SanDisk iXpand™ Drive Reviews

by IMFishing4Gold

I can no longer use SanDiskiXpand on my iPad due to constant crashes. I have been trying to transfer an Excel spreadsheet from my flash drive to my iPad for the last week only to have to SanDisk app crash when I touch the send button each and every time. After which SanDiskiXpand refuses to read any files on my flash drive. Just to see if it was only the Excel file I tried .pdf and .jpg files and had the same results when trying to transfer them.

I have tried deleting and reinstalling SanDiskiXpand several times; ensuring all other apps are completely closed; turning my iPad completely off and back on again; and making sure I am running my iPad on the latest IOS update (currently 14.0). None of this has helped.

I’ve been using this program and flash drive for the last couple of years and have been very happwith it; so to have this happen is very disappointing. This company has been very solid in the products and technology they’ve provided for their customers. I am shocked by this poor quality that I am experiencing with SanDiskiXpand since the latest update and truly hope they get this remedied ASAP.

Interestingly, SanDiskiXpand has continued to worked fine on my iPhone. The problem is with the iPad version.

by Kerberos70

SanDiskiXpand and the external device it works with both appear to be bloated malware sitting on your phone, waiting to guzzle all your data. I do not feel comfortable uploading my data to the device and app at all. On your home page, you get a giant yellow ad that that is essentially impossible to remove. I didn’t purchase this product to look at your ads. When opening and uploading your files, you get an “arranging your files so you don’t have to” prompt which is extremely infuriating. The application has several data collection features that are concerning. Even if you do not opt-in, it appears they still collect some information. It is completely unacceptable. I will be returning the flash drive, deleting SanDiskiXpand and letting people know across all social media not to purchase the flash drive nor download SanDiskiXpand . It’s not worth it.

by SoBeenThere

If you read my review of an earlier version of this program, you can stop here and understand that this version is worse. BACKUP DELETES FILES FROM ALBUMS RANDOMLY! Even after you press “DO NOT DELETE”. You can’t turn it off and I can’t figure out why those particular photos were selected. One backup, 20 images apart generated a backup of over 9,000 images. WHY? There were only 20 that needed backing up! Worse, I had to babysit the backup because it froze what felt like every 10 seconds. Restore still restores the whole library, without restoring your albums. Go figure out which copy to delete from your library. Better yet, try recreating albums of 500+ images. (Hint: IMHO, IMHO, IMHO this program is #2 on the list of don’t touch.) But what do I know? I only brought a company from the age of VAX to PCs, *nix, and server farms. ALL needing reliable backup and restore not of just libraries, but individual files in specific sub-sub-directories. OTS software handled this with proper aplomb, why not from this manufacturer? BTW - my PHOTOs library currently contains almost 24,000 images. Copy ONLY copies in DATE ORDER.

by Cfevrfgrffv

It is impossible to copy more than one file at a time to an app. The popup menu that is supposed to allow this after selecting them is nonfunctional; any icon you click has does nothing. The developers have also systematically removed in-app functionality which would force you to copy content to other apps, but as I said, this is impossible. And after being forced to try to copy one file at a time, you have to go through several superfluous steps because it first tries to play the content (which as I said, it now rarely can), then after overriding that it will try transfer any video or document to the photo library first, assuming it doesn’t just crash or kick you back to the menu which it does more often than not. If you manage to override that, maybe it will copy the file, though the progress bar always stops at the same place so you have to manually check in the other app. Which will kick you back to opening SanDisk menu, of course. Incompetence all around.

by Isabella, Destroyer Of Worlds

I have a 512GB iPhone XS Max with about 355GB of photos/videos on it currently. Half of that is screenshots, and I wanted to get those screenshots off my phone. SanDiskiXpand is taking forever to load my library, and at the time of writing, has still not successfully loaded it. I bought a 256GB iXpand for this, and now you're gonna tell me SanDiskiXpand doesn't even work...? I might have to return it. I can't sit around for hours just waiting for it to load in the first place!!! I know it'll probably take me a full day or more to get all those screenshots off of my phone, so I need to know it'll work before I set aside a whole 24 hours for this. I'm not amused at all.

EDIT: I don't use iCloud and SanDiskiXpand has all the necessary permissions. I'm on iPhone XS Max, not 11. This developer response is worthless to me. I already mentioned my phone type, and if I used iCloud, why would I need something like this to transfer my photos? Either way, I would have mentioned it. What a poor response to my problem, THAT STILL HASN'T BEEN SOLVED!!!

by Dontbuysandisk

Sandisk, don’t bother to reply with one of your generic “fixes”. After reading the reviews, this product has caused MANY people to lose their IMPORT pictures/files and your lame “fixes” are a sad attempt to help people that you have left high and dry with this product for iOS users.
I have tried all of the fixes seen online to get my phone to acknowledge the memory stick (brand new iPhone 12 pro). I feared buying a “photo memory stick” that requires an app with it to work. I should have done more research for the few memory sticks that do not require an app. I’ve now lost access to 11,000 photos of my kids adventures over the past 5 years! Thanks sandisk for such a wonderful product. My Mother is also having the same problem after being able to download without trouble the first few times. Now the phone just repeatedly asks to insert memory stick no matter how many times it’s unplugged and plugged and SanDiskiXpand is uninstalled and reinstalled. Both phones are running up to date iOS.
DO NOT USE OR ACCEPT A FREE SANDISK IXPAND EVER FOR IOS DEVICES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU MIGHT AS WELL JUST DELETE ALL OF YOUR PHOTOS INSTEAD OF TRYING TO USE ONE OF THESE, (It would be a lot less frustrating than trying to use this product on new iOS devices).

by Hopefully Helpful Critic

There may be some customers out there who think, “this is a great idea to bypass my low available memory message on my phone and record long (large file size) videos.” If you have a iPhone which is one of the 8 GB or 16 GB, this product isn’t one you can use to record long videos. If you have a large amount of space on your phone available already for those long videos, SanDiskiXpand will probably work great. But if you’re like me, and are trying to find a way to save large single video files straight to a computer via this flash drive, this isn’t the product for you. Even though there is an in-app camera that seems like it would do this, It still maxes off based on your phones available memory (not the flash drives). Great idea, hope to one day find a product to meet this need, because the iOS system keeps taking up way to much space on these low memory phones. 8GB and even 16GB phones doesn’t really give much room amymore.

by GWGregg

It’s a good flash drive, in theory, but SanDiskiXpand used to access the files on it is seriously buggy. The “Arranging content so you don’t have to” sequence is an infuriating issue. I’ve already arranged my files, when I copied them to the flash drive! What do you need to “arrange”? Why does it take forever? Why is there no progress bar so I have an idea of how long it will take, or whether it’s just locked up? Why, after you’ve done it, do my video files link to metadata from the internet that are not actually associated with their content?
In the file manager are stupid pictures of supposedly hip people that take up an enormous amount of space, instead of a clean file management interface that uses the space well.
Structurally, there are other issues. The USB connector end of the drive is exposed, with no protective cap. The Lightning connector end of the drive has a teeny tiny cap, about the size of a pea, making it easy to misplace. When copying large files to the flash drive, it copies quite slowly and heats up a lot. Hoping for a next-generation version of this that addresses at least the ridiculous “Arranging content” nonsense.

by Taylorjs417

SanDiskiXpand used to be perfect & then it started acting up all the time. I love that it does what I want it to do; store photos & videos in folders that I can have named & separated. I have half of my life in this usb. But the crashing is ridiculous. Sometimes when the usb is plugged into my phone & I open SanDiskiXpand , SanDiskiXpand just stays at the “plug in your ixand drive” page, tho it’s clearly plugged in. I’ll take it out & put it back in but the screen stays up. I usually have to restart SanDiskiXpand & plug in again. & sometimes while in SanDiskiXpand selecting photos to transer or while transferring, SanDiskiXpand will just force shutdown & I’ll have to start over with what I was doing. & lately I’ll be in SanDiskiXpand selecting items to transer & when I go to select which folder to transer to, the folders will show up with “0 items” & I’m not able to transer them. I have tried & tried to do it over & restart SanDiskiXpand but it keeps showing up as “0 items” please fix these irritating issues.

by Yashisaur

Hello! So I have a large collection of music I would like to play, the audio files contain all the correct information such as the name, artist, album, year, etc.. Yet every time I go to the built in music player, every song is named “unknown” and when played, only shows the name and the file extension.

The audio works flawlessly, though I can’t scrub through a song to skip further into it, playing audio isn’t an issue, I just would like to see my song names in the list view, my albums, and their album covers.

I have each album separated by folder, in which contains a 500x500 album cover. If there were to be an update to fix this and show all my song info, SanDiskiXpand would easily be a 5/5, thank you!!

by Bill 07/23/2020

In version 5.3.2 of SanDiskiXpand running on iOS 11.3.1 iPad, there is a problem with transferring (copying, viewing, and moving) PDFs stored locally on the iPad and the iXpand drive. These include some manuals downloaded, textbooks, and printed PDFs (Google docs, Sheets etc.) of webpages.

Viewing the local iXpand folder (iPad) within the iPad File app and/ or iXpand app and selecting one or more PDFs for copying to a folder created on the iXpand drive, there’s always a error message displayed “0 files successfully saved to IXpand Drive” even after multiple attempts. Printing a webpage to PDF and directly saving to the iXpand drive also fails after clicking the “Save here” button. Trying to use “More option” causes SanDiskiXpand to abruptly crash.

Self-made PDFs do not open for viewing, SanDiskiXpand requests another program to view. Some published PDFs such as the iXpand manual downloaded from the SanDisk website will open for viewing and saving to the drive. Others do not.

Adding the the step of saving the PDFs to the cloud (Google Drive) and then selecting the PDFs for transfer to the iXpand drive using “Open in” works but defeats the purpose of transferring directly between the iPad and iXpand.

Please troubleshoot these issues. Thank you.

by Schneb

UPDATE: Was sent a suggestion by the developer to use a secondary player called Evermusic. Seems counter intuitive to use another app when just a few upgrades would make your built-in player usable. I decided to download from iXpand to “Files” and play on VLC.

Ok, got the hardware and my first issue was having to repeatedly “allow” communication to the device. Yes, ALLOW, why can’t you remember? Second, I waited 10 minutes for it to begin to sort things out initially. Figured it got stuck so I closed it. Now it works. However, the audio player was poorly designed. It has previous, play, and next buttons. That’s it. What about jump forward a minute? Fast reverse? Fast forward? The buttons are also small and hard to get to on a 5s iPhone. All the real estate is used for cover art.. which I don’t need. The time line is almost impossible to use with no idea where I am at in the file. Worst of all, SanDiskiXpand will not remember where I last left off. I decided to transfer my files and use VLC, but why should I have to? The VLC player should be a model to go by. Not perfect, but far better than this one.

by Rr851

I bought this device for backing up my iPhone. Everything seemed fine, the backup was flawless and quick, the ability to either use the pre created folders or giving you the ability to create new ones and even the automatic backup when connected. Everything sounds good, no? Well, not quite. I backup the photos taken with my DSLR to my phone and they have a different name than the standard IMGxxx format so I can differentiate them when I transfer them to my PC. After copying all the files from my iPhone to the IXpand, it changed the name of ALL the photos. Worse, it added a ~photo or ~video suffix to each file depending what it is. I checked on SanDiskiXpand , but there is no option to turn that off. I checked online and it seems that it was a unilateral decision from Sandisk to change the naming convention a while ago and despite all the complaints from unhappy customers, Sandisk does not seem to listen to what the people is asking for.

I guess I will keep it but backing up my phone looks like it’s going to be a very tedious job and that’s not what I was looking for. And for that, my rating is 3 out of 5.

by DOMNICKROSS

This is great to save storage. BUT, One of the biggest problems I have is that if you delete something from the iXpand (folders, photos, videos, etc.) and if it’s on accident, it’s gone for good. There’s no “Deleted” section and I’ve spent all day and $70 trying to find a recovery for the iXpand. My advice is that you need to give iXpand a Deleted/Recyling Bin. That way if the users delete something on accident then they can get it back.

The other thing is you can’t remove things from folders. I’ve tried, it doesn’t work. You delete the entire thing doing so. There needs to be a way to do that to. Or if you delete the folder, you should be asked if you want to deleted the content within it or just folder and the content can stay.

by B8119

Update : This new update has fixed my problem!!! Thank You!!!!

I love SanDiskiXpand!!! But since the newest update it keeps crashing when you try to transfer a file into PowerPoint. SanDiskiXpand honestly has helped me so much for the year that I have had it. I wish i didn’t have to give it a bad review right now but with me being so reliant on SanDiskiXpand to do my work I really had to get in touch some way and this was they only way I knew. So please whoever fixes these things please fix the bug I cant do my work and it really stinks. P.S. (I will delete or edit this review if an update fixes the problem)

In response to this complaint, I was told to make sure that my iPad was updated to the version 13.7 and it is. If that wasn’t the case then I was told to uninstall and reinstall SanDiskiXpand to see if that worked (It didn't). If neither of these worked I was told to contact SanDisk support and I did. The person was very helpful and gave me some possible solutions as to what probably needed to be done to fix the issue. But neither of the possible solutions worked and my chat was disconnected after the solutions were given. So I am still no where closer to getting this fixed and still think that SanDiskiXpand has a problem as I wasn’t having any issues until this last update. (My 1 Star will have to stay for know sorry)

by Ivan Machiz

In this little drive is easy to work with and very helpfull to keep my phone free to shoot more photos and video. I shoot a lot. I definitely recommend the drive. One concern has cost me no end of grief and that is edited video that was shot on my iPhone and edited on iMovie for iPhone was exported to the drive on two occasions where it over wrote a previous video. The previous video had been done a day earlier. This happened twice while I was in China and I lost all my edits. This happened twice before I realized what was happening and could stop the bleeding by placing videos into their own separate folders. Very inefficient, and a real pain. Not an elegant workaround but a workaround nonetheless. Hence the four stars which, considering the nature of the problem might actually make it deserve two stars, you decide. I’ve been happy with the Drive in all other respects.

by Allnicknamesaretaken909

Device worked great! Fast and easy. A very intuitive interface to move files and create new folders within the device, making it easy to get my photos and videos off my Apple phone.

But then it stopped working! It took me a bit of research and troubleshooting to fix it. But it’s fixed! If your device stops working, you may need to remove the program from your phone or iPad, and then reinstall. I also went to Sandisk website and ran a utility to re flash the thumbdrive itself. It’s all written in the troubleshooting file on the thumbdrive, experienced computer people will have no problem, but the less experienced can do it too if they follow those instructions.

I love the little device and think it’s genius, I use it all the time, to clear space on my phone and get my pics onto the computer. So it was worth the trouble to keep it working. Hopefully newer models won’t have this problem?

by Aloneinpain

Unfortunate you can't save photos from within a text to ixpand. It takes you through all the steps to save so I know the ability is there, however inevitably every single time it will reveal ERROR -FAILED TO SAVE
So you end up having to take the long route and save it to your photo library first (defeats the purpose when your intent is to free up your photo library)
Then, with that, be prepared to save 1 picture at a time. It's so basic you are even unable to "select all" and move all photos from your photo library to ixpand. It only allows you to move 1-10 at a time. Not too great when you're trying to transfer 1,000 pictures
With that being said, it does me ok.
It's just if you're looking for something that's technologically "current" , this definately isn't it

by Little_Chami

I just bought this and when I plugged it in it immediately redirected me to SanDiskiXpand Store. This is a very nice feature that I have never known of. SanDiskiXpand is very quick and helps you backup all of your files backed up. I have lost my contacts so many times and then I bought this thing because I had extra money to flex and bought a 32gb iExpand and was very satisfied with the results. Here are a few things that would help.

1. Add waterproof. (I don’t know if it has it and I’m not going to test it.)

2. Backup notes from the notes app.

3. Make a better casing for the usb. (It scratches pretty easily.)

4. Make it so that when your on a third party app you can browse SanDiskiXpand from the third party app instead of downloading and then going to library.

5. Add fingerprint passcode to show files.

6. Re-make the browse files. (I don’t know why but it doesn’t show photos in the photo folder. It only shows if you click on photos)

by Jop2016

Before I got my iXpand drive I had to update my storage and pay monthly in order to keep all my photos and storage free. Since I got my drive I’ve downloaded all of my photos and videos and cleared up 62gb on my phone. I was able to stop paying the monthly fee.
You can also really Organize everything into folders and name your videos so that you know what your looking for. Has helped clean out my storage and help keep my photos organized. Would highly recommend! I did start with the 32gb and quickly filled it up with only half of my camera roll so I would go with a bigger version of you have a lot to export!

by Baseball Dad La

Been using for a few years and loved it initially. Now, Sandisk decided to change the file name when files are manually copied to the drive. The file name is a very long series of random characters. No two are alike. You no longer can tell what the file name is. I asked customer support and confirm that change was by design. I can understand when 2 or more people share the same drive as some files could be overwritten when copied to another phone. Ok. I get that but why not just put the operators initials as part of the file name instead of 50 random characters. They have taken a major step backwards with this modification. Totally stupid idea. How about this, let the operator choose how to name the files as they are copied manually. If I could give 0 stars for this change then I could. This change does not warrant a 1 star.

by Tezhan

Worked well enough on iOS 10.3 to connect automatically. But going to iOS 11 it takes me 2-5 minutes. If it doesn’t connect by then then I need to force close the application and retry. Another 2-5 minutes more.

The media player works well enough but I would like to see improvements in screen rotation and full screen selection. If I open file browser in upside down portrait screen mode, it’ll be ok until I open or play the file. It’ll flip back to rightside up after file is opened. The reason I hold it upside down is because USB drive gets in way of holding in original portrait mode.

Similar issue when viewing files in landscape and depress full screen button. It’ll switch to full screen for portrait mode even though it would be best to keep landscape full screen.

by TSchrauger

I’m on the road servicing various industrial equipment. To carry manuals for everything I work on would require me to pull a trailer, ha, so I have a “Work” directory on my laptop, with my pdf manuals organized by manufacturers. This little drive allows me to carry that 34 gig file in my pocket, on my phone or iPad. Unlike some other lightning thumb drives, this one maintains my file directory structure so I can easily locate my manuals. I do find that if my device goes to sleep I may have to close the program and restart because it thinks the drive is missing, this one little inconvenience is why I didn’t give 5 stars.

by BelovedFaithful

I really enjoy SanDiskiXpand, but I wish it was easier to upload chats with friends and items other than photos. I would also like to see my photos instead of folders, when I name a group of photos, and have them easier to organize. Finally, I would like to have SanDiskiXpand take up less space on my phone; I noticed when I transfer items from my phone to my device, my "Settings" menu shows SanDiskiXpand as having more data than before I uploaded items to my device. I then have the need to delete SanDiskiXpand and reinstall it so that my used memory goes down.

by Msdio

I have a 32G and 128G. They both work fine with my iPhone 6s. I have tried a few others. But this is the only one that stays working after iOS changes from 8, 9, to 10. Those made by other non-brand names just seem not able to keep up with the iOS changes. This stick also works fast. Almost plug and go. The one drawback is that it does heat up considerably when it's plugged in to the phone. Also, a nuisance is the clumsy way of navigating through picture albums. I have to keep scrolling to jump to the last picture of an album, which can take a while if there are thousands of pictures in that album.

by MokiMokChan

Just bought this, and when I went to copy less than 15 files, it would only do 4. I tried several times, but still it did not work. Did some reading, and apparently it really doesn't work right if iCloud is set up. And if I turn off iCloud, I will not have have access to the photos. That’s what I would call a paradox - cant fix something without breaking another.
However, I DID find a way around this I believe. If I go through my photos, I can upload then from there (like I was sending a message). It also saves the correct file name. It’ll just be time consuming this way.

by Cyberdynefan

I originally gave it 5 stars. Then good time went bad! I purchased my third unit. I have been having so many problems with it. The image quality when I save in Photoshop Express is HORRIBLE! I had some videos and had to download an app to watch them which really screwed up the unit. Now I can’t open any of my pictures now! I tried to get help on both sides from Photoshop and Sandisk with no success. I tried deleting and reloading SanDiskiXpand and still have problems. Anyone else have issues in the last month? Could this be a defective stick?