r/Android • u/SmallerButton • 2d ago
I've finally found a good alternative to MTP for transfering files between my phone and my PC!
Hi everyone!
I've had an android phone for a couple of months now, absolutely love the freedom it gives me. Without a doubt, buying this phone is the best upgrade I've experienced ever since buying my first phone.
I've always thought that transferring files between your computer and your phone should be as easy as plugging the phone into the computer. The default way to do that seemed to be MTP, but it's incredibly slow and clunky, as has been noted on many other posts.
I've tried adbfs and some of its forks. While the experience was better, I still found it was slow, and I had trouble accessing any large file.
I was then really surprised to discover madbfs. It looks like a complete rewrite of adbfs, now fast enough so that the files feel like they're stored locally. I've used for a couple of months to manage the files on my phone, and I've found it works amazingly.
Sadly, it's only available on Linux, as it relies on libfuse, and it's only a CLI application. Which means it does take a little bit of technical know-how, but the tradeoff is completely worth it IMO. You could probably get it to work on Windows or macOS using something like WinFSP or MacFUSE.
Hope this helps someone!
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u/littleemp Galaxy S25+ 2d ago
Solid Explorer lets you host your storage as an ftp server, so you can just transfer stuff over wifi.
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u/National_Educator330 1d ago
It works so well. It even has a share to option when saving files so you can save directly to remote storage, basically the opposite.
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u/EvilAdministrator 23h ago
Ive used Solid Explorer for years, but one thing that annoys me is that the download is incredibly slow.
Have you experienced this?
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u/littleemp Galaxy S25+ 23h ago
I dont know what the transfer speed is, but I regularly transfer multiple gigabytes and thought it much faster than MTP.
I have a Wifi 6 network though.
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u/skylinestar1986 1d ago
But when you browse the ftp in Windows Explorer , you can't just double click on an image file to view it.
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u/skylinestar1986 1d ago
But when you browse the ftp in Windows Explorer , you can't just double click on an image file to view it.
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u/grumpypantaloon 2d ago
Blip on my home network usually goes about 300mbit which is quite serviceable for my use cases
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u/Fish_Mongreler 1d ago
Yeah I tried local send and kde connect for years. Tried blip last month and deleted the other 2 immediately. Just wish it had an Android tv version
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u/tomikaka 2d ago
Just use quickhare with packet on Linux. Quickshare is native to android and it's fast too.
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u/mrandr01d 2d ago
I just plug my phone into my laptop and it shows up in nautilus? Can click and drag no problem. I thought only Mac and windows users had issues moving files. Does Linux still use mtp?
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u/parkerlreed Flip 7 | Watch Ultra 2d ago
Yes. You are using MTP there. It's less worse than Windows/Mac but still not the best for speed with a bunch of small files.
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u/bfg52 2d ago
Not downplaying the convenience of file transfer over cable or network... But...
Cx file explorer with an actual type-c SSD changed my android file transfer life.
I got a Transcend model that has type-c on one side and USB-A on the other. It's form factor is just like any old USB thumb drive.
Transfer 50GB of photos and videos to the SSD in about 10 minutes, then move SSD to copy to pc or NAS or whatever.
Say what you will, but sneakernet still wins sometimes, at least for me.
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u/ChironXII 2d ago
I resorted to running a remote shell to just tar whatever directory I wanted and transfer it as a binary through adb because mtp was so bad on windows
In particular android likes to end up with long file names that even with the registry tweak enabled mtp is too old to support, which this bypasses
I can post the script if anyone wants it. It's mostly for backing up entire phones rather than browsing
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u/SkySurferSouth 2d ago
Use SSH. Install Termux, a terminal app with package manager which included sshd server. ssh is the most used protocol in the Linux server world and rins flawlessly on Android. It is secure and open source, no proprietary file transfers like AitDrop, LocalSend or MTP needed.
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u/martinkem Galaxy S25 Ultra, Android 16 2d ago
The method he posted here is exponentially faster than whatever speeds you can get with Nautilus, FTP, LocalSend etc.
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u/TrailOfEnvy 1d ago
For Windows, maybe can try ADB File Manager. https://github.com/T0biasCZe/AdbFileManager/releases
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u/turtle_with_dentures 2d ago
Sadly, it's only available on Linux, as it relies on libfuse, and it's only a CLI application
So useless to almost everyone
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u/mrandr01d 2d ago
You should try Linux sometime, it's great, getting better, and it's quite popular.
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u/xmastreee OPPO Reno 8 2d ago
I use Localsend, mostly for transferring files to the PC but it can work the other way too. It runs in the background on the PC and there's no user involvement required at that end. So take a picture > share > Localsend > select the PC and it's done in seconds, the file is now in the selected folder. Both devices need to be on the same network, but that should be easy enough.