This might be obvious but when you connect your phone to your PC have you enabled file transfers? Usually it defaults to charging only. It should show up in your notification bar.
this post was submitted on 08 Jan 2024
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Plug in cable to PC, go into android USB setting and switch it to file transfer instead of charging mode, it should show in your file manager as a connected USB drive. ( you can tell everyone is a linux or phone techy, everone gave the complicated merhods that didn't address the question asked, but @OP all the other methods work also )
TBF, KDE Connect is pretty convenient for this and other stuff
Of course, it's awesome; so is GSConnect on Gnome, and syncthing is awesome, and fx on android with samba shares is great. Croc on mobile to PC, etc. just the dude asks how to use USB cable and gets recompile your kernel suggestion ( I'm being hyberbolic)
He can still use the Cable C to keep the battery on.
I have a Pixel 4a with GrapheneOS and I can never get it to find any other devices in KDE connect for some reason. Syncthing works fine though so I just use that instead.
If you're using a vpn it could be preventing it, I had to allow lan on mullvad's settings to make it work.
Yeah I do have Mullvad as well but it doesn't seem to be that. I tried split tunneling KDE connect and also just turning the VPN off altogether and it made no difference.
My current guess is either some hidden security thing in GrapheneOS that I haven't discovered yet, or maybe some router setting that's filtering it out? The investigation is ongoing!
I had to specifically run mullvad lan set allow in the terminal on pc and turn on "local network sharing" on the phone app specifically. If you're not on linux idk, but if you are and haven't tried that it could help. Though if it doesn't work with the mullvad disabled (and "always require vpn" off on both devices) then it probably isn't that. If it's a graphene setting it isn't one enabled by default, because I got a pixel 6 last week and it works fine through mullvad to use kde connect with my settings set to allow lan.
K I kind of solved it! Turns out there wasn't a setting within the Mullvad app for "always require VPN", but there was one in the Android system settings under VPN. If I turn that off and then split tunnel KDE connect only on the phone (not on my laptop for some unknown reason) then they can see each other.
One to file under "I don't know why that works but I'll take it" lol.
Lol ayy alright! Glad you got it sorted!
I'd use Kdeconnect or syncthing
This is the way. MTP is horrible and adb is annoying.
MTP sucks, it's even slower than good WiFi and half the time it locks up in the middle of a transfer.
syncthing doesnt use usb sadly
Plug it in, unlock it, tap the USB notification and change it to "transfer files". I like to keep my screen on but you shouldn't have to.
Mtp is your friend, here is hiw I do it on my devices (samsung a23 and both opensuse and arch):
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I connect my phone to my pc. Then select mtp in the phone notification.
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Start my file manager (dolphine or whatever) and access my phone storage from there.
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Make sure to allow the notification on the phone asking if you want to sahre your storage with the external device.
For my LineageOS phone I use ADB: adb pull /sdcard/DCIM/Camera to get photos I've taken for example.
OP may need to install ADB and enable USB debugging. Here's a guide if they don't know how
If OP installed GrapheneOS they likely already have adb and USB debugging configured.
That said, as recommended in the FAQ, one should use android-file-transfer, since enabling USB debugging (and using adb) is a security breach
Actually, I always end up using ADB tools to get files or photos, you can get recursive files to get them all. I do it even with people that tries to get photos from their Windows machines, so I don't think it's a problem with Linux neither. This is the best way to get safely and correctly all your files.
search usb in settings, set it to file transfer while its plugged into your pc. Alternatively you can install kde connect on both of the devices and transfer files wirelessly
You need the package gvfs-mtp installed, if you want to do it via file manager. Or the adb tools for cli.
But really something you could have googled 3x in the time you asked this.
fun tip, if you have a samba share and your devices are in the same network, use a file manager that can connect to local network (like explorer by speed software), and transfer your files wirelessly. it seems to be equally fast too, i haven't used a cable for ages except for killing updaters and bloatware with adb.
That's pretty neat. There's also an SMB client called CIFS Documents Provider (by Atsushi Wada) that's Free (MIT License) & open source.
There is a package called android-transfer-file or something like that in the void repos but I'm not sure if its also in the mint repos, might be worth checking, its a gui app that makes it very straightforward to transfer files. Or in last resort you can always git clone the project and use 'make' to build manually the app