Its Time to Organize Your USB Cables

Your pile of USB cables might include some USB 2 cords, some that only support power, and maybe even Thunderbolt cables. It’s time to get organized, before you throw the wrong cord in your travel bag.

USB cables come in all shapes and sizes, and the physical connector is not representative of its capabilities. Using the wrong USB cable shouldn’t cause real damage, but your charging and data speeds could be more limited than the connected devices support, and some cables don’t support data transfer at all. Organizing your pile of cables now could save you a lot of frustration later.

Not All USB Cables Are Equal

The most common USB cables have a USB Type-A connector on one end (the classic USB port), with the other end having USB Type-C (the smaller reversable plug found on many phones, tablets, and laptops) or Micro-B/microUSB (a thinner plug used on cheaper and older electronics). You might also have some cables with Mini-B (a small connector used on many accessories and older electronics) on one end, or one of the many other physical connectors that USB has used over the years.

Unfortunately, the cable’s connectors tell you nothing about what they are actually designed to support. A USB Type-A-to-C cable could handle USB 3.0 or higher speeds, it could be limited to USB 2.0, or it could even have no data pins and only support charging. You have no way of knowing until you try it. Some cables are marked with colors to indicate speeds, but there’s nothing stopping cable manufacturers from disguising a cheap cable with different colors.

The charging-only cables are especially annoying. I couldn’t connect my camera to my laptop on a recent trip, because the microUSB cable I picked out of my pile before leaving could only do charging. Whoops!

Thunderbolt also adds to this confusion. Early Thunderbolt devices and cables used the Mini DisplayPort connector, but Thunderbolt 3 and newer versions use the same Type-C connector as many modern USB devices. All Thunderbolt 3, 4, and 5 cables are USB cables, but not all USB cables are Thunderbolt cables.

Apple

Most Thunderbolt cords have a lightning bolt on the connector, and most of them are more rigid than a typical USB cable. Other than that, they can be easily mistaken for USB C-to-C cords.

How to Get Organized

The best first step to organizing your cable pile is sorting out the charge-only cables. You can do this by finding devices that use a data connection, such as a phone or external drive, and plugging it into a computer or tablet with a cable. When something happens besides just charging, like files popping up or a synchronization prompt, you have a data-capable cable.

For example, if you have an iPhone, iPad, or Android device with a USB-C port, plug it into a computer or tablet with any of your USB-C cables. If the cable supports data access, iPhone and iPad devices will show a “Trust this computer?” prompt. On Android devices, you may have to tap the charging notification, and check if “File transfer” is one of the available options. If the cable is only charging your device, with no options to enable file transfers or a data connection, you have a charge-only cable.

When you find a charge-only cable, put it in a separate pile from your other cables. Repeat this process for all your USB cords. You might need different mixes of devices to properly test all your cables, unless you have adapters that also support data transfer. Also, make sure your test devices have a working data connection with at least one cable, so you know you have a functioning control variable—stick to the scientific method.

Once you have your charging-only cables identified, you can repurpose them for connections that don’t need data. They’re still useful for charging stations/docks, USB security cameras, car chargers (excluding Android Auto), and so on. If you have some left over, or don’t have a use for them yet, keep them separate so you don’t have to do a round of testing again.

Next, you should consider putting all your cables in an organizer, if you haven’t already. I bought three plastic storage organizers for my cables and other computer accessories, then used a label maker to label each drawer. You could also just use label stickers and a pen, no need to get fancy with it.

Corbin Davenport / How-To Geek

I have a few bins that are only USB cables, with others storing adapters, USB drives, SD cards, Ethernet cords, earbuds, USB wall chargers, and so on. Keep your charging-only and data cables in separate bins, or your charging cables can go somewhere else, since they won't be the ones you grab for file transfers or travel.

You can further organize your cables by testing the maximum supported speeds on each device, but that’s a more involved process that requires a high-end connected device to test the limits of the cable. Sorting out your charge-only cables and organizing them by connector type is a huge improvement on its own.