Would you like to learn how to configure a group policy to disable mobile phones as removable storage? In this tutorial, we will show you how to deny access to Windows portable devices as removable storage devices using a GPO.
• Windows 2012 R2
• Windows 2016
• Windows 2019
• Windows 10
• Windows 7
The class of equipment named Windows Portable Devices include Mobile phones, tablets, MP3 players, and others.
Equipment list
The following section presents the list of equipment used to create this tutorial.
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Tutorial GPO - Disable mobile phone as removable storage
On the domain controller, open the group policy management tool.
Create a new group policy.
Enter a name for the new group policy.
In our example, the new GPO was named: MY-GPO.
On the Group Policy Management screen, expand the folder named Group Policy Objects.
Right-click your new Group Policy Object and select the Edit option.
On the group policy editor screen, expand the Computer configuration folder and locate the following item.
Access the option named Removable storage access.
Enable the option named WPD Devices: Deny read access.
Enable the option named WPD Devices: Deny write access.
To save the group policy configuration, you need to close the Group Policy editor.
Congratulations! You have finished the GPO creation.
GPO - Disable mobile phone as removable storage
On the Group policy management screen, you need to right-click the Organizational Unit desired and select the option to link an existent GPO.
In our example, we are going to link the group policy named MY-GPO to the root of the domain.
After applying the GPO you need to wait for 10 or 20 minutes.
During this time the GPO will be replicated to other domain controllers.
To test the configuration, connect a mobile phone to a computer using a USB interface.
In our example, we disabled the use of portable devices as USB storage devices on all domain computers using a GPO.
