Some players that use later versions of Android do not show up on the Mac as a disk drive. In fact, the only way to get at them is to use Google’s “Android File Transfer” app… which sucks.
There is a way to get these Android based players to show up as a drive in OS X, but it requires some work.
- Install OSXFuse; OSXFUSE ”allows you to extend OS X's native file handling capabilities via third-party file systems”. Just double-click the package file, insert your administrator password and install it.
- Install Command Line Tools for Xcode: open a terminal and type: xcode-select —install
brew install homebrew/fuse/simple-mtpfs
I’ve never been satisfied with the way Android File Transfer works on mac. It is buggy, unmantained and randomly stops to work. For this reason I tried a lot of alternatives to manage android files using my mac: using ftp is nice but I can’t delete the file on the phone, per example.
Finally I found that libmtp can be installed under OSX, to manage files in a windows similar way.
My devices: macbook pro early 2011 with el capitan, moto e with cyanogenmod 11 unofficial
Disclaimer: I am not responsible if you lose file, make the phone explode, etc etc
1)Installing OSXFUSE from here: http://osxfuse.github.io According to the site, OSXFUSE ”allows you to extend OS X's native file handling capabilities via third-party file systems”. Just double-click the package file, insert your administrator password and install it.
2)Installing Command Line Tools for Xcode: open a terminal and type: xcode-select --install
3)Installing Homebrew, a nice package manager for OS X, similar to Debian’s Apt, Fedora’s Dnf,… You’ll need this to install easily libmtp and simple-mtpfs To install it, open a terminal window and paste: /usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"
4)Install libmtp and simple-mtpfs, and all their dependencies (automatically installed by homebrew) type in a terminal: brew install libmtp simple-mtpfs
5)create a mount point, on which the phone will be mounted. I created a folder under my home folder called simply “phone”
6)plug the phone with the usb cable, then open a terminal and type: simple-mtpfs -f /Users/yourusername/phone/
7)Enjoy it! Now you should see your phone in the Finder window