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As a Linux user, it sometimes gets too tedious to get MTP working. So I want the USB mass storage feature back. The main reason is that my TV doesn't support MTP. I used to watch movies and videos from my old Android device via USB mass storage on my TV, but I can't do that with MTP anymore. I am also ready to root my phone or install a custom ROM.

How to enable the USB mass storage feature on newer Android devices?

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  • Are you fixed on UMS – or would you also be open to other solutions to the issue behind? I never use MTP (unless I cannot avoid it), but using ADB it is possible to "mount" the Android device's storage into the local file system. No root needed, but ADB and command-line. Once mounted, you can of course also access it via graphical tools like file managers. Would that be acceptable? Then I'd provide an answer with more details.
    – Izzy
    Commented Oct 27, 2018 at 22:56
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    @Izzy I don't know about the OP, but I would love to know how to do that.
    – acejavelin
    Commented Oct 28, 2018 at 1:03
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    @acejavelin doesn't fully answer the question as it currently stands – but take a look at adbfs-rootless (ADB file system in user-space). Using it for some years now and am quite happy with it.
    – Izzy
    Commented Oct 28, 2018 at 1:13
  • @lzzy I am open to other solutions too.
    – voldemort
    Commented Oct 28, 2018 at 5:14
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    @Izzy This is amazing, but I doubt you could get that to work on your average smart TV.
    – confetti
    Commented Oct 28, 2018 at 7:51

1 Answer 1

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AFAIK this is not possible, but maybe some custom ROMs allow it through some hacky stuff, so correct me on that if I'm wrong, but....

There's an app called DriveDroid - It's primarily used to boot your PC from an Image-/ISO-File that's stored on your android, but you can also use it for what you're after. It needs root.

Once you open the app, hit the menu button and go to Create blank image.

enter image description here
This is from their page about a tutorial on how to make a bootable partition, you can choose any name here and any size you want your removable media to have. Leave MBR unchecked.

Once you created the image, you can tap on it in the app's main screen and choose the first option to make the image mountable as a writable USB drive. After that, plug the phone onto your PC, it will detect an unformatted drive.

On Windows, you can simply hit "Format" in the popup it should show, asking if you want to format the drive. FAT32 will work fine as partition type.

On Linux, find out the drive letter using the lsblk command and then run mkfs.fat -F 32 /dev/sdX1 (replacing sdX1 with the drive letter and partition number of your drivedroid image) to format it. (Or use GParted for example as GUI application)

After that you can copy/move/whatever files on there as you wish, as if it was a normal USB drive, and your TV should detect it just like that.

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