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Transferring files

Storage layout​

FREE-WILi 2 has two microSD cards: one for the device's own file system (scripts, sounds, images, app data), and one dedicated to the Raspberry Pi CM0's Linux install. They're independent — files on one aren't visible from the other.

The on-device Files panel​

System > Files is the on-device file browser — see Screen and buttons for what it does and how finished it is.

Getting files on and off​

Swap the device's card to the built-in USB reader. Pressing gray swaps the device-side microSD card onto the built-in high-speed USB reader, where it shows up on a connected host computer as an ordinary USB mass-storage drive — drag files back and forth like any USB drive, no special software required, and the reader is Raspberry Pi Imager-compatible too. See Connectors for where the card slots are, and Long-press actions for how this differs from gray's separate long-press.

A USB thumb drive, the other direction — with a caveat. FREE-WILi 2's USB host ports (see Connectors) can recognize a plugged-in USB thumb drive at the hardware level — the firmware can identify it and read back its capacity — but as of this writing that plumbing doesn't yet reach an on-device file browser, so there isn't currently a way to copy files to or from a thumb drive through the device's own screen. The IO folder's USB Sim entry looks like it's meant to be the front end for this eventually, but it's currently an empty menu item with no panel wired up behind it.

Drop a UF2 straight on the card to boot it. The device's SD-card UF2 bootloader can load and run a UF2 file placed on the card directly — no cables needed. This is also how a real app launches, not only a firmware update — see Running apps for the app case, and Firmware update plus Recovery mode for flashing the device's own firmware and what to do if that goes wrong.

FREE-WILi GUI, from the card​

The FREE-WILi GUI desktop app can be launched directly from the device's SD card with no separate install — a convenient way to move files and manage the device from a host PC without setting anything up first. See Connecting for the other ways to reach the same features.