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Files app on Chrome OS finally adds a way to manage Android files

Android apps have been live for most Chromebooks for some time now, but there was no way to access each app’s files through Chrome OS’s file manager. Thankfully, this is now changing.

François Beaufort, a Chromium Evangelist at Google, announced today on Google+ that after a Chrome flag has been enabled, “you’ll get a new “Android Files” view that exposes Android emulated external storage. These files can [then be] copied in your Downloads folder if needed.”

If you want to try it out for yourself, you’ll need to enable an experimental flag. To do this, copy and paste ‘chrome://flags#show-android-files-in-files-app‘ into the web browser’s uni-bar. From there, you’ll need to switch the item’s menu to Enabled and then relaunch the browser to turn everything on. Afterward, you should see the Android files option in the Files app just like in the image above.

Do note, though, that this appears to only be live on developmental Chrome OS channels as I wasn’t able to find the option on my Pixelbook and AndroidPolice couldn’t locate it on an Asus Chromebook Flip, both running version 66 (stable channel).

The code for this can be found in the Chromium Gerrit here.


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Avatar for Justin Duino Justin Duino

I’m a writer for 9to5Google with a background in IT and Android development. Follow me on Twitter to read my ramblings about tech and email me at justin@jaduino.com. Tips are always welcome.


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