PS5 storage: How to manage your console’s storage or expand it with an external hard drive

• The PS5 has 825GB of storage space, but you can only use 667.2GB of it — unless you use an external hard drive.
• Your external hard drive can store both PS5 and PS4 games, and you can play PS4 games straight from the drive.
• To work with a PS5, your external hard drive needs to have at least 250GB of storage space.

The PlayStation 5 comes with 825GB of storage space. However, you can only use 667.2GB of that space — the rest is taken up by mandatory system files. This means that if you play a lot of games, it won’t take you long to run out of storage.

Luckily, you aren’t stuck with the default 825GB. If you need more space on your PS5, you can connect an external hard drive and move all your games onto it. You can even play PS4 games straight from the drive, meaning that they never have to take up space on your PlayStation again.

Here’s how to set up an external drive on your PS5 and expand your storage space.

How to set up your PS5’s external storage

Before you start, note that using your hard drive for PS5 storage will erase everything already on the drive. If there’s anything you want to keep, move it somewhere else before connecting your hard drive to the PS5.

1. Turn on your PS5 and plug the hard drive into one of the USB ports on the back. The USB port on the front doesn’t support hard drives.

2. Open your PS5’s Settings menu by clicking the gear icon in the top-right corner of the home page, and then select Storage.

3. Select USB Extended Storage, and then Format as USB Extended Storage.

Your PlayStation will format the drive and turn it into an extended storage space. Don’t unplug the drive or your PS5 until it’s done.

Once it’s formatted, your hard drive will be linked to the PS5. You can’t use it to store data from other devices until you unpair it from the PS5 (check out the How to delete games from your PS5’s external storage section below for more info).

How to move games to or from your PS5’s external storage

None of your games will move to the drive automatically, although any PS4 game you download from this point on will download onto the drive by default.

While the drive is connected, you can play any PS4 game on it without moving it back. If you want to play a PS5 game that’s stored on it, however, you’ll have to move the game back onto the console first.

To move your existing games, you’ve got two options.

Through the Game Library

1. Open your PS5’s Game Library. You can find it as the right-most option in the list of apps on your home page.

2. Scroll over any game you want to move and press the Options button on your controller.

3. In the menu that appears, select Move to USB Extended Storage.

4. A new menu will appear with a list of all your games, separated into two tabs: Move PS4 Content and Move PS5 Games. Go through these tabs and select all the games you want to move, and then select Move in the bottom-right corner.

Through the Settings menu

1. Open the Settings menu and select Storage.

2. If you want to move games onto the hard drive, select Console. If you want to take games off the hard drive, select USB Extended Storage.

3. In either menu, click Games & Apps.

4. The same menu with all your games will appear. Go through them and select all the games you want to move, and then select Move in the bottom-right corner.

How to delete games from your PS5’s external storage

Once again, you’ve got two options.

If you want to delete a specific game

1. Open the Settings app, select Storage, and then USB Extended Storage.

2. Click Games & Apps to open a list of everything on your external hard drive.

3. At the top of the screen, select the Delete Content tab.

4. Select all of the games you want to delete, and then click Delete in the bottom-right corner.

If you want to delete everything on the external hard drive at once

1. Once again, open the Settings app, select Storage, and then USB Extended Storage.

2. Click the three dots (…) next to the Safely Remove from PS5 option.

3. Select Format as exFAT.

This will erase everything on the drive, and return it to factory default settings. This means that if you want to use it with your PS5 again, you’ll have to set it up from scratch.

This is also the method you’ll use if you want to totally unpair the external hard drive from your PS5 and use it with another device.