Get the most from your media

Get posters and details automatically

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.

One folder per show

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.

Albums, artwork and covers

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.

Folders by year and event

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.