How do I get my Mac to acknowledge my Android tablet?

May 13, 2011 7:19 AM

How do I get my Mac to acknowledge my Android tablet?

I'm trying to connect a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 to a Macbook so I can transfer files from the Mac to the tablet via USB.

I've installed Android File Transfer on the Mac, but it just says "No Android device found. Please connect your Android device with a USB cable to get started."

The tablet is not showing up on the Mac's finder, but it's there in the About this Mac -> More info -> USB menu.

I've tried it with USB debugging on and off. I've tried different USB ports. I've restarted them both. I've factory reset the tablet. I'm not seeing any relevant pull-down or pull-up menus (as friends with Android phones have suggested).

I'm a Mac user and am confused and frightened by other operating systems. I know I can get the files there by uploading them to the Web and then back down again, but isn't there a simpler way?

posted by The corpse in the library to Technology (9 answers total)

Launch Disk Utility (Applications>Utilities>Disk Utility) and see if that doesn't force the tablet to mount. I have an external drive that is partitioned and sometimes only one partition will mount. Launching DU always gets the second partition to mount.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:27 AM on May 13, 2011

Response by poster: Hmmm -- it doesn't even show up under Disk Utility. No Windows 7 here.
posted by The corpse in the library at 8:37 AM on May 13, 2011

What kind of files are you trying to get on the tablet? DoubleTwist can handle your music and videos, and Dropbox can handle most everything else.
posted by bhayes82 at 9:20 AM on May 13, 2011

I have an Android phone, not an Android tablet, so this may not work, but I only recently discovered how to make the Mac recognize the phone:

Settings --> Connect to PC --> Default connection type: set this to "disk drive" (the other options are "charge only" and "sync"; the out-of-box default was sync, which allowed for charging but not syncing, ironically). Then, the phone shows up on the Desktop, like any other external drive.

Maybe your tablet has similar settings?
posted by Dr. Wu at 9:51 AM on May 13, 2011

Sorry - it may not have been clear that those settings I refer to are the ones on the PHONE, not on the MAC.
posted by Dr. Wu at 9:57 AM on May 13, 2011

I have used Kies Air to transfer files from my MacBook Air to my Galaxy S II. There is an app that runs on the device, and you use a browser from the Mac to connect over your local WLAN.
posted by incster at 10:26 AM on May 13, 2011

Response by poster: Thanks for the ideas, but after poking around it doesn't look like any of them will work. I think this just isn't ready for prime time yet; I'll improvise for now, and wait for an update.
posted by The corpse in the library at 11:57 AM on May 13, 2011

Dropbox, SugarSync, USB keys or micro sdcards are all easy ways to move files to a new Android device. I have a couple of El cheapo tablets and phones here which are a bit quirky and I generally just use a decent sized (16 - 32gb) micro SD as media storage.
posted by chairish at 12:52 PM on May 13, 2011

In Honeycomb, they ditched USB Mass Storage support and moved to MTP (Media Transport Protocol). I think this was done mostly to get rid of the super-annoying file scanner nonsense Android devices would go through every time they booted or were unmounted. Unfortunately, only Windows has native support for MTP. The Android File Transfer utility you downloaded apparently doesn't know the USB device ID for your new Galaxy Tab 10.1. Once Google gets on the ball and updates the utility, you should be able to use it to transfer files to and from your Mac.
posted by strangecargo at 1:20 PM on May 13, 2011