Hi!
What desktop apps are available to sync (read: transfer back and forth) music, videos, and photos for the Galaxy S III (which you know only supports MTP; no microSD card)?
I already tried:
1) Kies locks up when downloading podcasts, doesn't "Transfer to Device" (just sits there), and doesn't integrate with Google Play (!).
2) DoubleTwist and Miro (tried both) only support USB Mass Storage and not MTP.
What...is this even possible? I'm a little taken aback, seeing as this phone is purportedly the top Android phone out now. I just want it to sync with Google Play, add some podcasts, and move some photos around. And, honestly, I can just download the files from Google Play, so I just want to add podcasts and move pictures, lol.
Thanks in advance.
AFAIK its Kies or bust. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong.
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d3athsd00r said:
AFAIK its Kies or bust. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong.
Sent from my SGH-I747 using xda premium
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Click to collapse
Shucks, you might be right. So, I tried Kies again. It actually did "Transfer to Device!" But, for whatever reason, it took about a few minutes to start (some file I had was missing and it got stuck).
And, for whatever reason, now Podcasts are downloading, too! Humph...maybe I was having a bad day with it. But, no Play Store integration: I guess I don't really need that.
Thank you for the reply; it motivated me to try again!
~Ibrahim~
Check out easy phone sync... It's not available in some regions. For music, I use easy phone tunes to sync with itunes.
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the only way for my PC to see see my S3 phone via USB is opening up Windows Media Player. how can i get my PC to recognize my S3 without opening Windows Media Player?
When I first hooked up the usb I got an "installing driver" message, after it finished I found a heading titled SGH-T889 where the normal drive letters are shown in the Windows Explorer app. Clicking that displayed two folders, one for the internal memory and another for the sd card. File access seemed entirely normal for both. You can also access both folders and transfer files wirelessly between the phone and PC by getting the eShare or eFile app from the play store and downloading and installing Filezilla on your computer. The eFile app along with a linked app called eRay have become my favorite file and device managers. Eray gives a very nice interface to display and manipulate all sorts of data about your device, apps, and services. Efile does the same for your files.
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gatorrph said:
When I first hooked up I got an "installing driver" message, after it finished I found a heading titled SGH-T889 AQQ1+
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Click to collapse
ok . so what did you doi after this?
The first post was made away from home and I couldn't be sure of my recollection of details but now I'm back and just plugged in again to refresh. When I connect to the PC I get a message in the notification area of the phone that displays the USB icon and a statement "Connected as a media device". This happened the first time as well and after a few seconds I got a notification on the PC that a new device had been connected and drivers were being installed. After a few minutes I got the usual message saying the drivers had been successfully installed and the device was ready to use. Then and now If I click on the window Start symbol then go to the "Computer" button it brings up a window that lists info in 3 sections: Hard Disk Drives, Devices with Removable Storage, and Portable Devices. In the Portable Devices section there is a phone icon with a label "SGH-T889 portable media device". Clicking that area opens the file browser window with two hard drive icons, one labeled "Card" the other "Phone". Each label includes the usual information of how much total and available storage is available in each, i.e. 14.6 GB free of 14.8 GB and 7.5 free of 10.8. Clicking on one of these brings up a typical file tree of the files in the respective area of phone storage. I seem to be able to do everything with the files I can do with any other storage. Select, cut, copy, paste, rename, delete etc. are available options just like any other file in windows.
There have been a couple of times where the connection did not seem to be detected with an initial hook up of the USB. I simply moved the USB plug from one PC port to the next in those cases and the connection was recognized and every thing worked as described after that. I think the connection is only being recognized using the same port I initially hooked up with and from which the device driver was installed. You might try plugging into a different USB port to see if it makes a difference.
In short everything seemes to work like any other device I've ever installed on windows and works the same way any other portable storage device works with the Windows Explorer app. I Just noticed I stated "Internet Explorer" in my original post. Sorry for any confusion this caused, I was on the road carrying on a conversation while I made that entry. I will correct the original now to correctly state "Windows Explorer".
OK just noticed the OP was asking about an S3. I hope the answer based on my Note 2 works for him. I was in the car listening to my wife with one ear and to by grandson with the other and just assumed the question was for a Note 2 since it was in a Note 2 thread. Hope I didn't waste too many peoples time (other than my own) explaining something that was already working for everyone.
znari said:
the only way for my PC to see see my S3 phone via USB is opening up Windows Media Player. how can i get my PC to recognize my S3 without opening Windows Media Player?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This isnt a galaxy s3 forum
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ssCISengineer said:
This isnt a galaxy s3 forum
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wow.. i thought this was a sam s3 forum.. my bad.
Ok, I have had this phone for 2 days now, and still don't know how to get it to show up as a USB mass storage device. Is there something that I'm missing here?
I have all the updated LG software installed. All other connection methods seem to work. I have even tried a widgetsoid switcher to force the issue, but that didn't do it like it did on an older phone I had.
It would sure be nice if this was an option in the USB menu. How hard would that have been?
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seventieslord said:
Ok, I have had this phone for 2 days now, and still don't know how to get it to show up as a USB mass storage device. Is there something that I'm missing here?
I have all the updated LG software installed. All other connection methods seem to work. I have even tried a widgetsoid switcher to force the issue, but that didn't do it like it did on an older phone I had.
It would sure be nice if this was an option in the USB menu. How hard would that have been?
Sent from my LG-E971 using xda app-developers app
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Click to collapse
I am wondering the same thing. I got around it by using the MicroSD card in a card reader but it would be nice to do it though the phone.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong but I think native support for USB mass storage was discontinued in ICS. Some companies still provide it but it's not natively included anymore.
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I really hope someone corrects you if you're wrong, because if you're not, that would be the most disappointing news of the year.
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seventieslord said:
I really hope someone corrects you if you're wrong, because if you're not, that would be the most disappointing news of the year.
Sent from my LG-E971 using xda app-developers app
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Click to collapse
Don't you just go to settings and then pc connection, just select media and then hit cancel when its trying to sync? Shows up as 25GB mass storage for me.
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theMaDHakkeR said:
Don't you just go to settings and then pc connection, just select media and then hit cancel when its trying to sync? Shows up as 25GB mass storage for me.
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Do you mean the popup on the phone? "Autorun is running to check USB driver"? If so, I tried that, but no dice.
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Go here http://www.lg.com/us/support-mobile/lg-LS970 and get the USB drivers. Uninstall the ones you have if they are not the exact same, then reboot. On the phone select PC Connection in the System Settings Menu. Set the USB Connection to Media Sync (MTP) and check Ask on connection. Leave everything else off. When you plug it in it will say its checking USB driver, just hit skip, and it should mount. It may mount and unmount, then mount again.
This works for me.
You should update Windows Media Player if running on XP
theMaDHakkeR said:
Go here http://www.lg.com/us/support-mobile/lg-LS970 and get the USB drivers. Uninstall the ones you have if they are not the exact same, then reboot. On the phone select PC Connection in the System Settings Menu. Set the USB Connection to Media Sync (MTP) and check Ask on connection. Leave everything else off. When you plug it in it will say its checking USB driver, just hit skip, and it should mount. It may mount and unmount, then mount again.
This works for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Those are the exact drivers I have.
I have this "sort of" working here on my home PC (Windows 7). When I am connected as MTP, the phone shows up in My Computer and Device Manager under "Portable Devices". I can go into the internal storage, and move, cut, copy, delete files, but it's not even perfect because if I want to do something as simple as open an excel file, modify it, and then save it, I can't. Windows instead asks me to save in some temporary directory because it lacks the capability to save the file directly on the phone. Which is a major hassle.
On my work computer (XP) I have these drivers installed also, and I have also installed WMFDist11-WindowsXP-X86-ENU.exe since it asked me to. Following the same steps as above, upon hitting skip, nothing happens. It never shows up as a removable drive or portable device.
There has to be an app for this or something...
seventieslord said:
Those are the exact drivers I have.
I have this "sort of" working here on my home PC (Windows 7). When I am connected as MTP, the phone shows up in My Computer and Device Manager under "Portable Devices". I can go into the internal storage, and move, cut, copy, delete files, but it's not even perfect because if I want to do something as simple as open an excel file, modify it, and then save it, I can't. Windows instead asks me to save in some temporary directory because it lacks the capability to save the file directly on the phone. Which is a major hassle.
On my work computer (XP) I have these drivers installed also, and I have also installed WMFDist11-WindowsXP-X86-ENU.exe since it asked me to. Following the same steps as above, upon hitting skip, nothing happens. It never shows up as a removable drive or portable device.
There has to be an app for this or something...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try dual mount widget.
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Well, it physically cant be mount as USB storage device, cause it will ruin files.
Unlike many other phones, The G dont have the Storage Card partition.
All your files are stored in /data/media, and mounting entire /Data/ partition as USB Storage will ruin the OS cause its being used by it.
There a folder called /Sdcard/, but its just a trick for old android apps, so all this stuff still actually stored in /Data/Media/
theMaDHakkeR said:
Try dual mount widget.
Sent from my LG-E971 using xda app-developers app
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didn't work... any other apps that might do it?
Tim4 said:
Well, it physically cant be mount as USB storage device, cause it will ruin files.
Unlike many other phones, The G dont have the Storage Card partition.
All your files are stored in /data/media, and mounting entire /Data/ partition as USB Storage will ruin the OS cause its being used by it.
There a folder called /Sdcard/, but its just a trick for old android apps, so all this stuff still actually stored in /Data/Media/
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Click to collapse
wow, you're right, everything I sent to my phone shows up in the /sdcard folder and also in /data/media.
why on earth would they do this? one of the best parts of android phones was that they were essentially giant usb sticks.
is this an absolutely insurmountable hardware issue? or could a new ROM/OS fix it? what about an app for creating a partition?
First of all, they did it cause of usual lacking of free space for the apps. Now you can fill all 25gbs with games and other stuff.
Second, the FAT32 just too old and bad. Since the G doesnt use the FAT FS and SD card, G doesnt have the file size limitations, pretty stable and got high write speed (Must be class 20)
I believe its must be possible to run as USB Storage from the custom recoveries, when the OS is not running.
Tim4 said:
I believe its must be possible to run as USB Storage from the custom recoveries, when the OS is not running.
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Click to collapse
I imagine that it will be able to do that too, but that's not very useful on a daily basis. I need it when the OS is running.
I used to use my phone to take files to work with me and back so that I could open and edit them at home. I never dreamed they would get rid of that functionality.
so no app is going to be able to take some of that space and partition it as an sd card, then?
But you still able to do it, dont you?
The only limitation of the MTP - you cant execute files directly from PC.
Also there an app called File Share, which probably solving that issue by sharing via WiFi, not the mtp.
Tim4 said:
But you still able to do it, dont you?
The only limitation of the MTP - you cant execute files directly from PC.
Also there an app called File Share, which probably solving that issue by sharing via WiFi, not the mtp.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i'll look into File Share.
and yes, technically i can open an excel file, edit it, save to my PC, then copy the new version onto my phone, overwriting the old one. but that's a major step backwards from where we were at three years ago.
looks like File Share wouldn't really do it for me, as both the phone and the computer would need to be on the same wireless network.
at home I have a wireless network, but my PC is wired.
at work my laptop has wireless capability but there is no wireless network.
My phone can be a wireless network, though. So an app that would allow my phone and work laptop to share files through that network, would do the trick.
Or, I need an app that does the opposite of Link2SD. Link2SD takes some SD space and uses it as ROM. I need an app to take some ROM space and make a virtual SD out of it.
Does something like that exist? I bet if it doesn't, it will soon!
I really like Airdroid, simple to use, I use it on a linux computer wich is aweful about mtp file transfer, for my sister's S2. It might be an option to consider while other development occurs.
Sent from Somewhere using my Dog
Mangala_Dharma said:
I really like Airdroid, simple to use, I use it on a linux computer wich is aweful about mtp file transfer, for my sister's S2. It might be an option to consider while other development occurs.
Sent from Somewhere using my Dog
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Wow! Awesome app. Does exactly what I need. Thanks!
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The usb storage. MTS or whatever you call it . Very slow, terrible for navigating/editing multiple directories/windows at once. Frustrating. Can only find size of files by going in the directory and selecting all files. Anyone know of a good quick solution to this? I've played with the common game editor but don't really see it as encompassing the solution to all the problems of not having the classical USB mount
You think thats bad? Try having Mac. I can't even get it to recognize me phone lol. I'm forced to used my windows machine.
And I believe its a JB thing, not necessarily Samsung.
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g2tegg said:
You think thats bad? Try having Mac. I can't even get it to recognize me phone lol. I'm forced to used my windows machine.
And I believe its a JB thing, not necessarily Samsung.
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I had this problem too with my macbook pro then I found a solution tonight. Try this:
1. Install Kies if you haven't already, if you have make sure it's updated.
2. Connect your phone.
3. In Kies, click Tools, then Install Drivers (this will reinstall drivers
4. Download Android File Transfer.
Should work after this. Also make sure you have USB Debugging on and use PTP not MTP.
johnnyutah22 said:
I had this problem too with my macbook pro then I found a solution tonight. Try this:
1. Install Kies if you haven't already, if you have make sure it's updated.
2. Connect your phone.
3. In Kies, click Tools, then Install Drivers (this will reinstall drivers
4. Download Android File Transfer.
Should work after this. Also make sure you have USB Debugging on and use PTP not MTP.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I will be sure to give this a shot tomorrow and send along an update. I rarely use Kies, updated it yesterday but never tried the drivers thing. Android file transfer never used to work but maybe the "install drivers" step is all that's needed.
And thats why I love it here on XDA. Thanks for the help brother!
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I agree... coming from a s2 skyrocket, I really miss UMS. Why bother having expandable storage when it takes hours to transfer to a class 10 32gb sd card? That is if I can get it to transfer at all.
I'm now resorting to unmounting sd card and putting it in the computer to transfer files...big PITA
SGS3 Easy UMS doesnt work either.
Edit: Actually, I'm using kies now... still miss drag and drop
Agreed. Always had driver problems with this phone. Sometimes it wouldn't connect because drivers failed to install or "bad hardware ID" pops up in the corner. Only way to get it to work was to restart comp. And it would only work until I disconnected it, then gotta restart again. -.-
I'm gonna switch back to linux once I get some free time. I recommend you do the same.
g2tegg said:
And I believe its a JB thing, not necessarily Samsung.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It was a problem in ICS as well. I think the reason for that they went with MTP is that users would create a "messy" file structure when they randomly dragged and dropped files anywhere on both the internal and external card. Samsung can keep things organized when they encourage you to use Samsung Kies to add files to the device.
The mandate for MTP is also to reduce piracy of protected media files by ensuring the DRM is properly done. In the past, I could connect my phone directly to my Samsung SMART TV and play 720/1080p movies via UMS. This is now blocked with MTP.
Anonymously_Unknown said:
It was a problem in ICS as well. I think the reason for that they went with MTP is that users would create a "messy" file structure when they randomly dragged and dropped files anywhere on both the internal and external card. Samsung can keep things organized when they encourage you to use Samsung Kies to add files to the device.
The mandate for MTP is also to reduce piracy of protected media files by ensuring the DRM is properly done. In the past, I could connect my phone directly to my Samsung SMART TV and play 720/1080p movies via UMS. This is now blocked with MTP.
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Thanks I also noticed the slow data transfer speed when I upgraded my SII to S3. Thought it was something I was doing wrong. I've changed the default transfer to PTP and will check it out tonight.
seamus24 said:
I've changed the default transfer to PTP and will check it out tonight.
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Click to collapse
Don't bother with PTP. PTP is just a camera. It's not like UMS so you might as well leave it on MTP
g2tegg said:
You think thats bad? Try having Mac. I can't even get it to recognize me phone lol. I'm forced to used my windows machine.
And I believe its a JB thing, not necessarily Samsung.
Sent from my SGH-I747M using xda app-developers app
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Click to collapse
I was annoyed by this as well. Now when I want to add something to my sd card I just take it out of the phone and put the sd card in my Mac and add files that way. It's a little annoying but its not that big of a deal.
I think the closest you'll get to a true UMS experience is using Samba Filesharing Server (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.funkyfresh.samba). You can then treat it like a network shared drive.
Of course you'll be limited by your WiFi speed. I think a possibility would be a USB host adapter and a USB ethernet adapter. I'm not sure if Android has support for a USB ethernet adapter but if that works then you should be able to connect to a gigabit switch/adapter and just be limited by USB2 speed.
It's not just this phone in general. They're all going that way as of ICS (Honeycomb as well) and up. If you use Windows it's not terrible but it is still slower. And yeah trying to use it with my Mac or even my Linux box is just frustrating. The primary reasoning was to merge the data and application volumes to give more space for applications. This is a better explanation of it. I do miss USB storage mode though.
Yep, totally frustrating for me also.
I remove my microSD card when I need to do lots of file management. But it's a clumsy workaround.
So I just recently divorced myself from my iPod and iTunes. My S3 is now my primary music player both at home and in the car. I keep my music in a folder on my laptop, and am looking for a program/app that will allow me to sync my S3 with said folder via USB and WiFi. I must have the option of syncing over USB since I will not always have access to WiFi. I tried Kies and could never get it to connect to my phone (which is rooted and may be the cause of my problem). Plus I keep hearing that Kies is a steaming turd. Cheetah Sync seems like it might do the trick but is WiFi only. I should also note that I want the ability to two-way sync so if I delete a file from the phone it will remove it from the folder on the laptop and vice/versa..
Thanks in advance..
Try giving this a shot:
http://www.thefullsignal.com/samsung/samsung-galaxy-s3/12036/how-sync-itunes-your-samsung-galaxy-s3
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Domoo said:
Try giving this a shot:
http://www.thefullsignal.com/samsung/samsung-galaxy-s3/12036/how-sync-itunes-your-samsung-galaxy-s3
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Thanks, but I'm not using iTunes.. Just trying to sync my phone with a folder on my laptop..
Do you have a windows vista or 7 laptop? If so, you can connect your phone via usb and select MTP as your device. You'll be able to treat your phone as an external storage by simply dragging and dropping files.
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