Android USB Connections Explained:mtp, PTP, and USB Mass Storage

Android USB Connections Explained:mtp, PTP, and USB Mass Storage

Older Android devices support USB mass storage for transferring files back and forth with a computer. Modern Android devices use the MTP or PTP protocols-you can choose which one prefer.

To select a USB connection protocol, open the Settings app, tap Storage, tap the menu button, and tap USB computer Connect Ion. You'll also see the protocol your device was using as a notification when it's connected to a computer via USB.

Why modern Android Devices Don ' t support USB Mass Storage

USB Mass storage-also known as "USB mass storage device class," USB MSC, or Ums-was the "the" older versions of Android Exposed their storage to a computer. When your connected your Android device to your computer, you ' d has to specifically tap a "Connect storage to PC" button t o make the Android device ' s storage accessible to the computer over USB mass storage. When disconnecting it was from the computer, you had to tap a "Turn off USB Storage" button.

USB mass Storage is the standard protocol used by flash drives, external hard drives, SD cards, and other USB storage Devi Ces. The drive makes itself completely available to the computer, just as if it were a internal drive.

There were problems with the the-this-worked. Whatever device is accessing the storage needs exclusive access to it. When you connected the storage to the computer, it is disconnected from the Android operating system running on the Devic E. Any files or apps stored on the SD card or USB storage would is unavailable when it is connected to the computer.

System files had to be stored somewhere; They ' d never is disconnected from the device, so you ended up with Android devices containing separate/data partitions fo R "System Storage" And/sdcard partitions for "USB storage" on the same internal storage device. Android installed apps and its system files Onto/data, while user data is stored on The/sdcard partition.

Because of this hard split, your might end up with too little space for apps and too much space for data, or too little spa Ce for apps and too much space for data. You couldn ' t resize these partitions without rooting your device-the manufacturer chose the appropriate amount for each Partition at the factory.

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Because the file system had to is accessible from Windows device, it had to is formatted with the FAT file system. Not only Doesmicrosoft has patents it exerts on FAT, Fat was also an older, slower file system without a modern permission System. Android can now use the modern Ext4 file system for all it partitions because they don ' t need to being directly readable by Windows.

Connecting an Android phone or tablet to a computer as a standard USB storage device was convenient, but there be too many Downsides. The craziness had to stop, so modern Android devices use different USB connection protocols.

Mtp–media Device

MTP stands for "Media Transfer Protocol." When Android uses this protocol, it appears to the computer as a "media device."  the Media Transfer Protocol is widely promoted as a standardized protocol for transferring audio files to digital m Usic players using Windows Media Player and similar applications. It is designed to allow other media player companies to compete with Apple's IPod and itunes.

This protocol works very differently from USB mass storage. Rather than exposing your Android device ' s raw file system to Windows, MTP operates at the file level. Your Android device doesn ' t expose its entire storage device to Windows. Instead, when you connect a device to your computer, the computer queries the device and the device responds with a list o f Files and directories it offers. The computer can download a file-it would request the file from the device, and the device would send the file over the CO Nnection. If a computer wants to upload a file, it sends the file to the device and the device chooses to save it. When you delete a file, your computer sends a signal to the device saying, "Please delete this file," and the device can D Elete it.

Android can choose the files it presents to your, and hide system files so you can ' t see or modify them. If you attempt to delete or edit a file that can ' t is modified, the device would refuse the request and you'll see an error Message.

Your computer doesn ' t need exclusive access to the storage device, so there ' s no need to connect the storage, disconnect I T, or has separate partitions for different types of data. Android can also use EXT4 or any other file system it wants-windows doesn ' t has to understand the file system, only and Roid does.

In practice, MTP functions a IoT like USB mass storage. For example, a MTP device shows up in Windows Explorer so you can browse and transfer files. Linux also include offers for MTP devices via LIBMTP, which are generally included with popular desktop Linux distributions . MTP devices should appear on your Linux desktop ' s file Manager, too.

Apple's Mac OS X is a holdout-it doesn ' t include an MTP support in all. Apple ' s IPod, IPhone, and IPad use their own proprietary syncing protocol along with ITunes, so why would they want to sup Port a competing protocol?

Google provides a Android File Transfer application for Mac OS x. This application was just a simple MTP client, so it would work for transferring files back and forth on a Mac. Google doesn ' t provide this application-operating system because they include MTP support.

Ptp–digital Camera

PTP stands for "Picture Transfer Protocol." When Android uses this protocol, it appears to the computer as a digital camera.

MTP is actually based on PTP, but adds more features, or "extensions." PTP works similarly to MTP, and are commonly used by digital cameras. Any software program, supports grabbing photos from a digital camera would support grabbing photos from an Android Phon e When you select the PTP mode. PTP is designed to is a standard protocol for communicating with digital cameras.

In this mode, your Android device would work with digital camera applications, the support PTP and not MTP. Apple ' s Mac OS X does support PTP, so you can use PTP mode to transfer photos from an Android device to a Mac over a USB C Onnection without any special software.

If you had an older Android device, the forced to use USB mass storage. On a modern Android device, you had a choice between MTP and ptp-you should use MTP unless you had software that only Supports PTP.

If your device has a removable SD card, you can remove the SD card and insert it directly into your computer ' s SD card SLO T. The SD card would be available to your computer as a storage device, so can access all the files on it, run File-rec Overy software, and do anything else you can ' t does with MTP.

Android USB Connections Explained:mtp, PTP, and USB Mass Storage