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Im completely new user and inexpert. I made a video with the phone. How do l transfer it to an ubuntu pc? I plugged in the usb cable but apparenntly my pc does not see the phone. Thanks for help

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  • You need to install the drivers for your phone so that your computer can "see" it. What kind of phone is it that you have?
    – 1990clb
    Mar 28, 2014 at 8:43
  • What brand is it? What model? What version of Ubuntu are you using?
    – Samir
    Mar 28, 2014 at 8:54
  • See if this helps.
    – Samir
    Mar 28, 2014 at 8:57
  • It depends of the phone. In most case, make sure MTP support is present on your Ubuntu installation. If all else fails, you could turn to wireless services like AirDroid, etc.
    – m-p-3
    Mar 28, 2014 at 16:43
  • My phone is lg5 my ubuntu is 12.10
    – user57210
    Mar 28, 2014 at 21:57

11 Answers 11

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First of all you don't need any USB cable. You can transfer files from/to your android device with the Wi-Fi network of your device. Just install airdroid on your android device. Then activate wi-fi hotspot on your android and open the airdroid app. Next connect your pc to that hotspot, open any browser in your pc and enter the url provided by the airdroid app there. It will ask for your permission, click to connect. Done. The good news is that this technique works in any Linux distro as well, I tested it on Ubuntu 14.04.1. It just uses your android wi-fi device and there is no issue related to mobile data plan i.e. you can use it without the mobile data.

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  • 1
    This works great for me! (I'm on Ubuntu 14.04)
    – modulitos
    Feb 23, 2015 at 5:51
  • 1
    Works perfectly between Ubuntu 15.10 and Android 5.1 (actually Cyanogenmod 12.1, but that shouldn't make a difference).
    – Tamsyn Michael
    Jun 19, 2016 at 12:09
  • 2
    The Questions mentions "by using a USB cable" and your answer is "you don't need any USB cable" !! LOL
    – Vassilis
    Jul 6, 2017 at 16:54
  • it seems really unnecessary to have to install a 3rd party app to do this - is there no official Google App that can share data between the Android device and a comptuter on the same Wifi network?
    – Alexander Mills
    Aug 24, 2018 at 2:55
  • Why not just use USB? android.stackexchange.com/a/200752/79950
    – Alexander Mills
    Aug 24, 2018 at 4:43
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In Ubuntu 16+ all you need to do is click the swipe on the phone after plugging in the usb cord and select "File Transfer". The default mode is "USB Charging", and it will hide the file system from you.

When you do this, it creates an MTP mount, which automatically pops up on Nautilus, the file explorer. Tested on Android 11, Pixel 3a.

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1
  • That screen on my phone for selecting the usb connection type just seems to hang if I select "Transfer Files" with it plugged in to my laptop (Ubuntu 18.04)
    – Ben Farmer
    Oct 23, 2020 at 1:41
3
  1. Just share or copy files in your phone via "ES File Explorer"
  2. connect your phone (need cable) with computer and thats it
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3

A bit late to reply to this post. You can use KDE Connect utility to transfer data from android phone to your Ubuntu. Its really easy to setup and works like a charm. You can easily find tutorials to setup KDE Connect to Ubuntu.

Installing KDE Connect on Ubuntu

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:vikoadi/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install indicator-kdeconnect kdeconnect

Install KDE Connect app from playstore and open it. Send request from Desktop to pair with your phone(vice-versa doesn't work for some weird reason)

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  • 3
    Could you also quote the content (like, how-to steps) from the article to preserve the content if the link is dead later?
    – Andrew T. ♦
    Oct 6, 2015 at 18:27
  • ...like now. Link is dead.
    – Ben Farmer
    Oct 23, 2020 at 1:42
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It can be done without cable in few ways.

One simplest way is to install “Dropbox” on your phone and then access the pictures from the Web. Given below link is for "Ubuntu desktop platform":

https://www.dropbox.com/install?os=lnx

Link for Android

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dropbox.android&hl=en

After installing it on both the systems, sign in to your account (or create an account if account doesn’t exists) and start uploading all the pics on your phone.

Let me know if this information will help you out.

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1

I figured it out real simple. No downloads. My Android phone (8.1, Moto G5 Plus) has an option in settings that allows me to mount the phone directly and see all the folders: Settings > Connected Devices > USB.

There you can pick "Charge this device", "Transfer files (MTP)", "Transfer photos (PTP)" or "Use device as MIDI".

I had to unmount and remount the phone in Nautilus/Files after changing the option in my settings. Worked without a hitch in Gnome 3.30/Ubuntu 18.10.

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0

Adding another option for copying files to/from any Linux/BSD/etc pc and an Android device (in my case, Nexus 10 tablet):

  • on the Android device, I installed "ES File Explorer", which comes with an ftp/sftp client;
  • then, with normal sshd running on the Linux/Ubuntu host (make sure this is installed),
  • from the tablet : select the files you want to copy, and paste into the linux/pc desired folder. (Or vice/versa.) All from the tablet. No cables necessary -- just wifi.

This is using the useful/flexible/free "ES File Explorer", but any Android-based file-transfer (sftp) client will work. (I'm open to other recommendations for this, especially any rsync tools.)

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0

Assuming you have installed MTP on Ubuntu, you may still need to enable MTP transfer on your phone. There's an article here that covers this. Option 1's steps 1-3 were enough for my phone to appear in Ubuntu's "Files".

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  • If you find that you see more images on your phone than your computer, consider the solution mentioned here.
    – user2023370
    Jul 19, 2019 at 15:18
0

You can do this with a USB cable, this is faster and more secure than using your Wifi router. Just plug your phone in with USB-C or whatever, and you should be able to load the contents of the DCIM folder. I had to mess with this for a while, but just be patient when you open the DCIM folder and it should work. I tried AirDroid, but the USB solution seems much better (faster and more secure and don't have to download any 3rd party apps..).

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0

The most foolproof technique is to install on your phone an FTP server ...

android app ftp server : Ftp Server by The Olive Tree

... launch this android app and click the red widget in middle top of app to enable server so widget turns green as in

enter image description here

then on your Ubuntu box connect over wifi using an FTP client

ubuntu ftp client : FileZilla install using 

sudo apt-get install filezilla

launch filezilla on ubuntu ... enter values shown on your phone ftp server for following fields

Host: 192.168.0.133 Username: francis Password: francis Port: 2221

( your values may be different )

In filezilla on left side will be your ubuntu filesystem on right your phone filesystem ... now just drag and drop files between those systems

If you have just added a file to your phone you can view it using a File Manager app or the app called Files

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-2

Consider using gmtp. Although advertised as a media player, it is an effective tool for transferring files via MTP.

sudo apt-get -y install mtp-tools mtpfs gmtp

and try to use its GUI as necessary!

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  • 1
    Please don't plagiarize from other sites. You can link to an article and summarize, but copying and pasting the entire thing (especially when not listing any sources) is not allowed.
    – Stephen S
    Mar 28, 2014 at 12:59
  • @what about know?
    – Nickromancer
    Mar 28, 2014 at 13:04
  • you should still give url from where u copied it
    – tgkprog
    Jul 25, 2015 at 11:36

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