Chrome OS now plays much nicer with Android than it used to and recent commits to the Chromium Gerrit for Chrome OS have suggested that this will only continue to improve in the future. A recent code discovery revealed that the Chrome OS launcher will soon let users search for Android app shortcuts and today’s discovery reveals that Chrome OS will finally start showing Android files in the Files app.
This feature addition will be very useful on Chromebooks that are capable of running Android apps. Users will be able to see all Android files on their Chromebook using the Chrome OS Files app.
It’s currently not possible to do this on Chromebooks that can run Android apps. Files in Android’s /data/media can’t be viewed in the app, it’s the storage location that Android apps use to store files. Users only have access to the Android Downloads folder.
If users want to access a file that’s stored by an Android app in a different directory, they first have to move it to the cloud or the Android Downloads folder before they can access it on the Chromebook. With the native Files app allowing users to see all of Android’s external storage within the app, this is going to get much easier.
This remains an experimental feature for now which can be enabled through the flag titled –show-android-files-in-files-app. The “Android Files” option will then appear in the Chrome OS Files app. It will be available in the Canary builds soon as well.
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