# Any way to check a thumb drive's contents without a computer?



## Xander416 (Nov 12, 2019)

Like on a phone, for example? Research on the net has afforded me nothing.

I had an idea for an amusing scene where a corrupt federal agent turns over a file to a crime boss's underling, only for the underling, an "old-fashioned" kind of guy, to to see the thumb drive, demand what it is, and have my MC quip something along the lines of, "Dude, it's a thumb drive. Hardly anyone keeps physical documents anymore. Get with the times."


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## Ralph Rotten (Nov 12, 2019)

You could have an adapter that plugs into the USB port, and Android phones do have a file manager.
Also, data can be on a microSD card, and they make jumpdrives that hold an SD card. SDs can be plugged directly into a phone.


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## Darren White (Nov 16, 2019)

What Ralph says. I use an adapter to plug my USB drive into my phone/tablet. It works flawlessly.


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## Foxee (Nov 16, 2019)

If you're fictionalizing you could probably posit that anything that accepts a USB could have something cobbled together that can read the drive. 

For instance, is there a way to jerry-rig things to plug the thumb drive into the socket of a two-socket charger and an ipod in the other, and because someone is_ just that good_ they've found a way to link the two rather than just using it as a charger?

I think there are picture frames that use thumb drives, you wouldn't be the first to use that idea but it's there.

Televisions and gaming systems...don't most of them have USB drives now? So maybe plug it into the handy-dandy big-screen TV that's in the room (maybe).


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## K.S. Crooks (Nov 24, 2019)

Most blue-ray players and TVs have USB ports. I don't know if they really work to look at documents, but they for sure work for pictures.


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## Xander416 (Nov 25, 2019)

I need a platform that's pocket-transportable, so DVD players, game consoles, and the like aren't suitable. The microSD card seems like the most convenient for the situation, so I'm going with it.


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## frosty_the_hu-man (Nov 25, 2019)

If you want to appeal to a certain audience, you can mention that the phone's OS is a proprietary UNIX descendant (in other words, it's an iPhone) and, depending on the file being read and what application is needed to open it (is it just text?), it may require jailbreaking.


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