External Storage

Updated February 23, 2026

Plug a USB drive into your Umbrel and it will appear under External storage in the Files sidebar. You can browse, upload to, and manage files on it just like your internal storage.

Safely removing a drive

Always eject a drive before unplugging it. Click the eject button next to the drive in the Files sidebar. Unplugging without ejecting can corrupt data on the drive.

Formatting

If your drive's format isn't supported, Files will offer to format it as exFAT (for compatibility with Windows, macOS, and Linux) or ext4 (for better performance with umbrelOS).

Use as a backup location

External drives can be used as backup locations. When setting up backups in Settings > Backups, choose External Drive as the backup type.

Compatibility

External storage is available on Umbrel Home, Umbrel Pro, and amd64 devices. It is not supported on Raspberry Pi — the Pi cannot reliably power external drives via USB, which can lead to data corruption.

What to know

• External drives can't currently be used to store or run apps — apps run from your Umbrel's internal storage.