Six months ago, I gave up on the latest version of ES and reinstalled the old version. About a month ago, I was invited to try the ES Beta. I was curious about what they might have changed in this newest version, so I said OK.
I have to say, in the Beta, the new interface looks a little crowded, but I don’t care that much about looks. What I really think is important is if an app is useful or not.
Every time I want to download a new file or transfer a file from my laptop to my phone, I can't immediately find it in the library. It really bothered me. I tried quite a few file-management apps, but nothing really worked the way I wanted it to. Until now. I found that the ES 4.1 Beta solved this file issue. Every single change about the number of files is displayed on the home screen, and the library shows which file was “Last opened” and which was the “Last created.”
ES move Encrypt and Compress to the home screen in the Beta. Former users may remember that ES had these two functions before, but if you wanted to find Encrypted or Compressed files, you had to press and hold on files before doing anything. In this Beta version, you can manage all these files right on the home screen.
I’m always transferring files with my co-workers. Due to security concerns, we always encrypt those files first. The ES Beta encrypts files by masking the file names without zipping them. It also supports encrypting zip files. When the file is too large, I’ll choose this way. Unlike other file management apps, ES is more stable when encrypting files, decreasing the possibility of damaging the file. It’s the best app for your zip and rar archives.
Logger displays newly created files on the device. Actually, I don’t find this essential for daily use, but I found it could monitor auto-created files. Now, I check logger every day, just in case some files downloaded themselves. It’s very useful for people who are used to deleting these files themselves. It will save some space, but logger loads slower at first start-up. I found that after unlocking Real-Time Observer, it would load in less than 2 seconds.
This new version doesn’t support theme changing yet. Classic themes and Holo themes can’t be used, either. I left feedback for ES about this. They promised new themes will be coming soon, and I’m sure they won't let their users down.
I have to admit they f*cked it up a bit.
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Hey !
I've searched the web as well as the forum but i didn't find any solution and it seems i'm not the only one wanting to do that.
Is it possible to see hidden folders of internal sdcard through MTP ?
I really talk about hidden folder like ".android_secure", not the photos that aren't yet scanned by the media scanner service.
In my windows environment i already set the view all hidden files/folders as well as view system files.
If i have to change folders permissions through terminal what are the correct permissions i should put ?
Thanks for the help !!
Am i the only having that problem ?
Do you guys see the hidden folders through mtp connexion ?
If you'd bother reading a bit before asking questions, you might have the answer already.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_Transfer_Protocol
MTP and PTP specifically overcome this issue by making the unit of managed storage a local file rather than an entire (possibly very large) unit of mass storage at the block level. In this way, MTP works like a transactional file system - either the entire file is written/read or nothing.
More or less, it is designed to keep hidden what should be hidden stick to USB storage or FTP/SCP.
PS: can't believe we're using a transfer protocol designed by Microsoft in a Linux-based system mastered by Google. The horror, the pain... no wonder it doesn't work on my Mac!
VAXXi said:
If you'd bother reading a bit before asking questions, you might have the answer already.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_Transfer_Protocol
MTP and PTP specifically overcome this issue by making the unit of managed storage a local file rather than an entire (possibly very large) unit of mass storage at the block level. In this way, MTP works like a transactional file system - either the entire file is written/read or nothing.
More or less, it is designed to keep hidden what should be hidden stick to USB storage or FTP/SCP.
PS: can't believe we're using a transfer protocol designed by Microsoft in a Linux-based system mastered by Google. The horror, the pain... no wonder it doesn't work on my Mac!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thx for the link ! I knew what mtp is but its always good to refresh things up
I read the whole article and unfortunately it doesn't answer my question.
I understood that its the same for all of us meaning that we are not able to see hidden folders.
But the main question is if there is a way to bypass this behavior ? Where is this defined exactly ?
It seems according to the article that its not on the file permission layer ? Should it be at partition level ? How can mtp know what to share with the host ?
It's not a "behaviour" per se, but more/less a database. Remember that media scanner program which wakes up every time you change something on your SD card, be it internal or external ? it simply keeps a "database" of files which are presented to the MTP client (your computer) and hides away the phone's internal folders which are not supposed to be seen by the end-user.
Theoretically, this is done in order to have the iPhone-like behaviour: seeing the entire device memory as one big unified storage which you can fill as you want (no more of those partition size limitations which brought us the app2sd hacks). In my opinion, it's more or less just a small step done in order to "secure" phones for DRM protected content.
Studios and media companies require devices to have such measures of protection in order to allow you to sell media content (like movies, books, etc) and since Google wants to push its business further with the Play Store, it needs to cave in to the studios' demands. In the future, it will probably even become illegal (DMCA-style) for me to give you the information below
Back to the technical part of our show now.
At the first boot in the life of the device, Media Scanner will look under /system/media and index everything there. After that, it will scan everything under /mnt/sdcard (hence your external SD card too, if you have one, as it's mounted under /mnt/sdcard/external_sd). On some devices, you have an "internal.db" file and one "external-123xyz.db" file; that's a unique ID of the SD card which was scanned. The idea here is you might have 2-3 SD cards which you swap often, and it's not nice to do a full rescan each time you change the SD card. These databases are in /dbdata/databases/com.android.providers.media (on my phone, there is only one "external.db" for example).
So what you're looking for is a way to populate this database with all the files found by the Media Scanner. But Media Scanner doesn't want you to see the hidden folders you mentioned above. So, you get an application which doesn't ignore them, like Rescan SD Card! or SDrescan.
Happy now ?
Thank you very much i really enjoyed reading the explanation as it answers completely my questions and it makes sense !
Ill give a try to the apps but i'm also curious to investigate on those files
Cheers
PS. Is this a disguised way to support non open source protocols ?
Well, you could poke around inside the database with sqlite if you want. But don't really see what's so interesting about them.
It is just another protocol which is supported, which happens to be designed by Microsoft (and probably licensed/paid by Google to be used in Android). I understand the technical explanation behind this decision, but I'm also wary that someday UMS will be disabled by default and enabling it will disable content purchasing for that device (just like having a rooted phone now disables some "sensitive" apps, like banking and online TV).
As a system admin its interesting to know whats happening on my system
As a hobby its interesting for my personal knowledge
And from a development point of view it gives me some ideas for maybe future apps
You say that its just another protocol which is supported but to my understanding there are not so many of them ! So i would say that Google was kind of forced to use the MTP method, first from a hardware point of view and second to be compliant with the rest of the world.
Is there any other protocol that could suite their needs ? Since USB mass storage is not usable on some devices and MTP is well spead.
.HiddenAndroid folders in Win - Here Yesterday, Gone Tomorrow
<Win 7 and GN2>
What's curious and a bit frustrating to me is that, yesterday, when I mounted my device ALL of the hidden (.folders and .files) were visible and searchable. Today, when I went to explore some more, all are gone. I understand that I can use a 3rd party app, just can't figure out why it was visible yesterday and not today.
Hmmph
Did you ever resolve this issue? I really hate MTP for several reasons but this is one of the reasons why! I need to back up all my directories on the SDCard because some apps store them as hidden files in hidden directories. Furthermore, I came across the Play Store bug that requires me to delete a "temp.asec" file in the ".android_secure" directory, but of course it is not visible.
In a post further up it was suggested to use a "Rescan" app to force the DB to include hidden files/directories, but I have tried no less than 4 of these apps, and all they do is trigger the built-in android media scan, which is the problem in the first place!
So has anyone ever been able to access hidden files and directories using MTP?
EDIT: I have an HTC phone that actually shows hidden files and directories, so they have obviously implemented their own media scan. The problem I am currently having is on a Samsung phone (Epic 4G touch)
It may depend on the implementation. For example, using stock rom for the phone doesn't show some files and folders, for example folders starting with dot. But if you use Neatrom Lite it will show all files and folders.
Flash forward about 6 years and Samsung still does not show hidden folders/files when viewing the phone contents in Windows File Explorer, but HTC does.
The reason this is still a problem for me, is that I want to backup the contents of a particular directory (WhatsApp) which contains some hidden folders, so I can restore it anytime on a new phone or the same phone.
I recently switched from HTC to Samsung and alas, it seems the problem with this implementation still exists. Anyone found a workaround to this to allow File Explorer to see the hidden folders?
Update: It appears that hidden .nomedia files (and probably others) appear under regular folders, so the problem is limited to hidden folders themselves
When I download a DRM free mp3 like from openbsdorg/lyricshtml, using a browser, it arrives in the Download folder. I can then see it with the included ap "Downloads". If I click on it, it plays just great.
When I sftp the same file into the Download folder with Turbo Client it shows up fine in the in the "local" view provided by that ap. I can also see other files that I previously downloaded normally (using a browser) sitting beside it.
However, when I exit the Turbo Client, and try to view the file name with the built in Downloads ap, the file name is invisible, and obviously I can't play it either.
What is the difference between the files in the two cases? Is there an additional info file parallel the mp3 data file when I use the standard download process? If I go back into Turbo Client, I can still see the file that was sftp'd into the folder. It is still there. That's why I suspect additional information needs to be stored somewhere.
Can I avoid learning a whole new operating system for what is supposed to be a consumer friendly device?
How can I create the additional information that is needed?
AustinHook said:
When I download a DRM free mp3 like from openbsdorg/lyricshtml, using a browser, it arrives in the Download folder. I can then see it with the included ap "Downloads". If I click on it, it plays just great.
When I sftp the same file into the Download folder with Turbo Client it shows up fine in the in the "local" view provided by that ap. I can also see other files that I previously downloaded normally (using a browser) sitting beside it.
However, when I exit the Turbo Client, and try to view the file name with the built in Downloads ap, the file name is invisible, and obviously I can't play it either.
What is the difference between the files in the two cases? Is there an additional info file parallel the mp3 data file when I use the standard download process? If I go back into Turbo Client, I can still see the file that was sftp'd into the folder. It is still there. That's why I suspect additional information needs to be stored somewhere.
Can I avoid learning a whole new operating system for what is supposed to be a consumer friendly device?
How can I create the additional information that is needed?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you tried seeking help from the developer of Turbo Client? He seems very open to support requests according to his thread on xda (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2023646). I feel like this issue you are having is more closely related to the app you are using and not so much the device, so this forum probably is not the ideal place to pose your question.
Download vs SFTP file visibility question
NasaGeek said:
Have you tried seeking help from the developer of Turbo Client? He seems very open to support requests according to his thread on xda (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2023646). I feel like this issue you are having is more closely related to the app you are using and not so much the device, so this forum probably is not the ideal place to pose your question.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks. I have now posted on his forum as well, however, I have the feeling it is a generic issue, relating to the move to more Apple like total control of use of the device. My HTC ONE X+ is Android 4.1.1 (I should have mentioned earlier). I only resorted to sftp because I couldn't mount it as an SD drive. I am coming from an HTC Desire running Android 2.2 where I could just mount the device like a memory stick. That was nice. Now under Jelly Bean it seems there is an intent to take away user control. This is rotten. I'm not a cell phone guru. I don't want to have to learn about "rooting" the device, reflashing the ROM or whatever, I just want to use what should be a consumer friendly device, but I suspect an attempt to redefine the meaning of consumer friendly, to make us jump all kinds of hoops to get straight forward access to the data it deals with.
I'm sorry you've been having such trouble, but your skepticism regarding MTP (this has been Android's internal storage standard since ICS) is quite unfounded. An Android engineer talks about it a little more in this reddit post, but the general idea is MTP was done to make things easier, not harder, and you should most certainly still be able to access your device's storage by plugging it into your computer. You should be able to do this "out-of-the-box" so to speak, without rooting or unlocking the device. You might, however, need to install the necessary drivers for your phone. Android is all about giving the user a healthy amount of control over their device and what files come and go from it (to a certain degree), though I'm not sure I can say the same thing for HTC Sense...
edit: upon reading your post in the other thread, I think I understand your issue. The developer's response was unfortunately not terribly informative for someone who is not well-versed with Android. In order to access your mp3 files you will need to download a file browser app from the Play Store (like this one ) and navigate to your sdcard/Downloads folder.
I probably should have read your post a little more clearly, particularly where you mentioned you were trying to view the files with the Downloads app
Folks;
unsure whether this is the best forum for my question - apologies if this is completely off here. I want to get photo management on my device a bit improved (thousands of images, several different camera and processing apps each of them storing to different folders). I am looking for an automatism, app, ... that does more or less the following:
* Run either on demand (which is ok for me) or periodically at the end of each month.
* Create a monthly image folder <YEAR>_<MONTH> in some configurable place, if not already existing. external SD would be best for this, but is not strictly required.
* Find all images taken (or processed) in the current month in a bunch of configurable folders (DCIM, Pictures, ...).
* Move all these findings over to the <YEAR>_<MONTH> backup folder.
I placed a similar question (http://forum.xda-developers.com/u/t...ate-monthly-image-folder-external-sd-t3420418) in the Tasker forum but actually I am completely unsure whether I want/need Tasker, Automate or something like this to get this job done. Maybe some sync application, a "better" file manager, an image gallery, ... also can do that job. Important, however, would be for me that manual effort to get this done is pretty limited - I do not want to manually select and move a bunch of files but essentially an "icon", an app, ... that can be launched and does just that.
TIA and all the best,
Kristian
For whatever it's worth, just to close this: After playing around with various solutions, the most comfortable approach I found was creating an Automate (http://llamalab.com/automate/community/) flow that manages to do exactly this. Ask me if interested.
Oops, seem to have cross posted due to having two tabs open, cant make sense of the changed layout!
Mods please feel free to delete this thread if no one has answered!
Hi all!
An oldie but a goldie!
I've changed from S6 32g, to S6Eedge 64g since I was running out of space.
Now I need to transfer 4000 photos (sorted by date) to the new phone. A direct copy from PC converts all the created dates to the current date (ie when transfer is done) which as you can imagine screws everything up royally!
Ive tried and failed in many many many ways including:
Samsung Smart Switch
FTP
Syncing programs from pc to phone
ADB push
WEBdav
Hail marys, and praying to every god out there
They all bugger up the dates...........
The ONLY ONLY way Ive found out that works is by zipping up the original files, transferring to new phone, and unzipping locally with Total Commander. ONLY Total Commander seems to be able to unzip and preserve the dates, all the other file managers and extracting programs (I tried 10-15) out there can NOT manage this. Total Commander probably works cuz im rooted, and it can use this.
HOWEVER this only worked with smaller directories, but my main pics folder is a 8 gig compressed zip, and when I try the same way Total Commander only manages to unzip the same 700 files and stops (anyone else come across this limitation?). So the only way I can manage is to zip up the original files in 7-8 different zip files and unzip locally individually, which is a big hassle.
Ive googled many threads on this problem, most of them were unresolved and some solutions refer to previous android versions or software and dont work anymore.
I'm hoping that you all dont spend four days setting up a new phone everytime ( home screen and app settings is a whole different drama! Thank you Titanium backup! iOS really has the jump on Andoird when it comes to changing phones...)
The only thing I can think of which I havent tried yet is USB OTG, since I dont have the cable. Anyone can confirm whether this method keeps the dates unchnaged?
So in your experience, whats the best way of doing this? How do you guys do it?
To be honest for 4 thousand photos swapping back and forth between devices you are better off using a could storage. Especially if you want to minimise the risk of loosing them all if something goes wrong. All zip folders will extract with the original date it. You could try and torrent you DCIM folder and language download it to your computer. Torrents download with their file dates intact.
Thanks for your reply!
IMHO this cloud thing is actually whats causing so many of the problems in hardware design these days in general.
Why is it so hard for companies to realise that when you are two floors underground, or roaming or even in middle of central london, net connection is not guaranteed......
Let alone the speed, convenience, security issues etc etc etc
As to the loss risk, I back them up on my home pcs regularly with a sync application, which ironically enough works perfectly well thank god!
So for me cloud is a no go....
As to your other suggestion, sounds great
Can I torrent just on the local net? ie direct from phone to pc?
Any apps you can reccomend? will save me trawling through a hundred crap apps in GPlay.
Thanks again for your time, its appreciated!
PS re what you said about all zips extracting correctly. Can you try on your device? Zip up a few small old files on your pc, transfer the zip to phone, extract there, and check the dates.
All except one of the ones I have tried do it, as mentioned above.
PPS Gave your torrent suggestion a go, no joy. All the transferred files had the new date ;-(.
I tried the the utorrent android app...
Update and for future help for people who will come across this issue.
I managed it!
I used Total Commander on the phone through the LAN plugin function, to access my backup folder on the pc, select all files and copy to local phone directory.
You need to initiate the copy from the PHONE on Total Commander, ie pull the files onto the phone, dont copy them by drag and drop from PC.
It took a while but it was done!
Dates and timestamps all preserved and correct!
Hello all, I have received a TON of false positives in my search for whether this is even possible.
In windows, a shortcut to a file or folder can be stored in any folder.
So far in Android, a shortcut can only be placed on the home screen, and AFAIK does not have a corresponding file that can be found in the root browser.
I am trying to trick Handshaker into giving me access to my EXTERNAL SD, and the only way I can think of is to create a shortcut somewhere on the internal SD that zips on over to the card where all my media (100Gb+) is stored.
I'm on a OPX, so internal storage BARELY COVERS apps. No switcheroo action is reasonably doable.
As an aside, is this whole Mac incompatibility thing a vestigial grudge? It must take a lot of effort to KEEP usb from working as it should. Are there other apps besides the "works when it feels like it" Android File Transfer or "installs weird **** on your phone" HandShaker that allow you to move around YOUR OWN FILES without using the cloud? The amount of web silence and lack of development is stunning to me. Maybe I need to refine my search terms?? Unlikely. I've tried many tens of iterations.
The search for answers here results in a mountain of false-positives as well.
Thanks for taking the time to at least read this.
Cheers.