In addition to using your BlackBerry® smartphone to stay on top of your connected world, you can use it as a USB drive using a feature called Mass Storage Mode! While your BlackBerry smartphone is connected to your computer through a USB connection, this feature will allow you to transfer files between your BlackBerry smartphone and your computer.

Here’s a quick overview of how to get started with the Mass Storage Mode feature built into BlackBerry smartphones using BlackBerry Device Software 4.2 to 5, or BlackBerry® 6 OS and BlackBerry® 7 OS – so sit back, grab your USB cord and power up your computer (Mac or Windows® – it supports both!) if you’d like to follow along!

To start using your BlackBerry smartphone as a USB drive, connect your smartphone to a PC or Mac and you’ll be presented with the dialog box pictured above on your smartphone screen. If you do not see this prompt after connecting your BlackBerry smartphone, you will need to first verify that Mass Storage Mode has been enabled on the handset. For help enabling this feature, follow the set of instructions below that apply to you depending on which version of the BlackBerry® OS you are using. If you don’t know which version of the OS you have, click here to find out before proceeding further.

BlackBerry 6 OS and BlackBerry 7 OS:

1. On the home screen, select “Options”
2. Select “Device”, followed by “Storage”
3. Toggle “Media Card Support” to “On” (if it’s not already checked)
4. Press the Menu key and select “Save”

BlackBerry Device Software 5.0 and earlier:

1. On the home screen, select “Options”
2. Select “Memory”
3. Toggle “Media Card Support” to “On”
4. Toggle “Mass Storage Mode” to “On”
5. Toggle “Auto Enable Mass Storage Mode When Connected to “Prompt”, or “Yes”
6. Press the Menu key and select “Save”

Now that we’ve checked the options and confirmed they are enabled, connect your smartphone to a PC or Mac. If prompted on your BlackBerry smartphone, select USB Drive as per the screenshot above. An important thing to keep in mind is that in order to use Mass Storage Mode, you’ll need to unlock the BlackBerry smartphone first to select the USB Drive option if it is password protected.

Using on a PC

Click “Start” followed by “My Computer”. My Computer will now display your storage drives including “Devices with Removable Storage”, which is where the BlackBerry USB drives will appear. In the screenshot below, I have two drives –”BlackBerry1” and”BlackBerry2”. The reason for this is because I am using a microSD card in addition to the memory that’s built into my BlackBerry® Bold™ 9900 smartphone. By default, BlackBerry1 is the memory that’s built into the smartphone and BlackBerry2 is the microSD card that’s been inserted. Click on either drive to start accessing and or transferring files.

Note: Depending on how many drives you have, the letter representing the drive could be different, so what you need to look for is the Devices with Removable Storage drive.

Using on a Mac

After connecting your BlackBerry smartphone, you’ll notice one of two storage drives appear on your desktop. Just like on the PC, the reason two drives may appear is because one is for the memory built into the BlackBerry smartphone whereas the second drive is the microSD card memory. Click on either drive to start accessing and or transferring files.

Now that you know how to enable this feature, you are ready to start dragging and dropping files, photos and more between your BlackBerry smartphone and your computer!

Got a question? Leave a comment and let me know!

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From our bank cards to logging into your account on the BlackBerry® Support Community Forums, passwords are a common occurrence in our everyday lives. Some sites require a combination of uppercase and lowercase characters, or ask to include numbers and special characters like !, @ or %. Having so many passwords can become really confusing, which is where BlackBerry Password Keeper application comes in to save the day! The Password Keeper app is designed to help you keep all your passwords in a safe, secure location on your BlackBerry smartphone, allowing you to access them whenever needed.

If you haven’t heard of Password Keeper before, grab your BlackBerry smartphone now – I’ll be showing you how you can set it up and start using it today.

Password Keeper can be found within the Applications folder. If your BlackBerry smartphone doesn’t have an applications folder, the Password Keeper icon can most likely be found on the home screen instead. If you can’t find the Password Keeper icon, double check and make sure that you haven’t hidden the icon. For help on hiding and showing icons, check out this post on customizing your BlackBerry 6 home screen.

When launched for the first time, the first step is to create a new password. Make sure you remember this password because if you forget it, you have 10 attempts to enter the correct password – and this password can’t be reset! After the tenth try using the wrong password, the data in Password Keeper will be wiped from your BlackBerry smartphone, and you will have to start over with no entries in Password Keeper. Although you need to remember this password, it is much easier to remember one password, than remembering all the passwords that you can put into Password Keeper. For more information, see KB10580 – How to reset the Password Keeper application on the BlackBerry smartphone.

Now that we have selected a password, it’s time to enter the information for websites, mobile banking and more! To add a new password, select “New Password” which will cause the form below to be displayed.

For the title, enter the name of the account or product for the password you want to save (eg “XYZ bank card” or “BlackBerry smartphone”). Then enter in the username, password and/or the website as necessary. Once all the information you want or need to input is entered, hit the Menu key and select Save. After you have entered all of your passwords, exit Password Keeper and you’ll be able to see it encrypt your information before closing.

When you need to access Password Keeper, you will be prompted to enter your special password for access. Once unlocked, you can add, remove and modify any personal information kept within Password Keeper.

One of my favorite features is that you can transfer Password Keeper data from an existing BlackBerry smartphone to a new BlackBerry smartphone. When you transfer the data to your new BlackBerry smartphone, you just need to enter the password used to access Password Keeper on the previous BlackBerry smartphone to unlock Password Keeper.

Got a question about Password Keeper? Leave a comment and let me know!

Have you ever wondered how you can save your BlackBerry® smartphone data to your Mac®? Well, wonder no more! BlackBerry® Desktop Software for Mac will quickly and easily save your information (even media files!) to your Mac. It never hurts to be prepared for those “what if” situations! Let’s take a peek at how you would go about creating an automatic backup, restoring a previous backup file and how to backup/synchronize any media that’s on your BlackBerry smartphone.

Let’s start by connecting your BlackBerry smartphone to your Mac using a USB cable. To enable automatic back up, select Device Options, then Back up. Here, you can schedule your Mac to back up your BlackBerry smartphone whenever it is connected on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, or even every time you connect your BlackBerry smartphone. Now that’s easy!

In addition to automatic backups, you can also perform a manual backup. To do this, open BlackBerry Desktop Software for Mac and click on the Backup icon that appears in the top right corner.

You can then back up all of your data, or selected data such as your contacts or messages. You can also protect the backup file by adding encryption to it, which then requires a password to open the backup file contents. If you opt to encrypt the backup file, pick a password that you won’t forget, as the restore process does not provide any password hints.

Back up times can vary, depending on how much data is on the BlackBerry smartphone, so sit back and relax while the BlackBerry Desktop Software for Mac does the work for you!

What about media files? Let’s revisit the Summary screen, and this time, select Import Media.

Depending on how large your media card is, you can opt to delete the media from your BlackBerry smartphone after the import process by checking off the box in options.

Now, what if you lost your BlackBerry smartphone and need the information from that device for your new replacement? BlackBerry Desktop Software for Mac can come to the rescue!

On the summary page, we are going to select Restore from the top right corner. A menu will pop allowing us to select the file we want to restore. If the backup file was encrypted, the password will have to be entered in order to restore it. Similar to the backup process, you can select which data you want to restore to your BlackBerry smartphone.

Restoring Media works a bit differently, as it is synchronized to your BlackBerry smartphone. On the righthand side of BlackBerry Desktop Software for Mac, select Music, Pictures and Videos.
Within Music, you can select by artists, playlists or genres, and even fill your media card with random songs from your library if you want.

With your Pictures, you can transfer them all from your library, or specific ones by events or last import.

In the Videos menu, you can select individual ones, or all of them.

When you are ready, click on the green sync arrows in the corner, and when it’s done synchronizing, your new BlackBerry smartphone will be just like your old one – at least data-wise!

Tip: If you don’t plan on using your old BlackBerry smartphone, you should consider performing a security wipe to remove any personal information before giving it to someone else. Check out the following post for an overview how to perform a security wipe – What is a security wipe and when should I use it?

If you have any questions about this feature, please leave a comment on this post or visit the BlackBerry Support Forums! Don’t forget to say hi on Twitter to @BlackBerryHelp.

BlackBerry® Desktop Software for PC and Mac is a quick way to install and update applications, or even remove a number of unused applications, and it can be done with the click of a button. Today I’d like to show you just how easy it is to accomplish any of these tasks using BlackBerry Desktop Software for PC. For information on how to do this using BlackBerry Desktop Software for Mac®, visit the BlackBerry Desktop Software for Mac website where you can find the user guide.

Tip: In addition to BlackBerry Desktop Software for PC and Mac, you can also install, update and remove applications on your BlackBerry smartphone using BlackBerry App World. To learn more, visit the BlackBerry App World™ website.

Before we start, whenever you are modifying your BlackBerry Device Software, RIM recommends making a backup of your BlackBerry smartphone data using BlackBerry Desktop Software first. To learn how to make a backup file, view the BlackBerry Desktop Software user guide.

With that being said, let’s get started!

First, connect your BlackBerry® smartphone to your desktop computer via USB cable, which will then connect to BlackBerry Desktop Software. If your BlackBerry smartphone has a password, you will be prompted to enter it.

After connecting your BlackBerry smartphone, select Applications on the left hand side. BlackBerry Desktop Software will connect to your device to list the software installed. It can take several minutes to connect, so be patient!

Once connected, you will see the software and application list. You will note some of the applications are grayed out. This means that they are required and can’t be manually selected for removal. Those that have the + or X icon are available for installation or removal.

To add an application, simply select the + symbol, and it will change to green to show that it will be added. If you are removing an application, select the X and it will turn red to show that it will be removed.

When you have the desired applications selected for addition or removal, select Apply and your BlackBerry smartphone will be updated.

Once the process is complete, your device will reboot itself, and upon powering back up, you will be updated and ready to go. It’s that easy!

If you have any questions about this feature, please leave a comment on this post or visit the BlackBerry Support Forums!

How often are we in front of the computer organizing our lives in our desktop Calendar program or Address Book, then pick up our BlackBerry® smartphone to enter in this same information? Wouldn’t it be easier if we could transfer this information with the click of a button? Good news: The BlackBerry® Desktop Manager has a synchronization feature that will allow this data to be transferred quickly and easily! All you need is the USB cord, a supported desktop program and your BlackBerry smartphone.

* Note: Wireless Calendar and Contact synchronization may be available for select email accounts using supported device software. For more information, see How to Enable Gmail Calendar, How to enable Gmail Contacts, and How to enable Yahoo Contacts.

To get started, you need to make sure your desktop organizer program is compatible with the version of BlackBerry Desktop Manager you are using. You can find the list of supported applications in the following Knowledge Base article – Applications supported by BlackBerry Desktop Software for Windows® for synchronization.

Once you have verified your desktop application is supported, it is time to configure your settings.

Verify that your BlackBerry smartphone is showing as connected – you should see an image like the one at the top of this post. Once connected, select Organizer on the left menu.

Next, you want to select Configure Settings. This will bring up the Intellisync window where the next step is to configure each application you want to synchronize.

Let’s start with the Calendar. When you place a check mark in the Calendar box, you will see the list of installed applications which are compatible:

Select the desktop application you want to use, then select Next.

You will then have three options for the sync. You can do two way sync, or one directional from either the BlackBerry smartphone only or the desktop program only. If you plan to put entries in both your BlackBerry smartphone and your desktop application, two way sync is what you want to select.

When you have made the desired selection, select Next.

If this is the first synchronization made between the BlackBerry smartphone and the desktop program, you can select the option to transfer all scheduled items if you want the entire desktop Calendar to be on the BlackBerry smartphone and vice versa.

* Note: After the first sync, it is recommended to change the option to future sync or date range. Your BlackBerry smartphone has a setting to delete old appointments after a certain number of days, and leaving the option to transfer all scheduled items can delete old entries from your desktop Calendar as well.

Also, it’s important to make sure you have the correct user profile selected. Once you have made the desired choice, hit Next.

When you have completed the settings, you will see the finish screen.

When you have all your applications configured, you will see a screen similar to this:

Make sure you have the check marks in the applications and hit OK.

Now that you have all the applications configured, you are ready to hit the Sync in the bottom corner and transfer all your data to and from your BlackBerry smartphone and your computer!

If you have any additional questions, please leave them in the comments for us to answer.