Help & User Guide

myUSBdrive reads each movie's filename, works out the title and year, and looks it up on The Movie Database to pull the poster, genre, rating and description.

The one name that always works

Title (Year).ext

For example:

The Shawshank Redemption (1994).mkv
Interstellar (2014).mp4
Blade Runner (1982).mp4

Why the year matters: it tells remakes apart, like the 1982 and 2017 versions of Blade Runner. If the year is missing or wrong, the app still tries without it, but the poster may be for the wrong version.

What the app cleans up for you

Files downloaded with messy names usually still work, because the app tidies them automatically:

• Dots, underscores and hyphens become spaces, so The.Matrix.1999.avi reads as The Matrix, 1999.
• Quality and format tags are stripped: 1080p, 2160p, 4K, BluRay, WEBRip, x264, x265, HEVC, AAC, AC3, DTS and more.
• Years from 1920 to 2039 are recognised.

So Interstellar.2014.1080p.BluRay.x264.mkv still matches, but Interstellar (2014).mp4 is cleaner and more reliable.

For the smoothest playback

Use .mp4 (H.264 video with AAC audio) where you can. It plays instantly in any browser and on any phone. Files in .mkv, .avi or .wmv, or with HEVC/H.265, AC3 or DTS audio, have to be converted on the fly. That still works, but it asks more of your Raspberry Pi.

Home videos

Your own clips won't be on any database. Use Mark as home movie in the app so it stops searching and shows a clean tile. It's handy too if a personal clip keeps matching a real film by mistake.

Poster-eligible file types: mp4, mkv, avi, mov, wmv, flv, webm, m4v, ts, ogv.

The app uses the folder name to find the series, then reads each episode file for its season and episode number to pull the right episode titles and descriptions.

Name the folder with the show and its year

Breaking Bad (2008)/
24 (2001)/
The Office (2005)/

Give every episode the S01E01 code

Breaking Bad (2008)/
    Breaking Bad S01E01.mkv
    Breaking Bad S01E02.mkv
    Breaking Bad S02E01.mkv

• The code can be written S01E03 or 1x03 — both are recognised.
• Everything before the code is treated as the title, so extra text after it is fine.
• Keep episodes directly inside the series folder rather than in Season 1/ subfolders. The app scans the series folder to work out which seasons you have, and the S01E01 code already tells it the season.

Like films, each episode remembers your position, so you can stop and pick up exactly where you left off.

Album artwork is chosen in this order:

• A cover.jpg (or cover.png) in the folder — this always wins, and overrides any artwork embedded in the files. Drop one in when you want a specific cover.
• Artwork embedded in the tracks — the picture saved inside your MP3 or FLAC files, used automatically whenever there's no cover.jpg.
• An online lookup — the last resort, matching your folder names against an online music database when nothing else is available.

Best folder structure: artist, then album

Music/
    Pink Floyd/
        The Dark Side of the Moon/
            01 Speak to Me.mp3
        Wish You Were Here/

The album folder name is the album, and the parent folder is the artist. Simple and reliable.

Or a single folder with a dash

Pink Floyd - Pulse/

Artist - Album, with spaces around the dash, is split automatically.

Extra text the app ignores for you

You can leave these in folder names and the lookup still works: (Disc 1), CD1, (1973), (Deluxe Edition), (Remastered), (Bonus Track Version), (Expanded Edition), (50th Anniversary), [FLAC], [MP3 320], [Lossless].

Avoid generic artist folders. Words like music, songs, audio, mp3, media and albums are ignored as artist names, so nest the real artist folder inside them.

Good tags mean clean albums

The app reads the Artist and Album tags inside your files. When every track shares the same artist and album, you get one tidy album cover. When a folder mixes different albums — a "Best of the 80s", say — and the tracks carry their own embedded artwork, the app automatically builds a mosaic cover from up to four of those covers, so the folder still looks the part.

How your music plays back

Gapless playback keeps live albums and mixes flowing with no silent gap between tracks. It's available on Windows, Mac, Linux and Android. Apple's iPhone and iPad don't currently support it, which is a limitation of the browser rather than of myUSBdrive.

It remembers where you were. If you close the app partway through an album, it picks up from the last track you were playing when you come back.

Controls where you expect them. Play, pause and skip work from your Bluetooth headphones and steering-wheel buttons, and your music appears in Android Auto and Apple CarPlay with the track name and cover art on the car's screen.

Supported audio: mp3, flac, wav, ogg, m4a, aac, opus, wma.

Double and multi-disc albums

Put every track from every disc into a single album folder — there's no need for CD1 / CD2 subfolders. myUSBdrive reads the disc and track numbers from your files and sorts everything into the right order with disc headings automatically.

Not showing as a music player?

The music player view only appears when a folder contains only music files. Extra files like .cue, .log, .txt or stray cover images can switch it back to a plain file browser. Move those extra files out of the album folder to get the music player back.

Photos are organised entirely by your folder structure. There's no online lookup — the app simply makes thumbnails and turns portrait phone photos the right way up on its own.

Year, then event, dated so it sorts itself

Photos/
    2024/
        2024-06 Cornwall Holiday/
        2024-08 Emma's Wedding/
        2024-12 Christmas/
    2025/
        2025-04 Lake District/

Why put the date first: folders sort alphabetically, so a YYYY-MM prefix keeps everything in the right order automatically. For a single day, use YYYY-MM-DD Event.

• Keep events in their own subfolders rather than one giant folder — faster to browse, with nicer thumbnails.
• No need to pre-rotate anything; the app straightens phone photos for you.

Share a photo album with friends and family

Once a folder is set to Photos, a Share button appears in the toolbar. It creates a private link that anyone can open in their browser — no app and no account needed. Sharing works through your remote access, so it needs an active subscription.

• Open the album and click Share.
• Choose when the link expires: 1 week, Single view (works once, then stops), or No expiry.
• Copy the link and send it however you like — message, email, anywhere.

You stay in control: revoke a link at any time from Settings and it stops working straight away.

Drive mirroring keeps a complete, up-to-date copy of your main drive on a second USB drive. USB drives don't last forever, and if yours ever stops working, the mirror has an identical copy of every file ready to take over immediately.

Once set up, the mirror runs silently in the background. Any files you add, change or delete are automatically copied across within a few minutes. The mirror drive doesn't appear in the file browser — it sits quietly doing its job.

Setting up a local mirror drive

There's nothing to configure by hand. Plug a second, empty USB drive into your Raspberry Pi, and myUSBdrive detects it automatically and offers to protect your files with it — either as a pop-up prompt straight away, or as a card in Settings → Protect if you'd rather come back to it. Either way, tap Set up mirroring to confirm and it starts copying your files across immediately.

Setting up a remote mirror drive

A remote mirror keeps your backup on a different myUSBdrive somewhere else on your network, so a fire, a flood or a theft in one room doesn't take both copies with it. One Pi sends its files; the other holds the copy.

On the Pi that will hold the copy:

• Connect an empty USB drive. Everything on it will eventually be replaced by the other Pi's files.
• Open Settings and find the Protect your data card.
• Click Offer as remote mirror.
• The drive will disappear for a moment. This is meant to happen. Offering the drive unmounts it so it can be remounted as a private share rather than an ordinary drive.
• Click Detect Drive to bring it back. The card should then say Remote mirror active.

Then, on the Pi whose files you want backed up:

• Open Settings and find the Protect your data card.
• Click Mirror to another Pi.
• Choose the Pi that's offering its drive, and confirm.

The first sync starts straight away. From then on it runs quietly in the background, exactly like a local mirror.

Reconnecting a remote mirror

If you move the drive, rebuild a Pi, or the two simply lose sight of each other, the copy on the drive isn't lost. myUSBdrive leaves a small marker on the drive recording which Pi it belongs to and when it was last updated.

Plug the drive back into the Pi that was holding it and open Settings. The Remote Mirror card will tell you whose files are on the drive and when they were last synced. Click Offer as remote mirror, then Detect Drive as before. The other Pi reconnects on its own and picks up where it left off, without copying everything again.

How long does the first sync take?

The first time you enable mirroring, everything on your main drive gets copied across. How long this takes depends on how much data you have and which Pi you're using.

• Raspberry Pi 3: all four USB ports are the older, slower type, and the Pi 3 can't reliably power two drives at once from its USB ports, so at least one drive should have its own mains power supply. Expect around 15–20 MB/s — a 500 GB drive takes roughly 7–9 hours.
• Raspberry Pi 4: plug your main drive into a blue USB port and the mirror into a black one; using two blue ports at once can sometimes cause problems. Speed is similar to the Pi 3, around 7–9 hours for 500 GB.
• Raspberry Pi 5: use a 27W USB-C power supply and both USB ports work reliably together. The sync is noticeably faster than on older models.

You can carry on using your drives as normal while the first sync runs. Progress is shown in Settings → Protect.

Removing the mirror drive safely

Please don't just unplug the mirror drive — this can scramble the data on it. Here's the right way to do it:

• Open Settings and find the Protect card.
• Tap Disable mirroring and confirm.
• Wait for the status to update — the mirror drive reappears as a normal drive.
• Tap Eject on that drive, then unplug it.

What if my main drive fails?

Simply move the mirror drive across to replace it. Plug it into the same USB port and you're back up and running with all your files intact. If you were using a remote mirror on another Pi, disconnect the mirror drive from that Pi and plug it into yours instead.

Want to start mirroring again later?

If you turn mirroring off, the mirror drive reappears as a normal drive with all your backed-up files still on it — browse and access those files just like any other drive. Reconnect the same mirror drive later and myUSBdrive picks up where it left off without copying everything again. To set up a completely new mirror from scratch, you'll need an empty drive.

A mirror drive plugged into the same Raspberry Pi protects you if the drive fails. A mirror in another room protects you if something happens to the room: a fire, a flood, a burst pipe or a burglary takes both copies at once when they sit side by side.

If you already have a mirror running, you don't need to start again. Move the drive to a second myUSBdrive and it carries on from where it left off, because every file is already on it.

What you need

• Two myUSBdrive devices on the same network.
• A subscription on the device whose files are being backed up.
• The mirror drive you already have, fully synced.

On the device that has the mirror now

• Open Settings and find the Protect your data card.
• Turn mirroring off. Your files stay exactly where they are on the drive.
• Eject the drive, then unplug it.

On the device that will hold the copy

• Plug the drive in, and press Detect Drive if it doesn't appear on its own.
• Open Settings, find the Protect your data card, and click Offer as remote mirror.
• The drive disappears for a moment. This is meant to happen. Offering it swaps it from an ordinary shared drive to a private one only the other device can reach.
• Click Detect Drive to bring it back. The card should now say Remote mirror active.

Back on the first device

• Open Settings and find the Protect your data card.
• Click Mirror to another Pi.
• Choose the device that's offering the drive, and confirm.

What to expect

The first sync finishes in moments rather than hours. Your device checks what's already on the drive, finds it all there, and sends only what has changed since you turned mirroring off. Nothing travels across your network that doesn't need to.

From then on it behaves exactly like the mirror you had before, running quietly in the background, except the copy now lives somewhere else in the house.

With a subscription, you get your own personal address — something like yourname.myusb.cloud — that lets you reach your files from any device, anywhere in the world.

After you set up remote access, your address might not work straight away. That's completely normal — it can take anywhere from a few minutes to a couple of hours to become active. In the meantime, your home address keeps working as usual:

http://myusb.local

That's the default name. If you renamed your device (for example to "myfiles" or "backup"), use that name instead, like http://myfiles.local.

When you're connected remotely, downloading or uploading files requires two-factor authentication, and a few options are hidden for your security, such as ejecting drives and renaming the device. You can still browse, stream and download everything as normal.

As well as the website, myUSBdrive lets your computer see your USB drives as if they were a folder on your network — like a shared folder between two PCs in the same house. Once set up, your files appear in File Explorer (Windows) or Finder (Mac), and you can open, copy and edit them like any other folder.

In the instructions below, replace myusb with your device name if you renamed it. For example, if you called your device "myfiles", use myfiles.local.

Windows

• Open File Explorer.
• Click in the address bar and type: \\myusb.local
• When asked, enter the username pi and the password you chose when you first set up myUSBdrive.
• Tick Remember my credentials so you don't have to type it again.

Mac

• Open Finder and press ⌘K (or go to Go → Connect to Server).
• Type in: smb://myusb.local
• Enter the username pi and your password when asked.

Linux

Ubuntu, Zorin OS, and similar.

• Open your file manager (Files, Nautilus, etc.).
• Look for a Connect to Server option — usually in the sidebar or the Go menu.
• Type in: smb://myusb.local

Folder stopped working after a rename?

If you renamed your device in Settings → Rename Device and now can't connect to the network folder, your computer is probably trying to use the old name. This is easy to fix.

On Windows: search for Credential Manager in the Start menu, click Windows Credentials, find the entry for your old device name, expand it and click Remove. Then connect again using the new name.

On a Mac: open Keychain Access (search for it in Spotlight), search for your old device name, and delete any entries that come up. Try connecting again — you'll be asked for your password as if it's a new connection.

Most videos play straight away, but some older formats can't play directly in a web browser. When myUSBdrive spots one of these, it shows an orange play button so you can convert it on the fly.

Videos that play without any issues

• MP4 files — the most common format, works everywhere.
• WebM files.
• Most H.265 (HEVC) files in an MP4 container.

Videos that may need converting

• Files with surround sound audio (very common in DVD and Blu-ray rips) — browsers can't play these directly.
• AVI, WMV and FLV files — older formats that modern browsers don't support.
• Files using older video formats like MPEG-4 Part 2 or WMV video.

What the orange button does

Tapping the orange button converts the video as it plays — you don't have to wait for anything to finish first. The audio is converted to standard stereo and the video is adjusted if needed. It all happens live on the Pi, so you might notice a brief pause at the start, especially on older models.

Want a permanent fix?

If you find yourself tapping the orange button a lot, it's worth converting those files once and for all using a free tool called HandBrake. Converted files will play instantly on any device without any extra steps. A good starting point is the "Fast 1080p30" preset.

This is usually easy to sort out. Here's what to try:

• Give it up to 30 seconds after plugging in — the Pi needs a moment to recognise and set up the drive.
• Try restarting with the drive already plugged in (Settings → Reboot).
• Make sure the drive has been formatted. NTFS, exFAT and FAT32 are all supported. If it's a brand new drive that's never been used, you may need to format it on a PC first.
• Using a Pi 3, or connecting two drives at once? Drives that draw all their power from the USB port can struggle. A drive with its own mains power supply is much more reliable, especially on older Pi models.

Can't save files to the drive?

• Check there's no write-protect switch on the drive itself — some portable drives have one on the side.
• If the drive was unplugged from a Windows PC without ejecting it properly first, it might have been set to read-only as a precaution. Eject it from the myUSBdrive dashboard, plug it into a Windows PC, and let Windows check it for errors. Once that's done, plug it back into the Pi.

Can't eject the drive?

This usually means something else is still using it. Try these steps:

• Close any files you have open on that drive from other computers.
• If another device has the shared folder open, close that connection too.
• Wait a minute and try again — sometimes a background task just needs a moment to finish.

If you want to upgrade to a newer Pi or replace one that's stopped working, you can simply take the SD card out of the old Pi and put it into the new one. Everything on the card — your settings, files, passwords and configuration — comes with it.

What works straight away

Your USB drives, file browser, music player, video streaming, network shares and recycle bin will all work exactly as before. If you had drive mirroring set up, that will continue running too. Your device name, Wi-Fi settings, and everything else stored on the SD card carries over automatically.

What you'll need to set up again

• Re-activate your device — your subscription is linked to the specific Pi it was set up on. After moving to a new Pi, go to the Subscription page and activate again. Your existing subscription transfers to the new device.
• Re-set up two-factor authentication — if you had this enabled, you'll need to set it up again in Settings → Security from your local network.
• Re-add remote network shares — if you had any remote shares configured (connections to other computers or NAS devices), you'll need to add them again with their passwords. The saved passwords are encrypted in a way that only works on the original Pi, so they can't be read on a different one.

You can add files to your drive through the web dashboard as well as over your network shares. On your home network you can upload freely. When you're away from home and connected through your myusb.cloud address, uploading also asks for your two-factor authentication code, so a stolen password alone can't add files to your drive.

To keep the computers and phones in your household safe, myUSBdrive holds back a few higher-risk file types when they're uploaded, and puts them in a quarantine area until you approve them. These are the sorts of files that could harm a Windows or Mac device if opened without thinking, such as:

• Archives that might contain hidden programs (.zip, .rar, .7z, .iso)
• Programs and installers (.exe, .msi, .app)
• Scripts and shortcuts (.bat, .cmd, .ps1, .sh, .vbs, .lnk)
• Office documents that can run macros (.docm, .xlsm, .pptm)

When something is quarantined, you'll see a notification that files are waiting for approval. Nothing is deleted: your file is safely set aside, and you decide whether to approve it (which moves it into your folder as normal) or remove it. Everyday files like photos, videos, music and documents are never quarantined and upload straight away.