Android File Transfer for Linux — reliable MTP client with minimalistic UI similar to Android File Transfer for Mac.
It just works™.
If you're happy with gmtp/gvfs/mtpfs or any other mtp software, you might not need this software (but give it a try!).
If you're suffering from crashes, missing tags and album covers, usb freezes and corrupted files, this software is right for you.
- Simple Qt UI with progress dialogs.
- FUSE wrapper (If you'd prefer mounting your device), supporting partial read/writes, allowing instant access to your files.
- No file size limits.
- Automatically renames album cover to make it visible from media player.
- USB 'Zerocopy' support found in recent Linux kernel (no user/kernel data copying)
- No extra dependencies (e.g.
libptp/libmtp). - Available as static/shared library.
- Command line tool (aft-mtp-cli)
Please take a look at FAQ if you have issues with your operating system. It's not that big, but those are the questions asked very often.
If you want to help me with development, click on the link below and follow the instructions. I'm developing AFTL in my spare time and try to fix everything as fast as possible, sometimes adding features in realtime (more than 100 tickes closed by now). Any amount would help relieving pain of using MTP. :D
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You will need Qt libraries for building ui program. If you want to use only library (Qt is not needed), you could turn the option
BUILD_QT_UIoff. -
For ubuntu and other debian-based distros use the following command:
sudo apt-get install build-essential cmake libqt4-dev ninja-build libfuse-dev libreadline-dev
For Fedora:
dnf install make automake gcc gcc-c++ kernel-devel cmake fuse fuse-devel qt-devel readline-devel -
Basically, you need
libqtX-devfor UI,libfuse-devfor FUSE interface,cmake,ninjaormakefor building the project. You could use libqt5-dev as well.
mkdir build
cd build
cmake -G Ninja ..
ninja
./qt/android-file-transfermkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make
./qt/android-file-transferYou'll need Qt installed to build the GUI app. Here are the build instructions with qt5 from homebrew (brew install qt5):
mkdir build
cd build
cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=~/Applications -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=/usr/local/opt/qt5
make
make install
open ~/Applications/android-file-transfer.appsudo ninja install or sudo make install will install program into cmake prefix/bin directory (usually /usr/local/bin)
mkdir ~/my-device
./aft-mtp-mount ~/my-deviceRemember, if you want album art to be displayed, it must be named 'albumart.xxx' and placed first in the destination folder. Then copy other files. Also, note that fuse could be 7-8 times slower than ui/cli file transfer.
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Start application, choose destination folder and click any button on toolbar.
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The options available there are:
Upload Album,Upload DirectoryandUpload Files. The latter two are self-explanatory.Upload albumtries searching source directory for album cover and sets best available cover. -
You could drop any files or folders right into application window, the transfer will start automatically.
- Samsung removed android extensions from MTP, so fuse will be available readonly, sorry. Feel free to post your complaints to http://developer.samsung.com/forum/en
- Sometimes downloading fails with usb timeout, then phone becomes unresponsive. Android bug #75259
- Objects created in UI will not show up in FUSE filesystem. Android bug #169547
The actual list of all known problems and bugs available here
Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any further questions, my email address is vladimir.menshakov@gmail.com.
- All who filed bugs on github and wrote emails, many features appeared only because of your feedback. Thanks!
- Alexey gazay Gaziev for useful suggestions, support and invaluable help with MacBook and MacOSX port.
Android File Transfer for Linux is released under GNU LGPLv2.1 License.
Copyright © 2015-2018 Vladimir Menshakov