, I saw it as owning two laptops and I’d just be grabbing whichever is most convenient - but my most convenient device is always my iPhone, so both would probably be collecting dust most of the time.

 

[Kal Madda]

When I bought my Mac mini originally, I intended on using that for the few desktop apps I wanted to use. And just use the iPad for everything else. It turned into a machine I can remote connect into, then I’d be disappointed with the latency, etc and eventually just stopped using it. And restarted my Shadow PC subscription. The problem with a remote PC is you just can’t get a good connection to it anywhere. If my iPad had 5G cellular with unlimited data, I probably would have considering staying with this, but I think having a dedicated laptop for what I’m using it for is probably the best way to go.

My iPad exclusive app list was pretty small - mostly Procreate, but even that was something I hardly used (I use a lot of other apps like Photomator, etc that’s also available on iPhone and Mac).

3D sculpting was another thing I tried to get into, which I agree is a lot nicer to use with a touchscreen and Apple Pencil. I’d also hate to say it, but I also think using Pages and Numbers is a better experience on the iPad as well. Usually using them side by side with the Mail or Messages app, works great in Split View, I can mimic it on the Mac, but it’s just not the same.

If it helps your decision at all, I think I’m much happier with my M2 MBA versus the Mac mini and iPad Pro set up I was using it before. Or, if you have a reliable internet connection, you might even want to consider trying Shadow PC (I think it’s around $32/month).

If game design wasn’t one of my hobbies, the iPad without a Mac, and without Shadow PC would have been the perfect computer for me. If my current project fails miserably, I’ll probably be back using an iPad as my main device again anyway 😅

One of the reasons I sold the iPad to buy the MBA was because I thought owning both is a little redundant for me. To me, I saw it as owning two laptops and I’d just be grabbing whichever is most convenient - but my most convenient device is always my iPhone, so both would probably be collecting dust most of the time.

Thanks for the advice, I really appreciate it! 👍🏻. I think I’ll have to consider going with the MacBook Air, it seems like it’s more flexible, and if I only ever use it as a desktop, I could always just keep it docked with a monitor and it would do that just fine as well. 👍🏻. Eventually I may consider trying to do some game design as well, so that’s nice to know that the Air works well for that. 👍🏻

 

[cflem]

I want so bad to have a powerful Mac Studio at home and use my 12.9 iPP for my mobile use...

I hope they pull the trigger on a 16x10 15" iPP...

 

[JokoWidodo]

what about brand new un-formatted external drive? do they appear on iPadOS 17 files app? and can we format them without Mac or PC ?

 

[Kal Madda]

what about brand new un-formatted external drive? do they appear on iPadOS 17 files app? and can we format them without Mac or PC ?

Unfortunately, I don’t have any brand new unformatted external drives to test, so I don’t really know if it does or not. I think that all the feature does for now at this point is allow us to erase the files off a drive, and reformat it the same format as it was before, I don’t think there’s an option to change the format yet. But I do think they could add this possibly in future updates, it seems like they might be trying to incorporate Disk Utility’s basic functions into the Files app. 👍🏻