6 Amazing Uses of USB Flash Drives in 2022

In the olden days, and to some extent, today, the USB flash drives were absolutely fantastic. People used them for swapping movies and music with friends. People also used USB flash drives to move files between people and devices.

It was definitely easier to carry a USB flash drive with a whole bunch of material rather than carrying paper documents.

But today, things have changed with the help of new technology. Today, we have more updated things like cloud, Google sharing, and AirDrop, which is why the USB flash drives are probably gathering dust underneath your dial-up modem and random cables.

Before you throw your flash drives out, let us tell you many valuable things that you can do with your USB flash drive or your custom SD card. 

Read on to learn more:

Store Travel Documents

Understandably, we are supposed to keep copies of our essential documents whenever we travel, such as the passport, ID, and now, proof of vaccination. While you have the option to store your travel documents in your hotel safe, the thing is that the hotel staff can come to your room and simply reset the safe code.

That said, your travel documents aren’t 100% safe. So, suppose you have one of the tiny USB flash drives, and you hang them into your keyring. In that case, all you have to do is simply have the electronic copies of your essential travel documents, including emergency contact, mandatory medications/ prescriptions, and your travel itinerary.

This way, you will have your essential travel documents with you.

Now, if you are thinking that this isn’t a helpful thing to do as there is a chance of losing your USB flash drive, and then someone else will have access to your important information – you might be right. Still, you can benefit from certain free utilities that encrypt all data on your USB flash drive, such as the Disk Cryptor or VeraCrypt.

These are open-source encryption utilities and prevent any outsider from accessing your information.

Go Incognito

By now, you certainly know that anything that you do online – and even offline – leaves digital footprints everywhere.

Websites continuously log your clicks and cookies. Even when you go into private mode – you are still being logged and tracked. There are even log files on your computer of the files you open and even all the networks and Wi-Fi you have ever tried to connect to.

Now, this is where you can immensely benefit from Tails – this app temporarily converts any computer into a super-secure gadget. Once this app is running, you can browse the internet without leaving a digital footprint.

Besides, you won’t have to worry about viruses as this app runs independently of the operating system, which means that you will never use your computer’s hard drive.

Whenever you launch Tails, you are basically setting out to create a brand new computer – anything you do simply disappears automatically when you take out your USB flash drive.

Use Your USB for Charity

For most people, any USB flash drive under four gigs is pointless. And if you are one of those people, then you ought to know that instead of throwing the flash drives out, you can donate those flash drives to organizations, such as the organization of Flash Drives For Freedom.

Organizations like these collect any flash drives of any size, and they load onto those USB flash drives reading materials, music, forms, and other information that the government of North Korea bans.

And you might already have a rough idea of what happens next – these USB flash drives are smuggled into North Korea through an underground network and handed to people who live under strict surveillance and censorship.

Besides, there are a whole bunch of other charities that can make good use of your USB flash drive – just pick one that you resonate with. There are other usages of your flash drive, such as running Linux on it or using it as a network drive.

Now, if you are set for charity, you have to ensure that you have correctly removed any files off your flash drive before sending them out.

Boost Computer Performance

We all have experienced a slow hard disk in our computers at least once – you can enable ReadyBoost in your USB flash drive and have it function as a hard drive cache to frequently cache used files. Your Windows will simply read the USB flash drive cache instead of the computer’s hard disk drive if it is faster to read from the USB.

Nonetheless, before yanking it out, don’t forget to eject your USB flash drive. Ejecting the USB drive will prevent the USB data from being corrupted if your computer system is busy writing something to the drive.

Portable Apps

As you might have already guessed, there are apps that you can copy onto your USB flash drive and take with you – wherever you go. If you have never heard about portable apps before, we recommend heading over to the portable apps website, downloading, and running the initial installer.

All you have to do is follow the wizards, select the apps that you want to carry around with you – and it is pretty much done.

Subsequently, stick the USB flash drive into any computer and just use the apps directly. The perk is that you won’t have to install anything. Once you are done, simply remove the flash drives without leaving a trace.

Recovery Tools

If you ever crashed your desktop or had a nasty virus, or couldn’t recall your windows product key, you will never part from your USB flash drive.

First things first – visit the homepage of Hiren’s BootCD PE, which is essentially a massive collection of utilities and tools that are all a hundred percent legal and not pirated. These also don’t contain any viruses or malware.

So, if your computer ever crashes and won’t even switch on, all you need to do is simply insert the USB flash drive into your computer and boot off the USB drive. Now, you will have access to an entire environment that can recover your data.

Besides, you will be able to fix any potential issues that you may have with the recovery tools stored in your USB flash drive.