If you shoot in 4K or 8K, your phone's internal storage fills up fast. A few minutes of footage from something like the Galaxy S26 Ultra â especially in the new APV format â can eat several gigabytes before you've even had a chance to review the clip.Galaxy phones have a fix for this that many people don't know about: you can record video straight to a USB-C drive while you're filming, bypassing internal storage entirely. The feature works with every video format the Camera app supports, including APV.This isn't a microSD workaround. The Camera app saves footage directly to whatever's plugged into your USB-C port â a flash drive, a portable SSD, Samsung's T-series drives, etc. â as you record. The phone never buffers it internally first.What you need to use this featureNot every Galaxy model supports this. It's generally available on newer devices running One UI 7.0 and up.For storage, a flash drive will technically work, but a portable SSD is the better call. Video recording puts sustained pressure on write speeds, and slower drives struggle (more on that below). The cable or adapter you use matters too; a flimsy connector mid-recording is asking for trouble.Why record directly to external storageThe obvious reason: you can stop worrying about storage space. Shoot an event, a long interview, or a day of travel without pausing to delete old files.It also makes it easier to work with your files. When you're done, pull the drive out and plug it into your computer. No cable, no file transfer, no waiting, as the footage is already there.How to enable video recording to external storageThe steps to enable video recording to external storage differ depending on your One UI version.On One UI 8.0 and below:Open the Camera app and go to its settings.Scroll down and tap the Camera Assistant option. (This is a separate app even though it's accessible from the Camera app's settings, and if it isn't installed on your device, you can download it from the Galaxy Store.)Enable the Save videos to external storage option. Steps to enable save to external storage feature – Source: Abhijeet Mishra / SamMobile On One UI 8.5 and above:Open the Camera app and go to its settings.Under the Video section, enable the Save videos to external storage option.Once it's enabled, a USB-C indicator appears in the top-right corner of the viewfinder while you record, along with a readout of how much recording time is left on the drive. To find your recordings, go to My Files > USB storage and open the DCIM folder.Make sure your drive is properly formattedThe drive needs to be formatted as either exFAT or FAT32, but FAT32 will cause problems. It caps individual file sizes at 4GB, which means a long or high-resolution recording might fail to save or get split into multiple parts.If you format the drive directly on the phone, it defaults to FAT32. For video, we recommend formatting it as exFAT on a Windows PC instead so there's no limit on individual file sizes.Drives with multiple partitions worked fine in our testing as long as they were formatted correctly. Bootable drives â like a Windows installation USB, which has multiple partitions â may not work at all. Make sure to back up your data before formatting, as this will erase everything on the drive.External storage speed is importantIn our testing, a standard flash drive introduced a noticeable delay after stopping a recording. It takes several seconds for the video to be saved, and the Camera app locks you out while it finishes writing. You can't exit to the home screen or switch apps until it's done. Presumably this is to prevent corrupted files, but it's frustrating in practice. A faster drive will make all the difference here. A portable SSD cuts that wait down considerably and is also faster when you want to open the files for viewing or editing later.One more thing worth knowing: if the drive disconnects mid-recording, the footage won't be recoverable. In our testing, nothing was saved when that happened, so make sure the connection is solid before you start. Browse latest Samsung offers Samsung Store