Name: SanDisk iXpand™ Drive
Rating: 4.7278 (84607 reviews)

User Reviews for SanDisk iXpand™ Drive

4.73 out of 5

84.6K Ratings

3 years ago, BRICE500345819203394847563890

The ONLY viable option for iOS.

I’ve been using this app for a little over 1 1/2 YEARS, and so far, it has almost NEVER let me down. Like.. never, ever. The functionality of this app is GREAT! You can transfer hundreds of photos or videos to the drive via your iPhone/iPad, and it’ll do it’s job FANTASTICALLY. It also works VERY well with Windows and other PCs. All you have to do is insert it’s USB end into your computer, and you can move videos or photos onto your PC. Or, if you have a hard drive and you wanna move stuff onto there from the drive, you can do that too! My ONLY minor gripe with this, is that if you try to move a video that’s larger than like… 5GB, it’ll not put it on the device regardless of the free space you have on the device. And also, this app REALLY needs the ability to save your location for the videos/photos you put on it. That would be GREAT. Other than that though, PERFECT app. Good job Sandisk.

4 years ago, B8119

New Update Keeps Crashing

Update : This new update has fixed my problem!!! Thank You!!!! I love this app!!! But since the newest update it keeps crashing when you try to transfer a file into PowerPoint. This app honestly has helped me so much for the year that I have had it. I wish i didn’t have to give it a bad review right now but with me being so reliant on this app to do my work I really had to get in touch some way and this was they only way I knew. So please whoever fixes these things please fix the bug I cant do my work and it really stinks. P.S. (I will delete or edit this review if an update fixes the problem) In response to this complaint, I was told to make sure that my iPad was updated to the version 13.7 and it is. If that wasn’t the case then I was told to uninstall and reinstall the app to see if that worked (It didn't). If neither of these worked I was told to contact SanDisk support and I did. The person was very helpful and gave me some possible solutions as to what probably needed to be done to fix the issue. But neither of the possible solutions worked and my chat was disconnected after the solutions were given. So I am still no where closer to getting this fixed and still think that the app has a problem as I wasn’t having any issues until this last update. (My 1 Star will have to stay for know sorry)

12 months ago, Michael1700x

Very Glitchy Recently

This app used to be amazing.... until it wasn't anymore. On the newer IOS versions, it has become so glitchy, constantly saying that the USB drive is not found and that I need to reconnect... sometimes I just close and reopen the app and it is fine, sometimes I have to restart my phone entirely. I used to be able to go to the photos app, and click on pictures and videos, click on share and then upload to my USB drive that way, but now it just says "drive not found, reattach" when I try to do that, even when I can open the app separately just fine. On another note, this has always been the case... when I want to upload media through the app, there is nothing indicating whether a media file is a video or a photo... which is really frustrating when I am trying to back up only videos, or specific videos; normally I'd use the length of the video to find specific ones, but I can't do that here either. I'm very disappointed, because I love SanDisk. But I guess they stopped caring about this set of products, and providing routine support and updates. And besides the note in the second paragraph, the app used to work very well. And the drive itself was and still is very amazing... but considering it needs the app to work, the app is kind of ruining it.

4 years ago, dontbuysandisk

WARNING!!! WORST IOS PRODUCT EVER! 11,000 family memories/pics lost in “IXPAND land”

Sandisk, don’t bother to reply with one of your generic “fixes”. After reading the reviews, this product has caused MANY people to lose their IMPORT pictures/files and your lame “fixes” are a sad attempt to help people that you have left high and dry with this product for iOS users. I have tried all of the fixes seen online to get my phone to acknowledge the memory stick (brand new iPhone 12 pro). I feared buying a “photo memory stick” that requires an app with it to work. I should have done more research for the few memory sticks that do not require an app. I’ve now lost access to 11,000 photos of my kids adventures over the past 5 years! Thanks sandisk for such a wonderful product. My Mother is also having the same problem after being able to download without trouble the first few times. Now the phone just repeatedly asks to insert memory stick no matter how many times it’s unplugged and plugged and the app is uninstalled and reinstalled. Both phones are running up to date iOS. DO NOT USE OR ACCEPT A FREE SANDISK IXPAND EVER FOR IOS DEVICES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU MIGHT AS WELL JUST DELETE ALL OF YOUR PHOTOS INSTEAD OF TRYING TO USE ONE OF THESE, (It would be a lot less frustrating than trying to use this product on new iOS devices).

2 years ago, FordOwnerNC

Glitchy App When Trying To Copy A large 4K video To The Drive

I bought this drive from Apple’s website because I am a YouTuber that makes 99% of my videos using my phone. I mean, Apple’s cameras are equal to if not better than a professional’s camera. Anyways, the only way to copy anything to the drive is to use this app. I had 300+ photos that copied just fine. But when it got to the large 15GB 4K video, the progress bar stopped moving, and after 5 minutes or so ( give or take ) the app crashed and restarted. Once the app restarted and reloaded, it came up for me to plug in my drive. LOL but the drive was still plugged in! It was never disconnected. My IOS is up to date running IOS 15.5 on a iPhone 13 Pro Max. I read all of the negative reviews and just thought most of the bad reviews were user error but that’s not the case at all. This app definitely has flaws. And I don’t think Sandisk should monopolize the way you upload things to the drive either. You should be able to go to your photo app on your phone, click on more options, and then click save image/video to Sandisk iXpand Drive instead of being monopolized to using only this app.

4 years ago, Schneb

Poor Audio Player Control

UPDATE: Was sent a suggestion by the developer to use a secondary player called Evermusic. Seems counter intuitive to use another app when just a few upgrades would make your built-in player usable. I decided to download from iXpand to “Files” and play on VLC. Ok, got the hardware and my first issue was having to repeatedly “allow” communication to the device. Yes, ALLOW, why can’t you remember? Second, I waited 10 minutes for it to begin to sort things out initially. Figured it got stuck so I closed it. Now it works. However, the audio player was poorly designed. It has previous, play, and next buttons. That’s it. What about jump forward a minute? Fast reverse? Fast forward? The buttons are also small and hard to get to on a 5s iPhone. All the real estate is used for cover art.. which I don’t need. The time line is almost impossible to use with no idea where I am at in the file. Worst of all, the app will not remember where I last left off. I decided to transfer my files and use VLC, but why should I have to? The VLC player should be a model to go by. Not perfect, but far better than this one.

5 years ago, Rr851

Disappointed

I bought this device for backing up my iPhone. Everything seemed fine, the backup was flawless and quick, the ability to either use the pre created folders or giving you the ability to create new ones and even the automatic backup when connected. Everything sounds good, no? Well, not quite. I backup the photos taken with my DSLR to my phone and they have a different name than the standard IMGxxx format so I can differentiate them when I transfer them to my PC. After copying all the files from my iPhone to the IXpand, it changed the name of ALL the photos. Worse, it added a ~photo or ~video suffix to each file depending what it is. I checked on the app, but there is no option to turn that off. I checked online and it seems that it was a unilateral decision from Sandisk to change the naming convention a while ago and despite all the complaints from unhappy customers, Sandisk does not seem to listen to what the people is asking for. I guess I will keep it but backing up my phone looks like it’s going to be a very tedious job and that’s not what I was looking for. And for that, my rating is 3 out of 5.

6 months ago, SoBeenThere

Use at your own risk

I’m MY experience over three versions: IMHO Backup ROTS. Once backed up, Photos can no longer detect NEW, unbacked up images. The Backup function has deleted images even AFTER clicking on the DO NOT DELETE button. Forget your album hierarchy as it is NEITHER PRESERVED NOR RESTORED. I know they are aware of these problems, apparently they feel they don’t need to correct anything. Every other backup/restore software I’ve used allowed partial backup/restore, even back in the 90’s on a PC. More problematically, the user ends up with multiple copies of files backed up, regardless of whether they have been edited or not. On restore, these multiple copies are then placed on your device, iPhone and iPad in my case. I have moved to copying files in the directory structure manually. That way I save space on the iXpand drive and restoring directory structure and partial backup/restores can be more readily accomplished. Lastly, you are required to allow them access to update their software as they wish. For the years I have used their device and required software, one update was required. AND it had to be downloaded and installed manually. Worse, last update was a year ago. IMHO, they dropped the ball on this one.

6 years ago, GWGregg

Problems

It’s a good flash drive, in theory, but the app used to access the files on it is seriously buggy. The “Arranging content so you don’t have to” sequence is an infuriating issue. I’ve already arranged my files, when I copied them to the flash drive! What do you need to “arrange”? Why does it take forever? Why is there no progress bar so I have an idea of how long it will take, or whether it’s just locked up? Why, after you’ve done it, do my video files link to metadata from the internet that are not actually associated with their content? In the file manager are stupid pictures of supposedly hip people that take up an enormous amount of space, instead of a clean file management interface that uses the space well. Structurally, there are other issues. The USB connector end of the drive is exposed, with no protective cap. The Lightning connector end of the drive has a teeny tiny cap, about the size of a pea, making it easy to misplace. When copying large files to the flash drive, it copies quite slowly and heats up a lot. Hoping for a next-generation version of this that addresses at least the ridiculous “Arranging content” nonsense.

4 years ago, Jop2016

Best Way to Clear up Storage on Phone

Before I got my iXpand drive I had to update my storage and pay monthly in order to keep all my photos and storage free. Since I got my drive I’ve downloaded all of my photos and videos and cleared up 62gb on my phone. I was able to stop paying the monthly fee. You can also really Organize everything into folders and name your videos so that you know what your looking for. Has helped clean out my storage and help keep my photos organized. Would highly recommend! I did start with the 32gb and quickly filled it up with only half of my camera roll so I would go with a bigger version of you have a lot to export!

2 years ago, Donovan68

What a buggy piece of garbage.

Just got this very cool drive that has lightning on one end and usb c on the other. Super excited about it! But instead of just using the built in files app on the iPhone, you have to install their software. Fine. I copy a pic to it, then try to open it on my brand new iPad using the same app that had already downloaded …. Nope, doesn’t recognize it at all. Follow the troubleshooting… nope… nada… Then I see the fine print which says you should use their software with usb c… sooooooo why tell me to install it?? So I gotta remember to use this awful software on the iPhone, and then switch over to the built in Apple software on the iPad. Ok, fine. Oh, but then the next time I plug it into the phone, it doesn’t even show the new pic that I saved as a test. So I unplug it and put it back in… it doesn’t recognize the drive. Then I unplug it and put it back in AGAIN. This time the file shows up. Wow…. I can’t imagine trusting this software to back things up when it’s having such a hard time with just one file at a time!

3 years ago, Allnicknamesaretaken909

Worked great! But had to reload

Device worked great! Fast and easy. A very intuitive interface to move files and create new folders within the device, making it easy to get my photos and videos off my Apple phone. But then it stopped working! It took me a bit of research and troubleshooting to fix it. But it’s fixed! If your device stops working, you may need to remove the program from your phone or iPad, and then reinstall. I also went to Sandisk website and ran a utility to re flash the thumbdrive itself. It’s all written in the troubleshooting file on the thumbdrive, experienced computer people will have no problem, but the less experienced can do it too if they follow those instructions. I love the little device and think it’s genius, I use it all the time, to clear space on my phone and get my pics onto the computer. So it was worth the trouble to keep it working. Hopefully newer models won’t have this problem?

6 years ago, Ivan Machiz

Super handy, efficient, one major file naming problem

In this little drive is easy to work with and very helpfull to keep my phone free to shoot more photos and video. I shoot a lot. I definitely recommend the drive. One concern has cost me no end of grief and that is edited video that was shot on my iPhone and edited on iMovie for iPhone was exported to the drive on two occasions where it over wrote a previous video. The previous video had been done a day earlier. This happened twice while I was in China and I lost all my edits. This happened twice before I realized what was happening and could stop the bleeding by placing videos into their own separate folders. Very inefficient, and a real pain. Not an elegant workaround but a workaround nonetheless. Hence the four stars which, considering the nature of the problem might actually make it deserve two stars, you decide. I’ve been happy with the Drive in all other respects.

3 years ago, taylorjs417

Crashes too much

This app used to be perfect & then it started acting up all the time. I love that it does what I want it to do; store photos & videos in folders that I can have named & separated. I have half of my life in this usb. But the crashing is ridiculous. Sometimes when the usb is plugged into my phone & I open the app, the app just stays at the “plug in your ixand drive” page, tho it’s clearly plugged in. I’ll take it out & put it back in but the screen stays up. I usually have to restart the app & plug in again. & sometimes while in the app selecting photos to transer or while transferring, the app will just force shutdown & I’ll have to start over with what I was doing. & lately I’ll be in the app selecting items to transer & when I go to select which folder to transer to, the folders will show up with “0 items” & I’m not able to transer them. I have tried & tried to do it over & restart the app but it keeps showing up as “0 items” please fix these irritating issues.

4 years ago, Cfevrfgrffv

Entire sections of the app don’t work

It is impossible to copy more than one file at a time to an app. The popup menu that is supposed to allow this after selecting them is nonfunctional; any icon you click has does nothing. The developers have also systematically removed in-app functionality which would force you to copy content to other apps, but as I said, this is impossible. And after being forced to try to copy one file at a time, you have to go through several superfluous steps because it first tries to play the content (which as I said, it now rarely can), then after overriding that it will try transfer any video or document to the photo library first, assuming it doesn’t just crash or kick you back to the menu which it does more often than not. If you manage to override that, maybe it will copy the file, though the progress bar always stops at the same place so you have to manually check in the other app. Which will kick you back to opening SanDisk menu, of course. Incompetence all around.

4 years ago, TakenlessNickName

Not for large storage phones

I have a 512GB iPhone XS Max with about 355GB of photos/videos on it currently. Half of that is screenshots, and I wanted to get those screenshots off my phone. This app is taking forever to load my library, and at the time of writing, has still not successfully loaded it. I bought a 256GB iXpand for this, and now you're gonna tell me the app doesn't even work...? I might have to return it. I can't sit around for hours just waiting for it to load in the first place!!! I know it'll probably take me a full day or more to get all those screenshots off of my phone, so I need to know it'll work before I set aside a whole 24 hours for this. I'm not amused at all. EDIT: I don't use iCloud and the app has all the necessary permissions. I'm on iPhone XS Max, not 11. This developer response is worthless to me. I already mentioned my phone type, and if I used iCloud, why would I need something like this to transfer my photos? Either way, I would have mentioned it. What a poor response to my problem, THAT STILL HASN'T BEEN SOLVED!!!

6 years ago, hopefully helpful critic

Doesn’t work for long videos on low memory phones

There may be some customers out there who think, “this is a great idea to bypass my low available memory message on my phone and record long (large file size) videos.” If you have a iPhone which is one of the 8 GB or 16 GB, this product isn’t one you can use to record long videos. If you have a large amount of space on your phone available already for those long videos, this app will probably work great. But if you’re like me, and are trying to find a way to save large single video files straight to a computer via this flash drive, this isn’t the product for you. Even though there is an in-app camera that seems like it would do this, It still maxes off based on your phones available memory (not the flash drives). Great idea, hope to one day find a product to meet this need, because the iOS system keeps taking up way to much space on these low memory phones. 8GB and even 16GB phones doesn’t really give much room amymore.

1 year ago, damdaniel308

Could be way better

To cut it short make it so even if it doesn’t backup my camera roll all the way, delete the photos it backed up. Because now it used more storage on my phone instead of reducing it I have 1800 photos not back up I don’t know which ones they are. So now I have to delete everything on the drive and I have no use for it. Also it fills up so quickly seemingly out of no where. Yesterday I backed up 3-4K photos. That used about 16 gigabyte. Today I start downloading the rest and I take a nap while I wait. I wake up to see it downloaded 2k photos and only had 15 gigabytes left. This is a 64 gigabyte usb drive. It should be able to handle 7.5k photos. Save thing happened with the previous one I used. It was 128 gigabytes and on my phone all the photos and videos took 90 gigabytes. Somehow it used the 38 gigabytes that should’ve been left over for god knows what.

2 years ago, Netoaliancista

Do not buy this.

I bought the iXpand drive in order not only to Transfer files from my iPad to a usb drive but to keep some files locked within the same iXpand drive. I sent my private and very important documents and pics to the locked folder. I kept the password carefully, but after 2 months, such folder did not accept the password, and there was no way on Earth to get help about that malfunction of the ixpand drive. I read Many other customers suffered the same problem and the only solution Offered by the manufacturers was “Delete the folder with all the contets in it, and Start all over again.” Nos, my New problem Is that i tríes to delete the app from my ipad because it was too slow to transfer files anymore, and, to my surprise, it did not to completely. Nos, i have a white square on my ipad, that i eliminate but comes back when I Turn it on again. I can’t elimínate and I can’t update it. A waste of money.

1 year ago, HunterWare981

Works well, but…

This app works pretty well, but the build in option to record from your device directly to your usb stick is designed very badly. At first glance, it has no controls, not even tap to focus, but it’s just hidden. If you’re in a dark room and tap somewhere and then slide your finger up, it will brighten the video just like the normal camera app would. Please put more effort into it, i think it’s really cool. Besides that, there’s another issue. First one (minor) being that after backing up the photos automatically, my main phone’s app prompts me to delete, selectively delete, or just not at all. I always click delete all of course, but that popup prompt never shows on my other devices, such as my iPhone 7 or SE 1st generation, but it does on my iPhone 11. Another pretty big issue is that on the iPhone 7, it completely fails to back up any more photos on the phone. It has already backed up close to ~1500, but it refuses to back up any more. (and choosing the build in record to usb camera icon will crash the app after selecting video) Not a dealbreaker, still very cool, but i wish some of these issues were fixed or the app was more polished.

6 years ago, Aloneinpain

It's just ok, I'm happy with it

Unfortunate you can't save photos from within a text to ixpand. It takes you through all the steps to save so I know the ability is there, however inevitably every single time it will reveal ERROR -FAILED TO SAVE So you end up having to take the long route and save it to your photo library first (defeats the purpose when your intent is to free up your photo library) Then, with that, be prepared to save 1 picture at a time. It's so basic you are even unable to "select all" and move all photos from your photo library to ixpand. It only allows you to move 1-10 at a time. Not too great when you're trying to transfer 1,000 pictures With that being said, it does me ok. It's just if you're looking for something that's technologically "current" , this definately isn't it

5 years ago, DOMNICKROSS

Good but needs Improvement

This is great to save storage. BUT, One of the biggest problems I have is that if you delete something from the iXpand (folders, photos, videos, etc.) and if it’s on accident, it’s gone for good. There’s no “Deleted” section and I’ve spent all day and $70 trying to find a recovery for the iXpand. My advice is that you need to give iXpand a Deleted/Recyling Bin. That way if the users delete something on accident then they can get it back. The other thing is you can’t remove things from folders. I’ve tried, it doesn’t work. You delete the entire thing doing so. There needs to be a way to do that to. Or if you delete the folder, you should be asked if you want to deleted the content within it or just folder and the content can stay.

8 months ago, Dede1988_11

No longer works

I’ve had this device for maybe 3-4 years. It was so easy I would just plug it in my phone, open the app, click select and upload pictures to device after the that it gave the option to delete from phone when all where upload to the sandisk. Now, it doesn’t even recognize my phone when plugged in. It does nothing only lets me see my pictures and make a folder and now I have to check mark each date the pictures were taken. Omg I have 4K pictures on my phone. It took me an hour all that just for it not to even work. It didn’t even give the option to upload. I’m sad because this is my 2nd one I’ve purchased and loved it 10 years ago. It took 6 years to fill my first one and so I purchased this thinking it would last like the other and help clear space on my phone and I could have the pictures on a flash drive.

2 years ago, justgeline

Counterproductive

I bought the iXPANDR because I have a 64GB iPhone. I didn’t think I needed more because I hardly ever took pictures or videos with my phone. Never once did I get close to needing 64GB. But I have recently been getting into taking videos with my phone and I thought it would be good to use a thumb drive to backup my videos in addition to iCloud. Now, every time I plug in the iXPANDR and use the app to backup my pictures and videos, my phone tells me I have no space. I am actually able to watch the “Other Systems Data” climb to using nearly 40GB of space while the iXPANDR app backs up my data. Eventually, my phone tells me I’m out of storage space. The app then tells me that not every thing was backed up. I basically have to restore my iPhone from backup to remove the “Other Systems Data” from my phone.

4 years ago, Yashisaur

Useful App But Music Names/Art Won’t Load

Hello! So I have a large collection of music I would like to play, the audio files contain all the correct information such as the name, artist, album, year, etc.. Yet every time I go to the built in music player, every song is named “unknown” and when played, only shows the name and the file extension. The audio works flawlessly, though I can’t scrub through a song to skip further into it, playing audio isn’t an issue, I just would like to see my song names in the list view, my albums, and their album covers. I have each album separated by folder, in which contains a 500x500 album cover. If there were to be an update to fix this and show all my song info, this app would easily be a 5/5, thank you!!

2 years ago, Ed / NASA retired

So easy to use!

I just plug the SanDisk into my iPhone XS MAX and approve access to my photos. This SanDisk automatically begins making copies of everything in your photo library, and contacts list of you wish. If the SanDisk is interrupted, for example you decide to charge your phone, the SanDisk continues where it left off on it own when it reinserted. Amazing product! There is also a small window about 1/4” X 1/4” showing which images are currently being copied. I have used several brands claiming to do the same thing, but this SamDisk actually works. It was worth every penny.

4 years ago, Bill 07/23/2020

Issues with PDFs

In version 5.3.2 of the app running on iOS 11.3.1 iPad, there is a problem with transferring (copying, viewing, and moving) PDFs stored locally on the iPad and the iXpand drive. These include some manuals downloaded, textbooks, and printed PDFs (Google docs, Sheets etc.) of webpages. Viewing the local iXpand folder (iPad) within the iPad File app and/ or iXpand app and selecting one or more PDFs for copying to a folder created on the iXpand drive, there’s always a error message displayed “0 files successfully saved to IXpand Drive” even after multiple attempts. Printing a webpage to PDF and directly saving to the iXpand drive also fails after clicking the “Save here” button. Trying to use “More option” causes the app to abruptly crash. Self-made PDFs do not open for viewing, the app requests another program to view. Some published PDFs such as the iXpand manual downloaded from the SanDisk website will open for viewing and saving to the drive. Others do not. Adding the the step of saving the PDFs to the cloud (Google Drive) and then selecting the PDFs for transfer to the iXpand drive using “Open in” works but defeats the purpose of transferring directly between the iPad and iXpand. Please troubleshoot these issues. Thank you.

2 years ago, drawtender

When it works

It’s pretty easy to use when it works. Very handy. There’s just no telling if I’ll luck out and be able to use it on my IPad till I try. It’s easier on the iPhone, because it never works on it any more. You plug it into the port, open the app, it does its thing for a few seconds, then shows a screen saying you need to plug it in. It worked ok on my laptop using the USB end, so maybe it’s just a really bad app, and eventually they will fix it so I won’t have to throw away the drive. At least I was able to back up the data in case it’s the drive and not the app. (And this is ignoring how my phone uses a photo format that the drive, designed to be used with the phone, cannot open. So even if you luck out and can back it up to the stick, you can’t use it.)

4 years ago, IMFishing4Gold

Constantly Crashes with Latest Update....

I can no longer use this app on my iPad due to constant crashes. I have been trying to transfer an Excel spreadsheet from my flash drive to my iPad for the last week only to have to SanDisk app crash when I touch the send button each and every time. After which the app refuses to read any files on my flash drive. Just to see if it was only the Excel file I tried .pdf and .jpg files and had the same results when trying to transfer them. I have tried deleting and reinstalling the app several times; ensuring all other apps are completely closed; turning my iPad completely off and back on again; and making sure I am running my iPad on the latest IOS update (currently 14.0). None of this has helped. I’ve been using this program and flash drive for the last couple of years and have been very happwith it; so to have this happen is very disappointing. This company has been very solid in the products and technology they’ve provided for their customers. I am shocked by this poor quality that I am experiencing with this app since the latest update and truly hope they get this remedied ASAP. Interestingly, this app has continued to worked fine on my iPhone. The problem is with the iPad version.

4 years ago, Razzle1111

Copying pictures from iPhone 7

I needed a method of copying pictures from my iPhone to my PC. I had somewhere over 2500 pictures on the iPhone. I expected to do all the pictures in one pass. It has turned into a marathon. I have restarted the copy, skipping previously copied files, more than 50 times and still need about a hundred files. Perhaps the problem is with The phone or phone software biased to itunes. I know Apple does great software but I have always felt they have made it intentionally difficult for cross platform users like myself. I may have to go to Microsoft One Drive to get this done. The Apple Store has cooperated the best they can and it has been months with this problem. The Microsoft store says they can easily solve the problem. To be continued...

4 years ago, Kerberos70

Privacy Concerns

This app and the external device it works with both appear to be bloated malware sitting on your phone, waiting to guzzle all your data. I do not feel comfortable uploading my data to the device and app at all. On your home page, you get a giant yellow ad that that is essentially impossible to remove. I didn’t purchase this product to look at your ads. When opening and uploading your files, you get an “arranging your files so you don’t have to” prompt which is extremely infuriating. The application has several data collection features that are concerning. Even if you do not opt-in, it appears they still collect some information. It is completely unacceptable. I will be returning the flash drive, deleting the app and letting people know across all social media not to purchase the flash drive nor download the app. It’s not worth it.

3 years ago, Pmm368

iOS 15, can’t move files around on flash drive

This is awesome to have for someone, like me, that loves to use their phone for photography and wants to free up space quickly for more. The only downside right now is that since I updated my iPhone 12 to iOS 15, I can’t use my iPhone to transfer files between folders on this device. I used to before iOS 15. When I try it now, regardless if I select copy or move folder, nothing happens when I press the move/copy here button. I’ve tried clearing cache, restarting my phone and even deleting the app & reinstalling it. Only way I can move files around now is with my computer.

6 years ago, Baseball dad la

Filename change is stupid

Been using for a few years and loved it initially. Now, Sandisk decided to change the file name when files are manually copied to the drive. The file name is a very long series of random characters. No two are alike. You no longer can tell what the file name is. I asked customer support and confirm that change was by design. I can understand when 2 or more people share the same drive as some files could be overwritten when copied to another phone. Ok. I get that but why not just put the operators initials as part of the file name instead of 50 random characters. They have taken a major step backwards with this modification. Totally stupid idea. How about this, let the operator choose how to name the files as they are copied manually. If I could give 0 stars for this change then I could. This change does not warrant a 1 star.

5 years ago, Little_Chami

Great, but can be improved. (Please read)

I just bought this and when I plugged it in it immediately redirected me to the App Store. This is a very nice feature that I have never known of. This app is very quick and helps you backup all of your files backed up. I have lost my contacts so many times and then I bought this thing because I had extra money to flex and bought a 32gb iExpand and was very satisfied with the results. Here are a few things that would help. 1. Add waterproof. (I don’t know if it has it and I’m not going to test it.) 2. Backup notes from the notes app. 3. Make a better casing for the usb. (It scratches pretty easily.) 4. Make it so that when your on a third party app you can browse the app from the third party app instead of downloading and then going to library. 5. Add fingerprint passcode to show files. 6. Re-make the browse files. (I don’t know why but it doesn’t show photos in the photo folder. It only shows if you click on photos)

3 years ago, davidm8624

Simple things that should have an option to be disabled

Great app, love the compatibility. The largest turn off for me is the “arranging your content” at the start. I see how this is useful, but when you got a drive packed full of content that is not images, vids, and pictures, then the process takes ages. I would like the ability to disable so that I can use the normal file explorer capability for my less then average file types. Also.... totally unrelated, but the ability to compile some basic languages besides the html which seems to be already implemented, would be kinda cool. But that’s not too important 😛

7 years ago, Msdio

Reliable backup

I have a 32G and 128G. They both work fine with my iPhone 6s. I have tried a few others. But this is the only one that stays working after iOS changes from 8, 9, to 10. Those made by other non-brand names just seem not able to keep up with the iOS changes. This stick also works fast. Almost plug and go. The one drawback is that it does heat up considerably when it's plugged in to the phone. Also, a nuisance is the clumsy way of navigating through picture albums. I have to keep scrolling to jump to the last picture of an album, which can take a while if there are thousands of pictures in that album.

6 years ago, joelpipps

What do watch out for when using iXpand!

IXpand does what it says - however, watch out for the load you’re doing - because If you copy or transfer big files, your device may run out of power and may not copy/transfer all the photos you want copied or transferred; to prevent this from happening, load only in small batches, and do it when the phone is hardly going to be used, or when your device is fully charged - iXpand and your device use the same port to copy and charge so that you cannot charge your device while iXpand is hooked up and copying pictures-ok?

4 years ago, Mondoniko

HOW DO I EJECT?

I am A N G R Y and frustrated that I have to ask this. Do I just pull the plug out of my iPhone and that’s it? Will files be corrupted like Windows has trained me to fear? If not, THEN PLEASE TELL ME. Somewhere? Anywhere? In the app somewhere? In the manual? On your website somewhere? What an irresponsible lack of “creative imagination” by your devs/tech-writers/product-managers to even think that someone may have this trivial concern. Thanks a lot. UPDATE: SanDisk - thank you for the response. I will raise my rating to 3 stars. Your instructions make sense, but still should be provided somewhere other than just here. Place them in the app and I will give 5 stars... for I’m otherwise happy and the drive works nicely.

6 years ago, cdarvinsawyer

Claude

Wow!!! This has been a long waited for device. SanDisk really pushed the bar up with this device. The 32 flash drive is small, convenient, and economical. If you have been thinking about purchasing a new phone with more memory pump your brakes and slow your roll. SanDisk Flash Drive is your answer. It works excellent with Apple Devices (iPad, IPhone, and Mack) plus your home PC. However, you cannot save files from your home PC on to this device, but you can open files that you saved from your Apple Devices for viewing on your home PC. Enjoy and have fun!!!

4 years ago, Mikey-77

Would give 5 star BUT

Have 2 of these drives. Loved them at first. Not sure if it was always this way or just in the new update but the secure vault password is useless. Have an iPad, iPhone 6s that is a backup and a iPone XS. You put a password word in but you can bypass it using thumb print ID or Face ID even if you have them turned of in the security part of the settings it just asked if you want to use it where the password is and opens right up. I deleted the app from my 6S re-downloaded it and could use thumb print ID to open it right up. Didn’t even need the password. So you loose this and all anyone has to do is download the app and open it right up. Need to fix this ASAP or I will throw them away.

6 years ago, MokiMokChan

A Paradox

Just bought this, and when I went to copy less than 15 files, it would only do 4. I tried several times, but still it did not work. Did some reading, and apparently it really doesn't work right if iCloud is set up. And if I turn off iCloud, I will not have have access to the photos. That’s what I would call a paradox - cant fix something without breaking another. However, I DID find a way around this I believe. If I go through my photos, I can upload then from there (like I was sending a message). It also saves the correct file name. It’ll just be time consuming this way.

5 years ago, BelovedFaithful

Nice App - a few suggestions

I really enjoy this App, but I wish it was easier to upload chats with friends and items other than photos. I would also like to see my photos instead of folders, when I name a group of photos, and have them easier to organize. Finally, I would like to have the app take up less space on my phone; I noticed when I transfer items from my phone to my device, my "Settings" menu shows the app as having more data than before I uploaded items to my device. I then have the need to delete the app and reinstall it so that my used memory goes down.

5 years ago, TSchrauger

Great way to take my service manuals with me.

I’m on the road servicing various industrial equipment. To carry manuals for everything I work on would require me to pull a trailer, ha, so I have a “Work” directory on my laptop, with my pdf manuals organized by manufacturers. This little drive allows me to carry that 34 gig file in my pocket, on my phone or iPad. Unlike some other lightning thumb drives, this one maintains my file directory structure so I can easily locate my manuals. I do find that if my device goes to sleep I may have to close the program and restart because it thinks the drive is missing, this one little inconvenience is why I didn’t give 5 stars.

6 years ago, WelKnown Gohd

Love this thing

This is such a great item I use if for various tasks and I gotta say it performs very well. I must also say that this could be perfect if it had the ability to automatically run software on it like iOS updates and auto backups without the app being installed first. I fix phones so getting an auto backup is something that could be the best feature for this device. Make it so I can get my job done faster and easier and trust me your device will sell off the shelves of every retailer known to man!! I rate this as the very best....so far.

2 years ago, C t K 1

Clunky with photos

App is usable, but seems to have RAM trouble when the iXpand device is used to browse a large photo library consisting of numerous .jpg and .HEIC images stored in multiple nested folders. Typical photo file sizes in my library range from 2 to 9 megabytes. Thumbnails loaded slowly, sometimes app would crash. Also would sometimes, but not always, crash when loading full screen photo view after selecting a thumbnail, or would sometimes crash when finger scrolling to the next photo. The finger scrolling itself was not smooth (like it is when scrolling through photos stored on the iPad).

6 years ago, Richie510

Simple things don’t work well.

I bought the iXpand device because when I installed the app it showed up in the native files app. I thought it would let me just move arbitrary files easily from my email to the drive and visa versa. This is particularly useful for me when I’m working offsite in a factory. Instead, this app is 80% photos focused, and 20% I’m not sure about. Every time I try to copy a file from the drive to my phone it gives me an error that it cannot be added to my photos library. Duh. It is a text file. Just messing around with the app I went to my photos and it just hung for a long time. It did this several times in a row. So I disabled access to my photos, but then I could not move arbitrary files because the app could not access my photos. All I want is to be able to take files from a non network connected computer and email them from my phone, and visa versa. This app is just in the way of itself. Also the app looks like a slightly modern version of MySpace. This app needs to chill out. Ultimately, I will be able to move files around, but only with a lot of dumb pop ups and a stupid interface.

3 years ago, House3303

File Name Change - Poor Experience

Why, why, why?????? A file transfer should leave the name and original date with the file. But this does not. Past comments online indicate this is an issue with a lot of users. Why can’t you fix this??? At the very least the date in which the picture or video was taken should stay attached when the files are loaded to the PC. The name change makes me regret I purchased this. It seems like a simple fix - give the user an option to keep the name or create a way to maintain identification without a crapload of files all with the same date. This pretty much makes the device too painful to continue using - if I could I would look for a refund!!!!!!!

2 years ago, George Orr

Confusing Set-Up with pre-installed junk .

Pay attention when setting this up as the offerings are confusing and some all ready pre-loaded. On a MacBook it works like any other flash drive, drag and drop. But you need to install the app, which are drivers, before it will work. Then spend some time deleting the junk that is on it. You can if you want store a lot of different information on this. Music, Photos, Files and what not. I do not like what I consider being advertised to about other products with what this cost. I have not given mine any permissions. As I do not understand their Privacy policy. And my iPhone has 512 worth of memory.

1 year ago, otterman

Still garbage!

Years (YEARS!!!) after writing my last review, which has conveniently been removed, this app is still garbage. Even worse, Sandisk has NEVER provided support for their iXpand Luxe to developers to incorporate into their apps. Some iOS file managers can recognize older iXpand drives without the egregious Sandisk app installed, but they never implemented that for the Luxe. Coincidentally (not!) I’ve not purchased a Sandisk drive in the 3-4 years since. My older Lightning/USB-A ones still work fine, but I wanted the Lightning/USB-C one to work in other apps. Nope, and apparently they have no intention of making it work. Don’t support this company that forces you to use their really horrible app when they could release the API to developers to make the drive really useful.

5 years ago, Numbuh 444

Total headache on my new phone 😞

I originally got this for my old iPhone 6 Plus because it only had 16 gigs of storage. It worked flawlessly. But just a week ago, I upgraded to the iPhone XR, and since then I have had nothing but problems with this app. Half the time it either doesn’t detect the flash drive, freezes on the loading screen and doesn’t start up, freezes mid-backup, leaving me with corrupted files out the ears, freezes or buffers when I’m going through the menus, my photo files take an eternity to load, I could go on and on. I’ve tried the troubleshooting, and still have numerous problems. I don’t know if it just doesn’t want to cooperate with my new phone, or if you guys mucked up the app with your latest update. Either way, something’s wrong. 😞

Description

When used with the iXpand® Flash Drive, the iXpand® Drive App1 makes it easy to back up, transfer and manage photos, videos and files between your iPhone, iPad and computers. What is the iXpand Flash Drive? It’s a flash drive for your iPhone and iPad that also works with computers.1 Connect the drive to your iPhone or iPad with the Lightning connector to quickly free up space on your device, or use the USB connector to quickly transfer your photos and videos to your PC or Mac computer. To learn more about the iXpand Flash Drive go to www.sandisk.com/ixpandflashdrive Easy to Use: Connect the drive to your iPhone or iPad to launch the app. Once the app launches, you can set the app to automatically back up photos and videos from your camera roll to the drive. The app also makes it easy to watch videos or listen to music directly from the drive3. And the app lets you encrypt files for transfer and storage between devices2. Features and Benefits: • Free up space on your iPhone or iPad1 • Automatically back up photos and videos from your camera roll • Watch movies directly from the drive (supports popular-formats3) • Transfer files to your computer at USB 3.0 speeds Support: Please visit SanDisk support at https://kb.sandisk.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/18644 Object code repository – https://github.com/SanDisk-Open-Source/SanDisk-iXpand-Drive Company Info www.sandisk.com SanDisk, the SanDisk logo, iXpand, and the iXpand logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Western Digital Corporation or its affiliates in the US and/or other countries. iPhone, iPad, Lightning, Mac, and macOS are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the US and other countries. iOS is a trademark or registered trademark of Cisco in the US and other countries and is used under license by Apple Inc. Windows is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation. All other marks are the property of their respective owners. Legal 1 iOS 11 or higher required for iXpand Drive App. iXpand Flash Drive not included with iXpand Drive App. For iPhone, iPad and iPod compatibility, see http://www.sandisk.com/support/ixpandcompatibility. 2 Password protection uses 128-bit AES encryption and is supported by iOS 11+, macOS 10.8+, Windows Vista®, Windows® 7, Windows 8, and Windows 10. 3 Support for .MP4, .MOV video formats. 4K Ultra HD (3840x2160) video support may vary based on file attributes, host device and other factors. DRM-protected content cannot be streamed. Check with the content provider for playback restrictions. Product specifications subject to change without notice. Pictures shown may vary from actual products. © 2021 Western Digital Corporation or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Western Digital Technologies, Inc. is the seller of record and licensee in the Americas of SanDisk® products.