How to connect your Android 6 to your Windows

Recently, I encountered a trouble regarding my Nexus 5, a smartphone.

One day, I tried to transfer some movie files from my Windows PC to Nexus 5 via micro USB cable. But there were no files appeared on the explorer, in spite that Nexus 5 itself was recognized on Windows.

I was confused because there were several reasons suggested to be responsible for this phenomenon. Some software was installed recently. The USB cable was relatively aged. The storage of Nexus 5 did not have enough volume.

I tried several possibilities, and searched some website to seek a solution. But they were in vain. Finally, I decided to reset my smartphone.

The initializing took half an hour without troubles. Surprisingly, the issue was not resolved at all. The folder named “Nexus 5” looked still empty.

However, this status gave me a clue. I guessed that there might be some issues around Android OS itself. Initialization did not roll back the OS version. I noticed that the OS of my Nexus 5 was Android 6.0 Marshmallow. So, I sought some websites about Android 6.0 again. Finally, a Japanese website gave me a solution.

Web thoughts: No folders seen on the PC after updating Android intoversion 6.0 [in Japanese]

Following the direction of this blog, I fixed the problem. After that, an English site was also found.

Nexus Help Forum: Nexus 5 can't connect toPC after upgrading to Android 6, MTP doesn't exist

I will write the summary of the solution.

(1) Enable the “Developer Option” with tapping the “Build Number” on the terminal information page seven times.

(2) Connect the smartphone to the Windows PC via micro USB cable.

(3) Change the option of “USB setting” from MTP to another type (e.g. Charging only). And wait for a while during installation of the new driver automatically.

(4) Change the option of “USB setting” to MTP again.

That’s all.

Every time you want to connect the smartphone to the PC, you have to complete this procedure. The situation is the same regardless of the version of Windows. I confirmed it on Windows 7 and 10.

It seems that Google dislikes us to connect Android to Windows directly. It may be a marketing reason, or technical one. Anyway, it is quite inconvenient. I expect someone will develop an app to address this matter soon.