Android smartphone not recognized

[Joachim]

Hi all. Today I tried to ingest from my Google Pixel 8 pro phone. The phone showed up in Windows explorer, and I could see and open every folder. But in PM the phone did show up as (E), not its name, like in windows exøorer, and nothing happened when I clicked on the symbol. I tried different usb-cables and another port on the computer. Nothing. Propably some error from my side, but I am not able to find out what I am doing wrong. Can anyone come up with a suggestion? By the way, PM plus, windows 11. Everything updated.

[MNeipris]

Photo Mechanic does not support ingesting directly from a smartphone or camera connected via USB cable. Photo Mechanic does not use the Media Transfer Protocol (MTP) needed for the functionality.

You can view the smartphone's files in Windows Explorer then copy and paste or drag and drop them to a folder on your hard drive, then open that folder as a contact sheet in Photo Mechanic with File-->Open Contact Sheet or Ctrl-O.

[Joachim]

Yes, I am aware of that. But right now my concern is why I cannot ingest directly as form my cameras or memory cards.

[MNeipris]

To append my previous post, if your Android phone or digital camera supports USB Mass storage mode, Photo Mechanic should be able to ingest from the device when USB Mass storage mode is enabled.

I found a support article from Google about the Pixel phone that mentions USB file transfer that may be helpful: https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/2840804?hl=en#zippy=%2Cwindows-computer

If your memory cards are inserted in a memory card reader and Photo Mechanic is not able to ingest from the memory card, that is a separate issue.

What type of memory card(s) are you using?

What card reader are you using?

How is the card reader connected to the computer? Are you using a USB hub or is the card reader connected directly to the computer?

Does the memory card appear in Windows Explorer?

We can also troubleshoot this issue via email: support@camerabits.com or via phone: 1-503-547-2888, Monday-Friday 9AM-4PM Pacific Time.

[Joachim]

Thank you. It seems that newer Android phones does not support mass storage mode.
So, I suppose it's a lost case, at least for now. I'll better copy the images manually.

[MNeipris]

You are welcome, Joachim.

[radarrab]

@joaquim I have a Pixel 6, same thing. I have to use a USB cable or use my wifi with Dropbox. And for some reason since the Android 14 update, the USB prompt asking what I want to do no longer shows up and I have to go into the settings to see it.

I rename my files in PM to include the capture date and time now, since moving them around over the years often changes the file date and the capture date seems to sometimes get lost. Plus with my big cameras the SD cards would eventually run into duplicate names.
If you don't already know this, the Pixel file name doesn't use your local time and date, but UTC I think. Also the words appended into the Pixel file name (e.g. "NIGHT", "PANO", etc.) complicate my renaming. I need to see if there's a way to eliminate those within PM so I don't need the extra step of removing those with another program.

[ahoward]

@joaquim I have a Pixel 6, same thing. I have to use a USB cable or use my wifi with Dropbox. And for some reason since the Android 14 update, the USB prompt asking what I want to do no longer shows up and I have to go into the settings to see it.

I rename my files in PM to include the capture date and time now, since moving them around over the years often changes the file date and the capture date seems to sometimes get lost. Plus with my big cameras the SD cards would eventually run into duplicate names.
If you don't already know this, the Pixel file name doesn't use your local time and date, but UTC I think. Also the words appended into the Pixel file name (e.g. "NIGHT", "PANO", etc.) complicate my renaming. I need to see if there's a way to eliminate those within PM so I don't need the extra step of removing those with another program.

If you just need to remove a word from the file name, use Find and Replace and simply leave the replace field blank.