Game pass downloads to external storage

Hi Leonidas. My name is Kyle and I'm an independent advisor.

Yes. If you have a USB 3.0 external storage with a capacity of 128 GB or greater, you can use it to download games on a console, then plug that drive into another console. As long as you are signed into an account with an active Game Pass subscription, you can play Game Pass titles that are downloaded on the external drive.

When you first connect an external drive, Xbox prompts you to format it. You’ll also be asked if you intend on using the external drive primarily with that specific console or if you intend to use the drive with multiple consoles.

Then, to change it so the games are installed to the external drive, go to Settings > System > Storage devices.
Select Change install locations. Select your external drive as the default install.

From the Storage devices menu, you can also select a drive and choose 'Move or copy' in order to copy games that are already installed from the Xbox's internal storage to the external drive.

https://support.xbox.com/help/hardware-network/storage/manage-storage

Please reach back if you have further questions.

Thanks,
Kyle

I just looked at my storage and I have GTA downloaded twice. One on internal storage (86 gb) and another on my external storage (100 gb). That might be messing with it. Should I delete one? It doesn’t prompt me to update at all. I was using game pass core in 2021 but we never played together then. I’m using Xbox game pass ultimate at the moment. No clue why it wants me to buy the $50 digital copy of gta.

Check your storage breakdown (not the one in My Games and Apps where it shows internal and external storage combined but the one in Settings>Storage) and make sure that your external HDD has enough space to complete its download.

the only way to download games to an external is have it formatted by the xbox for game storage, when you say came pre formatted that will be as a general storage drive.

Sorry to hear you are having issue downloading onto external storage.

For an Xbox One to use external storage for games, it MUST have at least 256GB of space. See the full requirements list here:

https://support.xbox.com/en-US/games/troubleshooting/console-doesnt-detect-external-storage

Let us know if we can help further!