#+date: <2022-10-04>
#+title: How to Mount an MTP Mobile Device on Fedora Linux
#+description: 


I recently ran into trouble attempting to mount my GrapheneOS phone to
my laptop running Fedora Linux via the
[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_transfer_protocol][Media Transfer
Protocol]] (MTP) and discovered a simple and effective solution.

* Use a USB 3.0 Port

First, ensure that the device was plugged in to the laptop through a USB
3.0 port, if possible. From a brief glance online, it seems that USB 2.0
ports may cause issues with dropped connections over MTP. This is purely
anecdotal since I don't have any evidence to link showing that USB 2.0
causes issues, but I can confirm that switching to a USB 3.0 port seemed
to cut out most of my issues.

* Switch USB Preferences to MTP

Secondly, you need to ensure that the phone's USB preferences/mode is
changed to MTP or File Transfer once the phone is plugged in. Other
modes will not allow you to access the phone's file system.

* Install =jmtpfs=

Next, I used the =jmtpfs= package to mount my phone to my laptop. There
are other packages that exist, but this one worked perfectly for me. On
Fedora Linux, you can install it like this:

#+begin_src sh
sudo dnf install jmtpfs -y
#+end_src

* Create a Mount Point

Once you have the package installed, you just need to create a folder
for the device to use as a mount point. In my case, I used =/mnt/pixel=:

#+begin_src sh
sudo mkdir /mnt/pixel
sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /mnt/pixel
#+end_src

* Mount & Access the Phone's File System

Finally, plug-in and mount the device, and you should be able to see all
storage (internal and external) inside your new folder!

#+begin_src sh
jmtpfs /mnt/pixel
#+end_src

The output should look something like this:

#+begin_src sh
Device 0 (VID=18d1 and PID=4ee1) is a Google Inc Nexus/Pixel (MTP).
Android device detected, assigning default bug flags
#+end_src

Now you are mounted and can do anything you'd like with the device's
files:

#+begin_src sh
cd /mnt/pixel
ls -lha
#+end_src

From here, you will be able to see any internal or external storage
available on the device:

#+begin_src sh
total 0
drwxr-xr-x.  3 user user  0 Jan  1  1970  .
drwxr-xr-x.  1 root root 10 Oct  4 13:29  ..
drwxr-xr-x. 16 user user  0 Apr 21  4426383 'Internal shared storage'
#+end_src