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If I either connect my camera using a USB cable via OTG or insert the SD card in an OTG reader connected to the phone, Android creates automatically two folders: an Android folder and a Lost.Dir folder.

The problems are -

  1. That as long as these two folders are on the camera (a Pentax K50), this latter thinks that the SD is not properly formatted and asks me if I want to format it or otherwise I cannot use it again. And indeed if I delete the two folders using my PC, I can then start using the card again. Obviously, I cannot format it.

  2. That I cannot delete these folders on the phone without reliably preventing Android from recreating them. Also, the two folders remain on the SD even if I properly eject the OTG storage.

  3. That I am going on a trip and I won't be having a PC with me to use to remove the folders.

Given all of the above, how can I then transfer the photos from my camera to the smartphone?

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  • Can't you use something like Google Files or ES File Explorer to delete the two folders on the sd card before disconnecting it?
    – Chrisii
    Nov 27, 2018 at 16:08
  • 1
    My camera, although a different kind, does not have a problem with the LOST.DIR being created on my SD but it does if the SD has been removed from my phone without being ejected. Maybe you are not ejecting the SD or the camera? I find it an inconvenience: 1) that Android writes to inserted USB drives creating a LOST.DIR even if I'm only viewing files, requiring the eject step (PCs don't do that) and 2) that 'Google Files' does not have an eject function and I need to go to 'Settings' to eject drives.
    – RPro
    Jan 14, 2019 at 21:11
  • Related: How to stop apps writing to “Android” folder on the SD card?
    – Irfan Latif
    Dec 26, 2019 at 11:16

3 Answers 3

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2

Create two 0-byte files on the SD Card with these names (case-sensitive):

LOST.DIR
Android

Optionally, you can make them both read-only and hidden (even though Linux won't follow these rules) so that when you browse the card within Windows, you won't see them. When connecting to an Android device, instead, it will fail to create the folders because of the empty files with the same name (you'll see the 0-byte files, though).

Powershell one-liner to create the necessary files (simply change the drive letter H: in $drive = "H:" with yours):

PS C:\> $drive = "H:"; ("$drive\LOST.DIR", "$drive\Android.") | % { if (Test-Path $_) { Remove-Item -Path $_ -Force }; (New-Item -Path $_ -ItemType File -Force).Attributes = "Hidden", "ReadOnly" }; if (Test-Path "$drive\System Volume Information") { Remove-Item -Path "$drive\System Volume Information" -Recurse -Force }
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Some Android phones remove the folders if you unmount the SD card before removal. The unmount setting is usually found in storage settings or in the file explorer. The folders will only be removed if they are empty and not in use. (e.g. there are no orphaned, lost, or corrupted files that lost dir is holding on to.)

If this does not work, then your version of Android probably doesn't provide a way to not create them and you are stuck with manually deleting the folders and nothing short of modding your device will change that behavior.

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The Android folder is used to keep data about your apps. Deleting it from the internal storage or external storage (when used as adoptable storage) will cause the loss of your apps' data.

LOST.DIR is a folder used to place recovered files during boot. It is usually empty. Deleting this folder is safe.

In your case, you can delete both folders without creating any issues. Delete the folders, then disconnect the SD card as mentioned by @Chrisii. It is a process that you will have to accomplish every time because the folders will be re-created by the Android OS when the SD card is connected.

References:

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