Android 6.0 Marshmallow was the latest version of android before the arrival of Android 7.0 Nougat, most Android smartphone however st...
Android 6.0 Marshmallow was the latest version of android before the arrival of Android 7.0 Nougat, most Android smartphone however still run on the 6.0 version of the Android OS. Setting up your device in Marshmallow to connect with your PC can be stressful and frustrating sometimes because it keeps going back to charge only mode even after you have selected and used the File Transfer option before.
When you plug your Marshmallow-powered phone into a computer — Windows, Mac or Linux makes no difference — you'll have to tell the operating system what you want to do.
By default, your Android smartphone will be in USB 'charging only' mode. This means no data is being transferred between your phone and your computer and only the 5 volt power which you can use to charge your smartphone battery is active. This means that you can't see the phone in any file or folder browsing software because it can't be seen by your computer.
What you'll need to do however, is to go into your notifications, and tap the USB connection button. You'll get a dialog box with which you can change the default mode.
In the dialog box there will be four options. Three of which had been in previous Android versions— Charging only, File Transfer, Transfer Photos— and one (MIDI) which is a new feature. These modes are briefly described below.
- Charging only: This is the default selection, and it is only used when you just want to charge your phone battery with a computer.
- Transfer files (MTP): With this mode, you can copy and transfer files between your phone and computer using the Media Transfer Protocol (MTP). This is the option usually used if you need to copy some files between your Android smartphone and a computer.
- Transfer Photos (PTP): This mode allows you to copy files (usually only photos or video) using the Picture Transfer Protocol. This modes makes your Android smartphone appear just like a digital camera to your computer, so programs that were designed to connect to a camera can copy photos and video directly from your phone and import them automatically.
- MIDI: This is a new mode that came with Android 6.0 Marshmallow. This is the option you'll use if you want to connect a MIDI device — something like a MIDI keyboard — to your phone or tablet and use a synthesizer app to create music.
- For those that may not know, MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a standard protocol for inter-connecting computers with musical instruments, stage lighting and other time-oriented media.
These modes look like and are good options all around. The inclusion of MIDI support will even make a lot of people like Dj's and music artists happy, and MTP and PTP are options that have been there in the other previous Andriod versions.
How To Change The Default USB Connection Mode.
In previous versions of the Android OS, there was an option to set the default USB connection type so that you wouldn’t have to choose your preferred mode each time you connected your Android smartphone. In the Android 6.0 version however, the options has in fact been moved and you can only access it if you’ve enabled developer options.
For you to now choose a default mode(apart from the factory default which is charging only) for your USB connection, you have to have developer options enabled in Android. If you have already enabled developer options, you can go ahead to the next step and select the default mode for the USB connection, if not, you have to enable the developer options first.
This is easy to do though. To enable developer options, go to your settings and scroll down to developer options.
Tap on it, and on the next dialog that appears flip the enable developer options button.
With Developer Options enabled, Scroll down to the Networking section of developer options settings and you will see the ‘Select USB Configuration’ option.
Tap it and select the default type that you want to set.
The other extra options you'll see there are explained below.
RNDIS – You can use your mobile internet on PC with the help of RNDIS as it will work like USB Ethernet.
Audio – With this option, your phone would be seen by your computer as just an audio device.
After changing the default mode, Connect your smartphone to your PC and wait. If it doesn’t show up in file explorer, check to see if Windows is searching for drivers. If it is, allow it to search and install any drivers it needs.
This can happen even if you have connected your Android device to your PC under the same connection type. Do not disconnect the device and allow Windows to finish installing drivers. The next time you connect your device, it will default to the connection type you set.
Note: On some phones, USB Charging would still be shown as the USB option selected on your phone when you connect it to PC, you don't have to worry because the option you selected on the USB configuration is the one that the computer would use.
In previous versions you could set a connection type as a default without having to enable developer options. This really seems like a step backwards, and this change made to Android 6.0 was quite unnecessary. It wouldn’t have been a big deal if the option had simply moved to a different location other than developer options but it has been done and that has also made it compulsory to turn on Developer Options.
If you encountered any problem while changing your USB default mode, you can let us know with your comments below.
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