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I'm trying to get a very large file (97 GB-Wikipedia for Kiwix) from my PC onto a Micro SD card in my Android 10/Go edition tablet.

The problem is that the tablet doesn't seem to recognize an Exfat card; when I put it in, it wants to format it. If I format it for Portable Storage, it formats it as Fat32, so I can't transfer larger files.

I've seen some indications online that formatting it for Adaptive Storage allows bigger files, but the problem with that is that the adaptive SD doesn't show up in Windows file explorer, only the smaller internal storage.

I've tried downloading the file straight to the tablet, but android is again trying to download it to the smaller internal storage, so it gets stuck. When trying to change the download folder, chrome again only sees the small internal storage.

Any other ideas how I can get this file onto my 256GB adaptive storage sd?

Thanks in advance!

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  • So.. I am just guessing at this but you might be able to do ext3 or ext4 on the SSD and get a driver/tool for that working in Windows. If you try, make sure ext3 has a block size of 4k or you will have the same problem you have now. Do you have console access to your tablet? If so, you might be able to split the file and re-assemble on the android side?
    – Señor CMasMas
    Commented Oct 29, 2020 at 16:43
  • As long as the microSD card is formatted as FAT32 a file of more than 4GB is impossible. You can try if Android Go supports exFAT file system on the microSD card, in such a case it should be possible to you such a large file via USB onto your tablet, not sure which app allows to download directly to external storage.
    – Robert
    Commented Oct 29, 2020 at 17:05
  • Does this answer your question? How to read ext4 filesystem without mounting on a non-rooted device?
    – alecxs
    Commented Oct 30, 2020 at 9:43

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As Señor CMasMas has mentioned you need to format the SD card as ext4 and you will need root to be able to mount it on the android. You can access the ext4 partition on Windows with "Linux File Systems for Windows by Paragon Software" This program lets you mount the partition in windows and use it as a regular drive.

Here is how this can be done.

  1. Format your SD card as ext4. You can partition it into 2 partitions and only format the 2nd one as ext4. This way you can still use the first partition normally on your device. I used Mini Tool Partition Wizard.
  2. On your Android device, you need to mount the partition. I use Termux (terminal) to do this. You need root to be able to mount it.
    1. Make a folder in your termux home folder where you will mount the partition. (eg. mkdir ext4).
    2. Mount the partition to this folder. You need to find the device name. I have found in all my devices that it was /dev/block/mmcblk1p2 for my 2nd partition. (eg. mount /dev/block/mmcblk1p2 /data/data/com.termux/files/home/ext4-fs).

Once its mounted you can access it with Total Commander (and probably other file explorers as well) on the Android.

I have done this and am able to copy large files onto it.

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  • How do you access it? Where did you find it?
    – user332798
    Commented Oct 29, 2020 at 21:07
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    If you are using Termux then if you used the example folder you will find it here. /data/data/com.termux/files/home/ext4 (This is the mountpoint).
    – Sruly
    Commented Oct 29, 2020 at 21:27
  • Thanks this really works great.
    – user332798
    Commented Oct 29, 2020 at 22:00

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