How to Move Games and Files From PS5 to External Hard Drive

The PlayStation 5 allows you to get external hard drives and SSDs to expand its storage, allowing you to store more games and files.

In this guide, we’ll tell you how to transfer files between these expanded storage options and the console’s internal storage.

Huge thanks to YourSixStudios for the images.

How to Move Games and Files Between PlayStation 5 Storage and External Drives

You can manage games and files on your PlayStation from the Storage settings. These can be accessed from the Home Screen.

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On the Home Screen, open Settings. It’s the gear-shaped icon at the top right, next to your PSN avatar.

Scroll down to Storage and select it. You will see all your storage devices here, with Console Storage referring to the PS5’s internal drive.

Select which device you wish to move games and files from. In this case, select Console Storage. This will let you see everything that’s currently on your PS5’s drive, just pick the category you want.

Navigate to the game or file you wish to move and press the X button on your controller. Choose “Select Items to Move”.

Now check everything you wish to move. Highlight the “Move” button on the right when you’re done and press X to confirm.

The transfer will start and move everything you selected. If you’re transferring to an M.2 SSD, it shouldn’t take long at all to transfer.

An external HDD will take way longer, however, due to its slowest transfer speeds. The duration of the transfer will also depend on just how many files you’re moving.

Note that you also won’t be able to launch PS5 games from external HDDs, but you can still use them for backup. However, you can launch PS5 games from your added M.2 SSD.

You can transfer the games from the HDD to the console storage to play them, and Sony claims it’s faster than reinstalling. PS4 games will launch from the external HDD, though, just not PS5 games.

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