File storage on iPhone: Solved!

Count me among those who have bemoaned the fact that you can’t use your iPhone as a storage device. Well now—if you have a Mac—you can.

The means to this minor miracle is Ecamm Network’s $10 iPhoneDrive. This is a small utility that, when launched, displays the free storage area of your iPhone much like a Finder window in Column view. You can add files to the iPhone either by clicking the Copy To iPhone button or by dragging a file or folder into the iPhoneDrive window.

To copy items from the iPhone, simply drag them from the iPhoneDrive window to a location on your Mac or select them and click the Copy From iPhone button. You can also delete items by selecting them and clicking the Delete icon at the top of the iPhoneDrive window.

iPhoneDrive isn’t the perfect sneaker-net solution because you’ll need to have a copy of the program on any Mac you connect your iPhone to, but for someone who’s been looking for some way—any way—to use the iPhone for storage, it’s a heck of a good start.

Category: Software, Tips & Troubleshooting

Posted by Christopher Breen on Jul 11 2007, 1:42 AM ET

Comments (7)

It's important to note, however, that music and photo files for =use= on your iPhone are off limits to this program.

-dan

Posted by danham | July 11, 2007 8:42 AM

dang, dan answered my question.
: (

Posted by franko | July 11, 2007 11:33 AM

Dan: Right. The application is for storing and managing files you've copied to the iPhone with the application. It has no awareness of files you've synced to the iPhone.

Posted by Chris Breen | July 11, 2007 11:36 AM

Even if it did provide access to the the synced files, they are all indexed in special directories with unintelligible file names. If you messed with them it would screw up the iTunes syncing.

-Ken

Posted by Ken | July 11, 2007 12:04 PM

Even if it did provide access to the the synced files, they are all indexed in special directories with unintelligible file names. If you messed with them it would screw up the iTunes syncing.

-Ken

Posted by Ken | July 11, 2007 12:04 PM

What people may be looking for is a Senuti-like solution, where, even though the files bear nonsense names, they can be copied from the iPhone to the computer.

Posted by Chris Breen | July 11, 2007 12:14 PM

Great to know! This is one of the main things I use my iPod for (transfering files between work and home). I was sad to see the iPhone didn't offer the same functionality.

Posted by Kelly Turner | July 11, 2007 2:24 PM

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