Using Phone as Drive - USB Cable

[Alonzo Mosley]

Sorry if this is answered elsewhere, my Googling only finds stuff 10+ years old and, surprise surprise surprise, ChatGPT done did me wrong.

What's the simplest way to connect my Android phone to TC Windows to compare my phone contents to a backup folder?

Under \\Network\*.* I see a folder called "MediaAudio2" but when I attempt to open it I get the message "Error, could not load plugin!"

I can see my phone under "Cross Device" (wireless) but the connection isn't steady enough to attempt to Sync .

Thanks!

[ghisler(Author)]

I would use the Android ADB plugin, it's the fastest method but requires that you enable debugging on the phone.

[Alonzo Mosley]

I am doing something wrong.

I downloaded the Android ADB plugin and manually installed it. (I extracted the adbplugin-windows folder to my tc folder, and installed it via Configuration=>Options=>Plugins=>File System Plugins (.WFX))

USB degugging is ON.

Phone is connected to Windows PC via USB.

I opened my phone by double-clicking the phone-shaped drive labeled "U1" and navigated to the folder I wanted to sync. On the right panel, I navigated to the network folder I wanted to sync.

I hit "Synchronize Dirs..." and got the message:
Error - Synchronize only supports the following combinations... (See attached screenshot)
Image: https://imgur.com/a/UCZzJZx

What am I doing wrong?

[ghisler(Author)]

You are still accessing your phone via the built-in Windows method (virtual folder).

Please follow these steps to use the ADB plugin:
1. Debugging must be enabled on the phone, please read online how to do this for your model, google:
Enable your_phone_name debugging
2. Download the plugin from https://totalcmd.net/plugring/android_adb.html
3. In Total Commander, double-click on "adbplugin-windows.zip" and follow the instructions to install it
4. Alt+F1, open drive "\"
5. Double-click on "ADB"
6. Double-click on "Options"
7. Under File List command, select the following:
Native 8.1 "ls -la"
8. Click OK
9. Double-click the device name
10. Navigate to storage/1234-5678 (numbers will be different) for the sd card (if present), and /storage/emulated/0 for the internal storage.
If 0 doesn't show up, click behind the path above the file list to edit it, append 0 yourself, and press Enter to go there.

[Alonzo Mosley]

Thanks. I had done steps 1-4 already, but did them again. Steps 6 and 7 is what I didn't know.
Now, when I get to step 9... I didn't see the device name but its serial number (that must be where I fouled up before!).
I'm at my office so I can't attempt an actual Synch but that seems to be what did the trick.
Thank you.

[Alonzo Mosley]

Last bit:

The folder names are different on \\\ADB\[PHONE Serial Number]\storage\emulated\0\DCIM and \\:[Phone Name]\Internal storage\DCIM\

The difference appears to be that on the \\\ADB string, any folder that's more than one word, it just retains the last word and its preceding space.
e.g., \Total Commander\ displays as \ Commander\, \From Russia With Love\ displays as \ Love\.

When I double-click on one of those folders, their displayed paths change to
"\\\ADB\[PHONE Serial Number]\storage\emulated\0\DCIM\Total\ Commander\.."
"\\\ADB\[Phone Serial Number]\storage\emulated\0\DCIM\From\ Russia\ With\ Love\.."

What's more, the affected folders show as empty, even though they are not.

[ghisler(Author)]

\Total Commander\ displays as \ Commander\, \From Russia With Love\ displays as \ Love\.

This happens when you don't follow steps 6 to 8 above.

[Alonzo Mosley]

I did follow those steps. I can't see where the mistake is?

[ghisler(Author)]

I have just tested it again, it's this option:
7. Under File List command, select the following:

Native 8.1 "ls -la"

You get the problem when this is set to

Native "ls -l"

Note the missing "8.1" in the default setting. With the default, Android seems to report the spaces with a preceding backslash, which Total Commander interprets as relative directories. I don't know why this hasn't been fixed so far in the plugin.

[Alonzo Mosley]

Thanks. Yeah, that's easy to miss.

I think what may have happened was I presumed that once it was set, it was good, but when I swapped windows L<=>R that setting didn't "stick" so I was back where I started.

Just proves the power of a good checklist - and the rigor to follow.

Thank you