Playing music on flash drive though iPhone

Hi, I don't have enough storage on iPhone 11, IOS 26.1 or Ipad8,IOS 26.1,for the music I have on my M1 mac.

I have an ADDon pen drive I tried using but it needs an app which is not available on Appstore.

Any recommendations please for suitable flashdrive/app.

Thanks John

iPhone 11, iOS 26

Posted on Dec 16, 2025 9:14 AM

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Dec 16, 2025 10:15 AM in response to yannid

With an adapter pretty much any flash drive will work.

Lightning to USB 3 Camera Adapter - Apple


Of course there are flash drives that are Lightning compatible and can plug in directly into an iPhone 11's port for example:

click here ➜ SanDisk iXpand Flash Drive Go - Amazon.com

or here ➜ PNY DuoLink Flash Drive 128GB - Amazon.com


It will need to be formatted as Fat32, exFat, HFS+ or APFS though.


You will also need some third party media player as the default Apple Music App has no way of accessing USB drives directly.

VLC is a good option.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/vlc-media-player/id650377962


You can also access the USB drive directly in the Files App and play compatible media there too.

click here ➜ Connect external storage devices to iPhone - Apple Support




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Playing music on flash drive though iPhone

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