Hi there,
I tried to do everything you say but it doesn’t work, I have a Samsung S7 with /e/ pre-installed on it and my computer (mac) doesn’t show my phone when I plug it in, ther is nothing and with Android File Transfer it just says “Aucun appareil android trouvé”
Do you have an idea for me to be able to transfer my files from my phone to my computer ?
Thank you
A connection must be established. I know three ways to connect Android to Mac:
- USB connection: Connect Android device and Mac with cable (Android File Transfer)
- Wireless connection via Bluetooth between Mac and Android device
- Connecting Android device to Mac via a /e/cloud
Tip: Connect your Galaxy S7 “herolte” to the Mac with USB cable and check the connection via ADB and fastboot (SDK Platform Tools for Mac - platform-tools_r29.0.6-darwin.zip)
If this works, you’re a big step closer to, @Xyguma.
Is RNDIS (usb modem sharing connection) supposed to work (on the latest Nexus 5 rom)? I just noticed that this option is NOT even available in the notification area after the USB was connected. It’s possible to choose “file transfer”, MTP, etc. but there is no checkbox (or line) for RNDIS - once again, I’m talking about the notification area.
Interestingly if I go to the settings menu, developer options, usb-configuration, there IS an RNDIS (USB-Ethernet) checkbox. I can even check that box but the feature did not seem to work (file transfer, etc. work fine).
Anyway, I guess I can answer that question above by saying that reverse tethering is working. What does it mean? If there is no wifi available, but there is an USB cable, it’s possible to connect the Phone to a notebook or desktop PC (connected to the internet e.g. via ethernet) and use the internet from there.
Easy way:
Install android-tools (I’m talking about Linux here). If “adb devices” does not show the device, try “adb kill-server” and “sudo adb start-server”.
Enable USB debugging on the phone (Settings/Developer Options/Activate ADB Android Debug Bridge)
Install gnirehtet.
Connect the phone via USB to the machine, check that USB debugging is set. If the “adb devices” command works fine and gnirehtet is installed, simply run: “gnirehtet run” There should be now internet available on the phone (even if there is no wifi or sim).
It does not require sudo, neither a rooted phone. I noticed there is Settings/Tethering&Mobile Hotspot/USB-Tethering - but it does not have to be set (neither RNDIS in Developer Options).
As a sidenote: I noticed that checking System Updates does not work if the internet connection is established this way. So far could not figure out what is the reason for it. The app store does not work either, but f-drod or aurora store do work.
Thanks, jim-61, this was exactly what I was missing!
There’s no obvious indication that the user should look on the notification panel for these options. Would it be helpful to pop up something that says “USB connected, what do you want to do?” if there’s an attempt at a data connection (not just charging)?
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Hi there,
I have a similar problem. Trying to connect my /e/ S7 edge (Android 7.1.2) to a macbook (High Sierra). I read through this thread and followed the procedure from @GmK and @harvey186 . I enabled USB debugging and set USB configuration to MTP. The notification center also confirms that USB Debugging is activated and USB is for data transfer. However Android File Transfer is still not finding the device, even after restarting. (With my old android phone 8.1.0) it imediately works so I can exclude that it’s the cable or the Mac).
Has anyone another idea what I could do? Thanks in advance.
In terminal is
adb devices
showing your device ?
Thanks for the quick reply. Sorry, I haven’t yet used Terminal (my tech skills are just slowly evolving since my interest in data privacy is rising…). How I can use “adb devices”?
Mhm, how have you flashed your device with eOS without terminal and adb / fastboot commands ?
That was rather simple - I bought a pre-installed S7 from the /e/ store 
Having read a lot about flashing, I noticed that I am not able to do it myself.
ah, OK. understand. But without some knowledge about adb and fastboot and terminal itself it will be too much for my to explain all this.
But here is a good tutorial. https://www.xda-developers.com/install-adb-windows-macos-linux/
Thanks anyway @harvey186 - I can understand that. I will try to to learn how to do it myself. Thanks for the starting link.