Android File Transfer For Linux (and Mac OS X!)

Android File Transfer for Linux — reliable MTP client with minimalistic UI similar to Android File Transfer for Mac.

It just works™.

Do I need it?

If you're happy with gmtp/gvfs/mtpfs or any other mtp software, you might not need this software (but give it a try!).

If you're suffering from crashes, missing tags and album covers, usb freezes and corrupted files, this software is right for you.

Features

• Simple Qt UI with progress dialogs.
• FUSE wrapper (If you'd prefer mounting your device), supporting partial read/writes, allowing instant access to your files.
• No file size limits.
• Automatically renames album cover to make it visible from media player.
• No extra dependencies (e.g. libptp/libmtp).
• Available as static/shared library.
• Command line tool (aft-mtp-cli)

Building instructions

Prerequisites

• You will need qt libraries for building ui program. If you want to use only library (Qt is not needed), you could turn the option BUILD_QT_UI off.

• For ubuntu and other debian-based distros use the following command:

  sudo apt-get install build-essential cmake libqt4-dev ninja-build libfuse-dev libreadline-dev

• Basically, you need libqtX-dev for UI, libfuse-dev for FUSE interface, cmake, ninja or make for building the project. You could use libqt5-dev as well.

Building with ninja

mkdir build
cd build
cmake -G Ninja ..
ninja

./qt/android-file-transfer

Building with make

mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make

./qt/android-file-transfer

Installation

sudo ninja install or sudo make install will install program into cmake prefix/bin directory (usually /usr/local/bin)

How to use

FUSE interface

mkdir ~/my-device
./aft-mtp-mount ~/my-device

Remember, if you want album art to be displayed, it must be named 'albumart.xxx' and placed first in the destination folder. Then copy other files. Also, note that fuse could be 7-8 times slower than ui/cli file transfer.

QT user interface

1. Start application, choose destination folder and click any button on toolbar.

2. The options available there are: Upload Album, Upload Directory and Upload Files. The latter two are self-explanatory. Upload album tries searching source directory for album cover and sets best available cover.

3. You could drop any files or folders right into application window, the transfer will start automatically.

Known problems

• Samsung removed android extensions from MTP, so fuse will be available readonly, sorry. Feel free to post your complaints to http://developer.samsung.com/forum/en
• Sometimes downloading fails with usb timeout, then phone becomes unresponsive. Android bug #75259
• Objects created in UI will not show up in FUSE filesystem. Android bug #169547

The actual list of all known problems and bugs available here

Contacts

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any further questions, my email address is [email protected].

Special thanks

• All who filed bugs on github and wrote emails, many features appeared only because of your feedback. Thanks!
• Alexey gazay Gaziev for useful suggestions, ssh on his MacBook and continuous support.

License

Android File Transfer for Linux is released under GNU GPLv3 License.

Copyright © 2015 Vladimir Menshakov