2011 10/Dec 5:41am

Connecting the Galaxy Nexus to your computer via MTP and the lack of USB Mass Storage

For better or worse, Google has been pushing to abolish microSD card slots from Android devices. Some of the reasoning behind this move revolves around making making the experience easier for beginners, i.e. not having to worry where apps will be installed, applications breaking when you remove the SD card or having to download and use a file manager. Of course this goes against rightly disgruntled advanced users who’ve been used to the convenience of expandable external storage.

The Galaxy Nexus (read our full review here) is Google’s brainchild, proudly becoming the first Android device to run version 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, and as such, it does not have a microSD card slot. Moving the external storage discussion aside, there is one specific functionality that’s become collateral damage. That is USB mass storage. To clarify here, Ice Cream Sandwich has support for USB mass storage but the Galaxy Nexus doesn’t.

USB mass storage is the protocol that allows your computer to view any USB device as a normal storage drive, i.e. gives it a drive letter and you can open it with Windows Explorer or Finder on Mac OS and transfer files and folders as you would with any other drive. If you’ve ever connected a USD thumb drive to a computer and browsed its contents, then it was using USB mass storage. USB mass storage allows block level access, i.e. ‘complete access’ to a storage device. As the Galaxy Nexus has one, unified, built-in storage which hosts both the Android operating system and your personal files it was impractical (if not impossible) to permit block level access on that storage.

MTP and PTP selection on Ice Cream Sandwich device

Instead, the Galaxy Nexus uses the Media Transfer Protocol (MTP in short) to allow you to transfer both media but also any type of file to and from your smartphone. MTP is already built-in on most Windows PCs, you only have to connect the Galaxy Nexus with a USB cable and browse the Galaxy Nexus media device as you would have with any drive. Below you can see how a Windows 7 PC views the Galaxy Nexus. Opening the device shows a standard folder view.

Galaxy Nexus connected to a Windows PC with MTP – no mass storage

Only users with Windows 2000, Windows 98 and Windows Me would need to download additional software. A drawback with MTP is that you can’t alter files directly on the device, you need to download the file to your computer, change it, and then move it back. Though obviously this isn’t a big deal.

Mac OS doesn’t have built-in support for MTP, you would need to download and install a special tool, you can find instructions here. After you install and run the Android File Transfer tool, it will open automatically when you attach the Galaxy Nexus to your Mac. It is however an inconvenience if you want to quickly connect the Nexus to a friend’s Mac computer for example. Below you can see the Android File Transfer tool running on a Mac.

Galaxy Nexus connected with MTP to a Mac with Android File Transfer - folder list

The tool is very stripped down, the list view above is the only choice, i.e. forget about thumbnail or Coverflow view modes. On a Mac you can’t preview or open files directly from the Galaxy Nexus, you would first need to transfer the file to your computer.

Finally, there are cases where you might want to connect the Galaxy Nexus to another device, e.g. a media player or TV in order to play files. If your hardware doesn’t support MTP you’ll be more or less stuck unfortunately, so you might want to check your device’s capabilities. You will still be able to connect the Nexus to a printer directly in order to print photos since it also supports the Picture Transfer Protocol (PTP).

Hope this has cleared any confusion on MTP and the Galaxy Nexus, but please fire away any questions you may still have.

Article Tags:

Android , Galaxy Nexus , Google , Mac OS X , Media Transfer Protocol , Picture Transfer Protocol , USB , USB mass storage , Windows

Munchb16

I connect my GNex to my Windows XP and all I see are the folders, no files. If I plug it in to Windows 7 I gain access to the files.

Any thoughts you can lend as to why this is happening?

Thanks

Anonymous

There is prerequisite of having Windows Media Player 10 or later installed for MTP to work on Windows XP.

Could you try checking your Media Player version and update if you have an older one. Let us know how it goes.

Archimedes Trajano

Tried it on mine, WMP10 on XP still no luck.

123456

think I go back the gingerbread 2.3.6. it was more easily to move files. don’t know what they where thinking making this crap.

Munchb16

Viola!

I hope anybody having this problem will stumble across this. Somehow Windows makes everything appropriate when you update to WMP 11. Updating to 10 only made the phone appear in explorer, while still gaining no access. Thanks for all the help.

ALSO Remember to un check the boxes if your not trying to have WMP take over as your primary player for files.

FINALLY FULL CONTROL ! ! ! BRING ON THE HD VIDEO ! ! !
Greatsam59

Thanks a lot for clearing up this problem, I’ve been going a little crazy trying to sync my Nexus with my Mac. Unfortunately, when I plug my Nexus into my Mac’s USB drive, the only way to view it is through the “Android File Transfer” software, which means I can never view it as a separate drive on my computer. This wouldn’t be a problem, except for the fact that I want to use an application like “Itunemywalkman” or “doubletwist” to automatically sync my iTunes music to my phone every time I plug it in, but both of them require the ability to see the Nexus as some kind of USB drive or set of folders, which seems impossible because I need to view it through Android File Transfer. Any way around this? Thanks

Johhnyjs

Hey there. You can go about it two ways.

There is a MacOS app called iSyncr which can use MTP to sync you with your Galaxy Nexus directly.

The other way is to used Airsync with Doubletwish.

Hope this helps.

Mikeharrer

Thanks for clearing this up. I think im going to return my phone due to the lack of this feature alone. I am an electrical engineer and im always used to connecting my old phone to various Tektronix Oscilloscopes in order to capure screen plots and quickly and to send them out. Now I need to grab a USB stick but also transfer the images to a PC or laptop which is not always around me depending on were im working.
Andrecamposbmg

Does it work on win XP?
Engbaek

I have the latest Nexus Galaxy and the Nexus S. About
2 weeks ago my nexus S was upgraded to Ice Cream Sandwich. Now I am unable to
transfer files to my PCs on both phones. One PC runs Windows 7 64 bit and the
other runs Vista.

When I plug in the USB-cable, any of the phoneson any
of the computers I am told, that the USB-device in unknown.

I have searched the net for drivers or other solution,
but have not found it. It makes no diff whether is use MTP or PTP
Anika06_asad

My computer doesn’t show the second image (after ”
you only have to connect the Galaxy Nexus with a USB cable and browse the Galaxy Nexus media device as you would have with any drive. Below you can see how a Windows 7 PC views the Galaxy Nexus. Opening the device shows a standard folder view.”)
Mine just says it couldn’t find some sort of wizard. I mean, it finds the Galaxy (it says “found new something, Galaxy”) but after that it says something about USB port 2.0. What should I do to make my computer recognize my phone?
Anika06_asad

”
If your hardware doesn’t support MTP you’ll be more or less stuck unfortunately, so you might want to check your device’s capabilities.” Does this mean I have to get a new computer to make my phone be able to download music and games?