Can I connect an external drive to a iPad to access photos & documents?

ksayre81 Said:

"[...]to save photo’s or documents from a iPad/iCloud Drive to a external drive.So basically access a iPad like it’s a laptop. [...]The issue is I don’t have a working computer but I do have a external drive."

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Upload and Access Through iCloud:

Upgrade your iCloud Storage Plan (if necessary), and then enable your items in iCloud. All would be accessible from there.  Go Here: iCloud Storage Plans and Pricing - Apple Support

To Access them...

Enable Photos and Contacts in iCloud:

On the iPad, enable [every time] in iCloud.

On the iPad:

1. Go to: Settings
2. Tap: Your Name (Top Item)
3. Tap: iCloud
4. Tap: [the item type] (so that it is green)
5. Tap: [the item type] (so that it is green)

Downloading All of iCloud:

Have Access to a Mac? If not, ask someone if you may use their Mac (with their permission, of course. Once you get access to a Mac, use my user tip to download all of iCloud: Getting a Quick and Direct "iCloud Drive-to-External Hard Drive" Download - User Tip

ksayre81 Said:

"Ipad: Hello, I’m looking into purchasing a new iPad or laptop. I’m wondering if you can connect a external drive to a iPad to access photo’s & documents or to save photo’s or documents from a iPad/iCloud Drive to a external drive. So basically access a iPad like it’s a laptop."

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Transferring Photos:

Create a back up your Photos. Do so by exporting the photos to your Mac or PC: Transfer Photos and Videos from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to your Mac or PC - Apple Support

External drive support is very limited, currently on iPad/iPadOS.

You can purchase either any USB/USB-C flash drive stick or any USB-C SSD ( Solid State flash memory Drive ).

SSDs, unlike older, old school data storage hard drives are less power hungry and have no moving/spinning, electro-mechanical parts that need lots of power to operate.

Popular SSDs are from SanDisk/Western Digital, Samsung, Seagate.

Regular, “Old Skool” mechanical spinning hard drives WILL need/require additional external power support for these drives to work with ANY iPad model.

Mechanical, spinning platter hard drives use too much power and cannot be powered by the just the iPad’s own internal power alone.

For iPad models with a proprietary Apple Lightnjng connector port.

Then, you need to purchase the actual, genuine Apple Lightning to USB-3 camera adapter, from Apple, and plug that adapter into external power using your iPad charge cable and Apple power/charging block!

Tap the link below.

Lightning to USB 3 Camera Adapter - Apple usb-3-camera-adapter?fnode=37

You NEED TO PURCHASE THIS EXACT genuine Apple adapter above!!!

This is THE ONLY adapter that works!

Cheaper ( cheap in price and quality ) third party “knockoff” adapters WILL NOT WORK!!!!

With Lightning connector equipped iPads, you need this adapter as it has a Lightning connector power connection to power both the iPad and to connect a commonplace USB flash memory drive or portable SSD drive.

Without the additional power to the iPad, USB flash drives and portable SSD drives will NOT work with older iPads with the Lightning connector.

The Lightning connector alone cannot convey the,necessary power requirements needed for normal USB style flash memory drives.

YOU NEED TO CONNECT AN EXTERNAL POWER SOUCE TO THIS ADAPTER for that adapter to work with ANY externally connected drive!!! Even to get any standard USB flash memory drives to work on older Lightning connector equipped iPads.

For external power sources, you CAN even use portable, carry-able, rechargeable power banks that can be found everywhere online ( try Amazon ) that can power the iPad and external drives, as well.

There are lots of YouTube videos that discuss and demonstrate this.

Here are just two references, as an example.

YouTube video reference links below

Tap the links below.

https://youtu.be/1Jm-xcrbFy8

https://youtu.be/8iHc1mc5SJE

You must use a full Mac or Windows PC computer to do the re-formatting of any external drive to use with iPad/iPhone/iOS/iPadOS.

My experiences have recommended that any external drive needing to be used with ANY Apple iPadOS device really needs to be formatted on an Apple Mac computer to ensure/insure correct operation.

If NO Mac computer, find and family member or friend that owns a Mac to possibly help you format this drive

OR

You need to search online for your nearest, “local” Apple store location and call contact phone numbers and call to make an appointment to ANY external drive you have properly format by Apple employees who have access to a Mac.

They will be glad to assist you.

In addition, the external drive needs to be formatted using a single data drive partition into one of these file/data formats below.

Apple Mac computer native drive formats - APFS ( Apple Proprietary File System ) OR Apple HFS+ ( Hierarchical File System+ )

Fat 32

exFAT

Currently, iPads/iPadOS has NO support for NTFS formatted supported drives.

Apple Website external drive help links here below.

Tap the links below.

Connect external devices or servers with Files on iPad – Apple Support (UK)

Connect external storage devices to iPad - Apple Support

There are USB Flash drive you can connect to your iPad.

See here => SanDisk 128GB iXpand Flash Drive Go - Apple (AU)