May throw Ipad out of window

In My Humble Opinion
1

Hopefully the good people of the dope may be able to help me.

I’ve been given an ipad by work. OK, I know I can’t simply plug in a usb drive to move files across, work policy won’t allow it.

I do have a verbatim media wireless dongle thing which I can plug a usb drive into, complete with files, access it via wifi and an app on the ipad.
So far so good. I’ve copied a file from the verbatim and pasted into “documents” one of the only two folders that the verbatim app lets me see on my ipad.

Now comes the problem. Using the “files” app on the ipad to then access that file is impossible. Not only can I not see the file, I can’t even see either of those two folders (“documents” and “ipad photos”) they just don’t seem to exist.

I’m about to trash this useless piece of shit, I thought they were supposed to be intuitive?

2

If you can, a Onedrive folder will work on both your computer and your ipad, and its great for sharing without using a dongle. I think Google Drive can do the same thing, but I’ve never used Google drive.

3

OK, I’ve got both onedrive, icloud and google drive but that means uploading to the the cloud and then downloading to the ipad, that seems a bit of a faff

4

Maybe you should ask whoever gave you the iPad how they intend for you to use it?

5

If it were an android device, I’d suggest making sure the tablet is turned on and unlocked while you’re trying to access the files. By default, you can’t access files externally if the device hasn’t been unlocked. No idea if it’s true for Apple products.

6

There’s nothing wrong with the way I’m using it.

7

it is unlocked and fully open. I’m just trying to find the folder into which I successfully pasted a file

8

Then I will retreat to threads where I can exhibit my normal level of marginal usefulness.

9

Usually you can access files from the cloud and use as needed without having to download them back to your device. That’s really the way things are now. I can’t think of the last time I manually moved something from my computer to my phone. If I want say a picture from my computer, I just upload it to Google Photos.

10

that’s bit of a pain as it means a bit of double handling. As much as anything I’m annoyed that Ijust can’t find the damn file that I successfully moved on there.
Also, I’ve now got a GB of data that I can’t delete.

11

For reasons I’ve never figured out, sometimes when I click on the folder icon on my iPad, it drops me into a sub folder instead of the main folder. Maybe that’s where I left off, sometime in the distant past?

Anyway, after you click on the folder icon, check on the upper left of the new window to make sure there isn’t some arrow indicating that you’re into a sub folder. At the main folder level, you should be able to see both cloud files, and files on my iPad….

12

thanks all, I’ve found a work-around where I can open the app, even if the verbatim device isn’t connected and from there i can access those folders, use the files and delete if need be.

Still can’t see them in the main file manager though, seems weird to me but at least I can manage it.

13

I find they are only intuitive if you are familiar with iOS. Otherwise it can be needlessly confusing. I never under the intuitive thing either.

14

We were issued laptops (small screen was a pain) for work (retired now) but they were 1000 times easier for work use than a tablet. Tablets are glorified toys and not handy for work use, IMHO.

Can use flash drives for transferring files whereas iPads you can’t.

15

I’m not clear what you mean by the “Documents” folder. By default, in the Files app on macOS, you have a root (base) directory, and then different apps create directories if you export data or store files Files (i.e. if you have the Acrobat app you’ll have an “Acrobat” folder with all of the PDF files that you have downloaded). There is no Windows-like file hierarchy in Files by default and with good reason. If there is a Documents folder somewhere on the device or are accessing from the USB drive, you should be able to go into Files and search for “Documents” to find it.

Note that Files is not a complete listing of all files that are stored on the device. Most apps will store data in their particular storage locations that are not readily accessible to the user. This is a feature, not a bug; it allows apps to be sandboxed so that they are better protected against computer viruses and malware hijacking the device (can still happen but generally requires some kind of previously unknown exploit in the operating system rather than a user running with administrative privileges). If you are using a particular app to access your Verbatim wireless system, the files are probably stored in that apps location rather than files, and you will need to send them to Files.

As others have noted, the iPad and tablets in general are really intended to be used in a “cloud” type file sharing architecture rather than with attached physical media. It reduces energy, memory and storage requirements, and is generally more suited to the way a tablet is intended to be used as a mobile device. That being said, I’ve been able to connect and transfer files using USB-C (on my private machine with no absurd lockouts they way your company-issued machine has), via AirDrop, through various apps over WiFi and Bluetooth, and from a variety of cloud storage (iCloud, Dropbox, et cetera) pretty seamlessly from other computers, portable USB hard drives, digital cameras, et cetera.

Stranger

16

You’re holding it wrong. Or rather, that is not the way Ipads handle files.

On your PC, you get sent a file, then you can save it in your Documents folder and open it with Word, Excel, or whatever. Perhaps you use Excel to create a graph, save it in your Documents folder, then add it to a Word document by looking in your Documents folder and importing the file into Word.

That is not how Ipads and IOS/IpadOS work or handle files. You need to get away from that kind of thinking, as it will just make things difficult for you.

Each application on the Ipad has its own file area. Some of those file areas are exposed in the Files app, some are not. If you go into Files you may see folders associated with a few of your apps. If you use Files to put something in one of the app specific folders, then that app will be able to see it.

So, you probably put your documents into the Verbatim app’s Documents folder, not some device wide Documents folder.

Usually the way to pass a file between apps on the Ipad is by sharing. In the Verbatim app, or other apps, you may be able to tap or long tap on the file, and then “share” it. That should give you a list of apps it can be shared to, and will then be visible in or opened with.

That is how I get movies from off my Ipad into VLC (a media player) on my Ipad. I download or copy the movie into my equivalent of the Verbatim app, and then share the movie with VLC. That copies the movie into VLC’s file space, and then I can play the movie. At that point I can also delete the copy in my equivalent of the Verbatim app.

Cloud stuff can often make this much easier, as the Microsoft and Google office programs make it easy to open files stored on their respective cloud services.

I am definitely not saying the way the Ipad does things is better, or even really makes any sense; just that’s how it is.

17

exactly this, there seems to be a multitude of folders named “documents” and each are specific to various apps and only accessible through that app and not visible through the general “files” app.
That seems needlessly confusing and counterintuitive. The far more sensible way to deal with it would be to have a single place from which you can see and access everything on the device. No matter I’ve found a way to handle it.

18

Yes, you can.

19

Perhaps I should have said “not as easily and not without a rigmarole”.

20

Services like Dropbox, Google drive, onedrive(Microsoft), iCloud(Apple) exist to solve this problem.

Connecting a (any) drive to (any) OS in a secure manner is a non-trivial problem. Simply connecting to a USB drive is great for usability, but a nightmare for security. Every solution comes with trade-offs. “Cloud” centered devices like iPads, android devices, Chromebooks really are not designed to work with local storage, any solution that does will always feel a bit hacky.