If you’re like most people, you probably have a few cards in your wallet. You might have an SD card for your camera, a microSD card for your music, and a microSD card for your photos. But what if you want to use one of those cards with your Amazon Fire Tablet? There are a few ways to do this. The first way is to use the Amazon Fire Tablet’s built-in storage. To do this, open the tablet’s Settings and select the Storage option. Then select the microSD card that you want to use. The second way is to buy an external storage device. This can be an SD card or even a USB drive. Once you’ve bought the device, insert it into the tablet’s port and connect it to the tablet’s power supply. Then open the tablet’s Settings and select Storage again. This time, select the external storage device instead of the microSD card that you just used for storage on your Amazon Fire Tablet. The third way is to use an app that allows you to add external storage devices into your Amazon Fire Tablet’s memory space. These apps are called FileZilla or WinRAR. To do this, open one of these apps and click on Add External Storage Device in the main window (or press Ctrl+E). Then enter in the name of the external storage device that you want to add into your Amazon Fire Tablet’s memory space.
Choosing an SD Card
RELATED: How to Buy an SD Card: Speed Classes, Sizes, and Capacities Explained
Fire tablets can use Micro SD cards of up to 128 GB in size, so that’s the maximum size you can buy and use.
Getting Files Onto Your SD Card
You’ll need a way to put media files on your SD card from your computer. Your computer may have a Micro SD card slot — if it does, you can simply insert the Micro SD card into your computer. If it has an SD card slot, you can purchase an SD card adapter that will allow you to insert your Micro SD card into that full-size SD card slot. Some Micro SD cards even come with these.
If you don’t have either on your computer, the easiest way to get one is probably to purchase a Micro SD card reader that plugs in via USB.
You’ll need to ensure the Micro SD card is formatted with the FAT32 or exFAT file system so the Fire Tablet can read it. Most SD cards should come formatted with these file systems. If in doubt, right-click the SD card in the Computer view in Windows, select “Format”, and ensure the correct file system is selected.
When you’re done, right-click the Micro SD card in Windows and select “Eject” to safely remove it. Unplug it from your computer, and insert it into the MIcro SD card slot on your Fire Tablet. This is near the upper-right corner on the side of the $50 Fire Tablet. You’ll have to open a small door to access it.
Accessing Videos, Music, Photos, and eBooks
Videos, music, and photos on your Micro SD card will all be automatically detected by your Fire Tablet. For example, you’ll find video files on your Micro SD card in the “My Videos” app included with your tablet.
However, the Kindle app won’t automatically detect adn show eBooks stored on your SD card. To read them, you’ll need to download the free ES File Explorer app or another file-manager application, browse to the eBook on your SD card’s storage, and tap it to open it.
You could also use another eBook reader app.
Downloading Apps, Movies, TV Shows, and Photos to the SD Card
To choose what content is stored on your SD card, open the Settings app on your Fire Tablet, tap “Storage”, and tap “SD Card”.
Activate the “Install Supported Apps on Your SD Card” option and your Fire Tablet will install apps you download in the future to the SD card, if the app supports this. Any of the app’s user-specific data will still be stored in its internal storage.
Turn on the “Store Photos and Personal Videos on Your SD Card” toggle and photos and videos you capture and record on the Fire tablet will be stored in its SD card instead of the internal storage.
These options don’t affect the data already on your device. Your existing apps and downloaded videos will still be stored on the internal storage unless you do something extra.
To move an individual apps from the internal storage to the SD card, open the Settings app, tap “Apps & Games”, and tap “Manage All Applications”. Tap the name of the app you want to move and tap “Move to SD Card”. If it’s already on the SD card, you’ll see a “Move to Tablet” button instead. If you can’t move it to the SD card, the button will just be grayed out.
You’ll have to re-download videos if you want to move them from the internal storage to the SD card. To do so, open the “Videos” app, long-press a video, and tap “Delete” to delete it. Long-press that same video and tap “Download” to redownload it. If you’ve configured your Fire Tablet to store downloaded videos on the SD card, it will be downloaded to the external storage.
Safely Remove the Micro SD Card From Your Fire Tablet
If you ever want to remove the Micro SD card from your Fire Tablet, you should open the Settings app, tap “Storage”, tap “Safely Remove SD Card”, and tap “OK”. You can then gently press on the SD card and it will pop out.
If you need more storage, you can always buy multiple Micro SD cards and swap them out to access different videos and other media files. Bear in mind that apps you install onto your SD card won’t be available unless that specific SD card is plugged in.
Image Credit: Danny Choo on Flickr
