That is what you want to learn about USB port colours

It is a frequent joke that the “U” in USB is a mistake. The format is hardly common. There are a number of connector varieties — largely USB-A and USB-C, lately — and regardless of which one you are coping with, it is generally arduous to inform what kind of data speeds you will be getting, not to mention energy supply. Think about that 2025’s entry-level iPhone 17 has a USB-C port, however can solely transfer information at USB 2.0 charges, although the two.0 spec initially launched a quarter-century in the past. Hope you’ve an hour helpful for those who’re attempting to backup your telephone, or switch massive quantities of 4K video.

As if that weren’t complicated sufficient, among the ports on laptop computer, desktop, and pill PCs (together with their equipment) come in several colours. That is one thing I by no means paid a lot consideration to till lately, if I am trustworthy. However as I’ve discovered, it might probably probably type out among the chaos on older machines. That is not the case on newer ones, as I am going to illustrate.

What do the totally different USB port colours imply?

A naive however well-meaning effort

The colours are the brainchild of the USB Implementors Discussion board, or USB-IF, an business group that oversees all USB requirements. Its members embody firms like Apple, Intel, HP, and Microsoft — some fairly heavy hitters. This explains why Macs are sometimes on the vanguard of port expertise, even when Apple needed to be dragged kicking and screaming into adopting USB-C on iPhones as a substitute of Lightning. In the end it took new rules from the European Union, however I digress.

Again on subject, the colours are largely meant to sign what information switch speeds a port is able to. In some circumstances, they will point out energy capabilities as properly, if not at all times the precise wattage you will be coping with. That is extraordinarily necessary in terms of tablets and laptops — whereas some merchandise can cost by way of USB-C as a substitute of a devoted energy brick, you will not be capable of cost a 240W gaming laptop computer that method if its ports max out at 100W.

There are six colours you may discover within the wild: white, black, blue, pink, yellow, and orange. These are all steadily turning into irrelevant, although, for causes that can turn into clear within the subsequent part.

• White: You are unlikely to see this anymore, because it’s tied to USB 1.x — a normal that was solely round for 4 years earlier than being fully eclipsed by USB 2.0. 1.x ports are solely able to 1.5 to 12 megabits per second (Mbps), which at finest would take over 11 minutes to switch 1GB of knowledge. Energy is capped at 2.5W, which is barely sufficient for a mouse or keyboard.
• Black: As initially meant (extra on this in a minute), black indicators USB 2.0 speeds as much as 480Mbps. Charging is unaffected. When unsure, assume {that a} black port will not do any higher than 2.5W.
• Blue: This is likely one of the commonest colours you will see, flagging USB 3.0 information speeds as much as 5 gigabits per second (Gbps). Since USB 2.0 is more and more a relic of the previous, you will generally see it on equipment that don’t have anything to do with information, like moveable battery packs.
• Yellow: This can be used for each USB 2.0 and three.0 ports, which is a pointless overlap, for my part. In any occasion, the principle function is to indicate assist for always-on capabilities in addition to passive energy supply. A telephone related to a yellow USB port ought to be capable of proceed charging even when your PC is asleep, as an example.
• Orange: I’ve by no means seen this coloration in particular person, and it is not arduous to know why — this means the identical energy expertise as yellow, however solely for USB 3.0 connections. The three.0 commonplace continues to be very a lot round, however any fashionable {hardware} maker that cares about each information and energy might be going to make use of a more recent commonplace.
• Purple: This factors to both USB 3.1 Gen 2 or USB 3.2 speeds between 10 and 20Gbps. For a measure of how fast that’s, take into account that 1GB switch instance I pointed to earlier — with a 20Gbps connection (together with a appropriate cable), you may copy the identical information in about 0.4 seconds. A pink port additionally tends to indicate always-on capabilities, however this can be moot, since that and passive energy supply are sometimes de facto on fashionable PCs.

What about USB 4 and Thunderbolt?

An indication of the occasions

In case you’re comparatively new to the PC house, you could be questioning if I am hallucinating these colours. Certainly, on the Lenovo gaming laptop computer I purchased lately, all the USB ports share a single coloration — black — although they’re rated for at the very least USB 3.0 efficiency, and one in every of them is a USB 4 port I exploit to connect a Thunderbolt 4 dock. The identical is true of many different computer systems, together with Apple’s Mac lineup. It would not matter you probably have a 13-inch MacBook Air or a decked-out Mac Studio.

What provides? The reply is that the USB-IF and producers have largely deserted coloration coding, presumably as a result of few individuals have been conscious that it had any significance. There’s been nearly no promotion — I have been in tech journalism for many years, and I nonetheless needed to exit of my approach to study the issues introduced right here. It is as if the USB-IF opened a brand new retailer on the town, then questioned why nobody bothered to indicate up when the one promoting was a tiny garden signal.

One more reason for the shift is the accelerating transition to USB-C connectors, often related to USB 3.1 or later. It is not a lot that USB-C ports are tiny — it is that they have been multi-purpose from the beginning, so there is not any have to flag one as constructed for charging or high-speed information. Some ports will certainly carry out higher than others, however in that regard, colours could not probably cowl all of the totally different pace and energy configurations with out turning into much more head-scratching.

As an alternative, the transfer has been towards one thing apparent: labels. My laptop computer’s 10Gbps port has that in writing, and its USB 4 connection is topped by a lightning icon, representing Thunderbolt assist. All of the USB 3.0 ports are marked with the USB SuperSpeed (“SS”) brand. I should have to test my system’s official specs to see how a lot energy USB-C equipment can faucet, however for each different scenario, there is not any want to have a look at paint swatches.