iPad The Files app is still a disaster

[macdogpro]

i dont know about 25GB file transfers but
i routinely copy 1or2 meg PDF files between my iPhone and a NAS box using my home network wifi. Just takes a second. No extra cables or anything. The iPhone mounts the NAS box really fast.
The iPhone Files app works ok. I actually like it.
No reason to suspect larger files couldn't be accessed.
I am sure the same iPhone could directly access say a MBP on the home network, again no special cables.

I have a really old wifi box but just over ethernet cable between say 2 iMac's transferring 25G would take a few minutes.

Try transfer video file(s) recorded by your iPhone for as big as your iphone storage allows. You’ll see the reliability, stability and transfer speed are not the same as you would expect from other computers / devices, wired or wireless.

The Files app even would crashes a lot when I move large files and folders between split view windows. But of course 1 or 2 MB files wouldn’t be a problem.

I also experienced transferring a 300MB audio file (.wav) from an SD card to the iPad via card reader dongle using the Files app. It transferred okay pretty quick, but the file is corrupted with audio noises. Many people experienced this with video, image and other files as well.

And the problem is not only the Files app alone, it’s the whole iOS / iPadOS writing controller that being a bottle neck in large file transfers speed. It’s being discussed in many forums.

 

[Slartibart]

iPadOS 14.3, iPP 11“ 2020: when exporting developed RAWs from Pixelmator Photo or Affinity Photo to a directly connected USB-C stick or a Samsung T5 SSD about 10% of the exported JPGs will be damaged, SD-cards can become unreadable.

working directly with data (RAWs/JPEGs or video) on external media sadly is still not an option on iPadOS 14.3.

 

[jeyf]

an alternative to the native ios "Files" app is "FE File Explorer Pro"

I do not know if Explorer Pro is a fix for file transfer errors but if you got the iStore $5.00 to burn ...

Not talking about Files or File Explorer but thinking every ios app will handle file transfers different. So 4example; the video app "VLC" will do file transfers different that the book reader app "Mervin"?




i really see macRumor posts of Apple users using an ugly array of cable adapters and none standard ports to do file transfers and backups. Just maybe Apple os not for professional use? Apple is a 40+year old company you know and things change.

not related to this post but
i find macOS on my MBP clunky when mounting a network drive. It is slooow and takes 2 tries to get a NAS initially mountd. I find my iPhone7 ios faster and more reliable.

 

[sparksd]

an alternative to the native ios "Files" app is "FE File Explorer Pro"

I do not know if Explorer Pro is a fix for file transfer errors but if you got the iStore $5.00 to burn ...

I am thinking every ios app will handle file transfers different. So 4example; the video app "VLC" will do file transfers different that the book reader app "Mervin"?

I quit using Files and use FileBrowser for Business (it's the pricier version of the app, providing some capabilities I wanted - the standard version works for most). I haven't had any transfer errors with it - unlike my Files experience.

 

[richpjr]

I quit using Files and use FileBrowser for Business (it's the pricier version of the app, providing some capabilities I wanted - the standard version works for most). I haven't had any transfer errors with it - unlike my Files experience.

I also use it - it just works. Kind of surprising that Apple still hasn't fixed such a fundamental issue with a files application.

 

[jeyf]

apple wants you to use the iCloud.

 

[sparksd]

apple wants you to use the iCloud.

Maybe. But I don't/won't.

 

[Slartibart]

an alternative to the native ios "Files" app is "FE File Explorer Pro"

I do not know if Explorer Pro is a fix for file transfer errors but if you got the iStore $5.00 to burn ...

FE File Explorer sadly does not solve the file transfer problems - mounting/unmounting of external media as well as copying to it is a hit&miss similar to Apple’s Files (FE File Explorer shines when it plays videos e.g. on SMB1 mounts, something Apple’s Files or Filebrowser BIZ will not/or only the sound.)

 

[sparksd]

FE File Explorer sadly does not solve the file transfer problems - mounting/unmounting of external media as well as copying to it is a hit&miss similar to Apple’s Files (FE File Explorer shines when it plays videos e.g. on SMB1 mounts, something Apple’s Files or Filebrowser BIZ will not/or only the sound.)

I have no problems playing videos over SMB in FileBrowser for Business. mp4's play directly, mkv stream to/though VLC. SMB connections to laptop, desktop, NAS.

 

[macdogpro]

FE File Explorer sadly does not solve the file transfer problems - mounting/unmounting of external media as well as copying to it is a hit&miss similar to Apple’s Files (FE File Explorer shines when it plays videos e.g. on SMB1 mounts, something Apple’s Files or Filebrowser BIZ will not/or only the sound.)

Video playing on FlieBrowser / FB Biz, is buggy in my experience.
Sometimes it plays smoothly, sometimes only playing the audio.
Restarting the app with or without restarting the iPad multiple times sometimes fix this, but mostly not.
So my solution is to ‘share’ the the file to VLC app and play it there.

 

[jeyf]

i was copying music directly from a smb / NAS box into an iPhone / VLC and noticed after ~10 files copied I had to do a reset on the iPhone.

a while back i was moving a large directorty of pdf business files via macOS. An unexpect amount of files refused to transfer. Had to hack at it to get these files moved. out of maybe 100,000 pdf files 100 refused to transfer normally.

 

[ouimetnick]

iPad Pro 11 (2nd gen) 512GB, 6GB ram can't copy large folders with many files over with out the app crashing. Returned it to get a 1TB (need more space) same issue. I thought iPad is suppose to replace my computer? I have 70+ folders with different video lessons on them. Some files are small, some are a few GBs. A 2013 MacBook Pro 13" with 4GB of ram can copy and move files around all day, yet an iPad that costs more than the MBP did when new struggles with even the most basic of tasks..

Pathetic.

It's a great device for everything else, but being a real computer replacement with a working file system it is not.

 

[sparksd]

iPad Pro 11 (2nd gen) 512GB, 6GB ram can't copy large folders with many files over with out the app crashing. Returned it to get a 1TB (need more space) same issue. I thought iPad is suppose to replace my computer? I have 70+ folders with different video lessons on them. Some files are small, some are a few GBs. A 2013 MacBook Pro 13" with 4GB of ram can copy and move files around all day, yet an iPad that costs more than the MBP did when new struggles with even the most basic of tasks..

Pathetic.

It's a great device for everything else, but being a real computer replacement with a working file system it is not.

Use a different app - Files really does have a lot of problems yet.

 

[ouimetnick]

Use a different app - Files really does have a lot of problems yet.

Any suggestions? I have Remote Files installed (use it to access NAS and my old Time Capsule) Not a huge fan of it’s movie player interface though. I’m not sure if the drive shows up in the Remote Files app though.

 

[Apple_Robert]

Any suggestions? I have Remote Files installed (use it to access NAS and my old Time Capsule) Not a huge fan of it’s movie player interface though. I’m not sure if the drive shows up in the Remote Files app though.

This is a great app. I use it a lot on my iPad.

FileBrowser The Best File Manager App on iOS - Free Trial

Connect to your cloud storage & computers over WiFi from one app on iPad/iPhone. Work with documents, watch movies & manage your files with FileBrowser.

www.stratospherix.com

 

[sparksd]

Any suggestions? I have Remote Files installed (use it to access NAS and my old Time Capsule) Not a huge fan of it’s movie player interface though. I’m not sure if the drive shows up in the Remote Files app though.

I use FileBrowser for SMB access (laptop, desktop, NAS) and external storage connected directly to my 12.9 Pro.

 

[jeyf]

i paid for and installed the PRO version of "FE File Explorer" way back on my iPhone 3. I am suprised File Explorer is still out there, good for them.

I explored a littel bit with my NAS box and my iPhone 7. Came to the un educated conclusiuon all ios applications have a different SMB look feel.
-"Mervian" the ios book reader will handle NAS files to its local storage well. For epub format novels, not a fan of its horzontal scrolling tho.
-VLC works well and will directly access the NAS box. VLC dosnt seem able to accomidate localal storage (to iPhone) media files.
-File Explorer vs Files; just the basics, Files donst display large file names well, both mount the NAS faster than maxOS Finder go figure.


if the books, music, media what ever is stored local to the iPhone it seems to use almost no battery. Juse me but might be useful for post covid plane travel.
so
along this quest i was able to load (10) mp3 files into the local depository in File Explorer.
-I was NOT able to find a local depository for VLC
-i started moving the 11th mp3 via File Explorer" and the iPhone locked up but the previous fles verified functional.

 

[blizzforte]

How is privacy on that app? Since if you want to connect to a Win 10 machine you need to type in IP adress, password, etc. and it runs over the internet. Can't I transfer files with it over USB-C?

 

[jeyf]

I use the "FE File Explorer Pro" applicaiton but never used usbC, always ovver the network LAN side with SMB://. I think there is a free iStore version of File Explorer. Peeps here talking about the Remote Files app which is good or bad but a more modern effort.

confuses things more:
so simple networks have a wan side than a firewall and routing than the personal lan side. I can turn off my cable modem and isolate my small network at home and sitll have my iPhone via File Explorer using the protocall smb:// connect to my NAS box since both iPhone and NAS are both on the same LAN network side of things. Nothig is private any more because we choose to use macOS & ios, native SMB dosnt connect to the outside www interWeb.

the apple usbC connector(s) on my mac book Pro from day one been mechanically un reliable.
vs
something is latent bad in the apple version SMB file transfer porotocall so apps like "Files" just dont work all the time.
Love it; apple is the Harley Davidson of consumer electronics.

when the file is native to the iphone
it uses a lot less battery than streaming. I can read, listen watch for hours and the know the battery is still there.
know i can access the content: music while hiking or watch saturday night live episodes at the airport.

 

[macduke]

Files App finally seems to be working for me, in no small part to switching to the M1 iPad Pro I'm sure.

My setup:

• I changed from that HyperDrive hub to this one from Anker: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B087QZVQJX/ (out of stock now, think they recently came out with a newer one)
• I upgraded from a 2018 12.9" iPad Pro with 4GB of RAM to the 2021 12.9" M1 iPad Pro with 16GB RAM
• Still using the Samsung T5 2TB SSD and SD cards from Sandisk and Sony

For this test I used my 128GB Sandisk UHS-I since that's the speed of the reader in this dock. It has a maximum read speed of around 150MB/s. I was able to transfer 1,874 RAW files averaging about 45MB in size from my a7R III in about half an hour (didn't measure precisely, was just wondering if it could even finish). Now I haven't done repeat testing, but just the fact that it finished is a big step up.

Not sure if my newer hub is better, or if the software is better, or if the 16GB of RAM is helping, or if it's outputting more power for the external devices on this newer iPad (or maybe all four?), but that's a pretty heavy test. I think it was somewhere in the neighborhood of 80-90GB. I don't typically dump that many at a time as I typically use smaller UHS-II (faster) 64GB cards, but this card stays in my secondary slot for backup so I tried dumping it out to see what happens. So this is an extreme test for me and I feel more confident now that I could take this on a vacation and use it to dump photos. Although I never had problems dumping photos to the iPad directly, just going through the files app to dump to another connected drive (that sips power) caused all kinds of issues for me documented in this thread such as corrupting SD cards.

I'll update this thread if I come across any issues going forward, but at least for now this setup seems like a large improvement. I've ordered the new magnetic keyboard/trackpad base from Brydge to go with this thing, so I'm hoping it could turn into a MacBook Pro replacement for me in addition to being a great iPad. I do most of my heavy work on my 5K iMac. Here's to hoping WWDC 21 has some great new iPad OS upgrades to bring it closer into alignment with macOS.

Edit: incorrectly named HyperDrive hub.

 

[sparksd]

Files App finally seems to be working for me, in no small part to switching to the M1 iPad Pro I'm sure.

My setup:

• I changed from that HyperX hub to this one from Anker: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B087QZVQJX/ (out of stock now, think they recently came out with a newer one)
• I upgraded from a 2018 12.9" iPad Pro with 4GB of RAM to the 2021 12.9" M1 iPad Pro with 16GB RAM
• Still using the Samsung T5 2TB SSD and SD cards from Sandisk and Sony

For this test I used my 128GB Sandisk UHS-I since that's the speed of the reader in this dock. It has a maximum read speed of around 150MB/s. I was able to transfer 1,874 RAW files averaging about 45MB in size from my a7R III in about half an hour (didn't measure precisely, was just wondering if it could even finish). Now I haven't done repeat testing, but just the fact that it finished is a big step up.

Not sure if my newer hub is better, or if the software is better, or if the 16GB of RAM is helping, or if it's outputting more power for the external devices on this newer iPad (or maybe all four?), but that's a pretty heavy test. I think it was somewhere in the neighborhood of 80-90GB. I don't typically dump that many at a time as I typically use smaller UHS-II (faster) 64GB cards, but this card stays in my secondary slot for backup so I tried dumping it out to see what happens. So this is an extreme test for me and I feel more confident now that I could take this on a vacation and use it to dump photos. Although I never had problems dumping photos to the iPad directly, just going through the files app to dump to another connected drive (that sips power) caused all kinds of issues for me documented in this thread such as corrupting SD cards.

I'll update this thread if I come across any issues going forward, but at least for now this setup seems like a large improvement. I've ordered the new magnetic keyboard/trackpad base from Brydge to go with this thing, so I'm hoping it could turn into a MacBook Pro replacement for me in addition to being a great iPad. I do most of my heavy work on my 5K iMac. Here's to hoping WWDC 21 has some great new iPad OS upgrades to bring it closer into alignment with macOS.

Good to hear - thanks for the update and detailed info.

 

[sparksd]

Files App finally seems to be working for me, in no small part to switching to the M1 iPad Pro I'm sure.

My setup:

• I changed from that HyperX hub to this one from Anker: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B087QZVQJX/ (out of stock now, think they recently came out with a newer one)
• I upgraded from a 2018 12.9" iPad Pro with 4GB of RAM to the 2021 12.9" M1 iPad Pro with 16GB RAM
• Still using the Samsung T5 2TB SSD and SD cards from Sandisk and Sony

For this test I used my 128GB Sandisk UHS-I since that's the speed of the reader in this dock. It has a maximum read speed of around 150MB/s. I was able to transfer 1,874 RAW files averaging about 45MB in size from my a7R III in about half an hour (didn't measure precisely, was just wondering if it could even finish). Now I haven't done repeat testing, but just the fact that it finished is a big step up.

Not sure if my newer hub is better, or if the software is better, or if the 16GB of RAM is helping, or if it's outputting more power for the external devices on this newer iPad (or maybe all four?), but that's a pretty heavy test. I think it was somewhere in the neighborhood of 80-90GB. I don't typically dump that many at a time as I typically use smaller UHS-II (faster) 64GB cards, but this card stays in my secondary slot for backup so I tried dumping it out to see what happens. So this is an extreme test for me and I feel more confident now that I could take this on a vacation and use it to dump photos. Although I never had problems dumping photos to the iPad directly, just going through the files app to dump to another connected drive (that sips power) caused all kinds of issues for me documented in this thread such as corrupting SD cards.

I'll update this thread if I come across any issues going forward, but at least for now this setup seems like a large improvement. I've ordered the new magnetic keyboard/trackpad base from Brydge to go with this thing, so I'm hoping it could turn into a MacBook Pro replacement for me in addition to being a great iPad. I do most of my heavy work on my 5K iMac. Here's to hoping WWDC 21 has some great new iPad OS upgrades to bring it closer into alignment with macOS.

I linked to this over on the file corruption thread I started (over a year ago ...).

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/file-corruption-on-copy-to-external-storage.2235171/

 

[rui no onna]

Files App finally seems to be working for me, in no small part to switching to the M1 iPad Pro I'm sure.

My setup:

• I changed from that HyperX hub to this one from Anker: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B087QZVQJX/ (out of stock now, think they recently came out with a newer one)
• I upgraded from a 2018 12.9" iPad Pro with 4GB of RAM to the 2021 12.9" M1 iPad Pro with 16GB RAM
• Still using the Samsung T5 2TB SSD and SD cards from Sandisk and Sony

For this test I used my 128GB Sandisk UHS-I since that's the speed of the reader in this dock. It has a maximum read speed of around 150MB/s. I was able to transfer 1,874 RAW files averaging about 45MB in size from my a7R III in about half an hour (didn't measure precisely, was just wondering if it could even finish). Now I haven't done repeat testing, but just the fact that it finished is a big step up.

Not sure if my newer hub is better, or if the software is better, or if the 16GB of RAM is helping, or if it's outputting more power for the external devices on this newer iPad (or maybe all four?), but that's a pretty heavy test. I think it was somewhere in the neighborhood of 80-90GB. I don't typically dump that many at a time as I typically use smaller UHS-II (faster) 64GB cards, but this card stays in my secondary slot for backup so I tried dumping it out to see what happens. So this is an extreme test for me and I feel more confident now that I could take this on a vacation and use it to dump photos. Although I never had problems dumping photos to the iPad directly, just going through the files app to dump to another connected drive (that sips power) caused all kinds of issues for me documented in this thread such as corrupting SD cards.

I'll update this thread if I come across any issues going forward, but at least for now this setup seems like a large improvement. I've ordered the new magnetic keyboard/trackpad base from Brydge to go with this thing, so I'm hoping it could turn into a MacBook Pro replacement for me in addition to being a great iPad. I do most of my heavy work on my 5K iMac. Here's to hoping WWDC 21 has some great new iPad OS upgrades to bring it closer into alignment with macOS.

Thank you very much for the feedback. This is one of the areas I was hoping the extra RAM and Thunderbolt might help.

How were the external drives formatted? exFAT?

 

[macduke]

Thank you very much for the feedback. This is one of the areas I was hoping the extra RAM and Thunderbolt might help.

How were the external drives formatted? exFAT?

Yep, both exFAT.

I'd like to do some more testing with the HyperDrive hub to see if I can narrow down the improvements. I'd also like to test the battery drain. I had accidentally left the iPad on (I don't have an auto lock turned on) with full brightness (I was doing some tests with the Mini LED on a moon/star photo I took - couldn't see much in the way of halo at all) and the hub plugged in (including the 30 minute test) to the SD card and Samsung T5 and it was drained down to 60% after about 1:30 to 1:45.

 

[macduke]

Ok, I just did a test with the HyperDrive dock that I bought back in either late 2018 or early 2019 whenever it came out for the USB-C iPad Pro. First of all, strangely enough the dock wouldn't power up on this iPad. I took the case off and pushed it in hard and it would turn on, but then I'd let go and it would turn off. I took off the attachment plate and it connected fine. I think maybe because the newer iPad is 0.5mm thicker and it has the lip on the gap filler?

Anyway, this time I tried doing the UHS-II SD to USB-C adapter from Apple, into the HyperDrive USB-C, and the Samsung T5 using the USB-C to USB-A cable since the HyperDrive doesn't have a second USB-C. I was able to transfer 62GB of RAW photos in 0:20:35. So it worked! But that averages only 51.4MB/s, I think. I went with 64GB Sony SD card this time because it's UHS-II at 300MB/s. The T5 is around 500MB/s. So going from the card reader, to the hub, to the iPad, back to the hub, to the T5 was only 51.4MB/s. As a bonus, I tracked the battery usage, and it went from 100% down to 93% transferring those files on 50% brightness with an active WiFi 6 connection (no cellular on mine). As an additional bonus test, I went back to the first 4 apps in my app launcher (out of a total of 22) and they didn't reload the apps, one of which was Photoshop that was just opened to a blank document.

Then I did a test on my 2019 5K iMac. Admittedly it's a bit faster than the iPad Pro, but nowadays with the M1 it's not such a big difference between the i9-9900K and the M1, and even so, the single core is faster. I used the same card in the same card reader and the same T5 with the same cable using the exact same 62GB dataset. It took 0:07:35 to transfer, which comes out to about 139.5MB/s, which is 2.7X faster. Now admittedly I didn't use the hub for this test, which may be part of it, but that's the upside of having a Mac: multiple native ports. But I still get the feeling it would be considerably faster. I hope in the future the iPad Pro will get two Thunderbolt ports, maybe even one on both sides? Although I think one on the long side would be great. These keyboards like the Brydge could plug into it and have stuff like extra USB-C and SD card readers on the side. That would be great!