Re: Transferring contents of a large folder (eg 3000 photos) from Android to Windows 10

On 2025-07-20 23:53, Arno Welzel wrote:

Paul, 2025-07-20 17:35:

On Sun, 7/20/2025 9:16 AM, Frank Slootweg wrote:

[...]

FTP, while an ancient protocol, and as long as it is configured
by someone who cares about what they're doing, it could behave
itself better than some other things. Our modern technical world
seems to specialize in "crap". The simpler the transfer protocol
is, the better. With an ADB bus serial connection and Kermit,
I bet you could perform wonders :-) And you'd be doing that, when
the computer name refuses to show up in the file sharing dialog
on the client software.

 FileZilla works quite well with Cx File Explorer as server:
 <https://filezilla-project.org/download.php?type=client>
 So first enable FTP in Cx File Explorer and then connect to the
displayed IP address and port - works fine whenever I have no other
choice and I am in a trusted network of course.

I am trying this method now.
I installed "Cx File Explorer" <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cxinventor.file.explorer&hl=en>
It doesn't appear to put up adverts. The privacy conditions seem reasonable.
To activate FTP, choose the "Network tab", then access from network (the name could be different in English).
Or connect to a server on the computer. For this chose "New location" (has a plus symbol). The cloud tab has Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, Box. The Remote tab has Local Network, SMB, FTP, SFTP, or WebDav.
Once the FTP server is activated, you can not change screen in the app. But you can minimize/background the app. Then you can connect from the computer. As I am using Linux, I use Midnight Commander (mc) for the transfer. It seems to be taking an an hour and a half to transfer the photos. I didn't write down the start timestamp, but if I am reading right, it is 46 minutes used and 42 to go.
2,31 MB/s
The phone can be used and moved about.
Right now it seems to have stalled. [...] Right, 'mc' has stalled. I have to kill it.
[...]
And an hour later, the app kill the ftp server, has to be restarted. It is a bit of a pain, this copy operation over wifi.
[...]
At about 21% of the full backup, it hits some unknown file that says "permission denied". I see that when I wake up from my siesta, then click "ignore all of them".
This is taking hours.
[...]
Computer stalling again, have to kill the process and start it again.
[...]
Trying Filezilla [...] I am not used to Filezilla, but it seems to handle the situation better.
Hum. Does the app handle itself better if it is in the foreground? Doesn't seem so. Unsure.
Wow, it has finished in minutes. But I did not mark the files to download well, repeating. Heh, whatsapp was not downloaded.
However, with simple-mtpfs.txt I transferred 56257M. With ftp, only 23331M. The differences are in the "Android" directory and "Documents". Some files were not transferred.
Summary: using FTP (with Cx File Explorer as server and filezilla as client) the transfer is "confortable", but many files are not copied. However, those files might not matter, are mostly applications or reserved by Android.
Using simple-mtpfs many more files are transferred, but there are quircks (needing restart) and the phone is tied by cable to the computer for the duration.
However, for a backup of the photos, FTP is fine. Also for WhatsApp (in ./Android/media/com.whatsapp/)
--
Cheers, Carlos.