Hello:
It seems that a second Android user I set up in my phone doesn’t have access to the SD card inserted. The card appears well in the “Storage” menu but not in files explorers.
Is that a normal behavior?
Thanks in advance !
How did you set up the card – extended internal storage or “portable storage” (external)?
If it’s internal, what you describe sounds like what I would just expect from that setup.
If you cannot figure out how it’s set up, upload a screenshot (hold POWER + VOLUME DOWN to create one) of Settings > Storage here and people here will be able to instantly determine.
Ok Hi
It seems as though with the SD card set as portable I see no reason why it shouldn’t be accessible/
However you may have to explicitly allow any use to access it.
How can I do that? I don’t see any authorization asked by the file manager…
Something stranger is that when I select the SD card in Simple File Manager (an other app I use to manage files), it sends me to the internal storage (of the user), and when I select internal storage it’s empty…
But with my primary user all works properly.
I imagine it’s the user account that would ask permission to access files, media, contacts etc.
Well if the user doesn’t have permission to use the SD card and goes to internal, then it may well be empty if you haven’t saved anything.
I’ve never had a second account, so about to look into that to better understand.
Are you able to reboot the phone as the second user?
I’ve just set up a second account and can confirm I can not access the SD card as portable.
Maybe the SD card is isolated for security and the second user only has access to ‘their’ space.
On rebooting there was no option to select the user. The lock screen is that of the ‘primary’ user etc.
UPDATE: from
2014 
2021
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I have a guest user, which I rarely use to let other use my phone.
I have just checked it, and the guest cannot access the portable SD (weird, he could format it as I saw from options…).
I checked to add a second user, and a popup told me the new user would need his own space and could change the apps for everyone. I did not go forward on creating it.
Such limitation makes a bit of sense to me. I have data and pictures in the external SD, so its contents should not be accessible to any user.
And, a phone is typically a single user device…
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Yes I did create another user and it is the same as the guest user. I didn’t try formatting the SD card, maybe I will try that tomorrow.
But if that works it may then disable it form the primary user
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