Just got my wife a Lumia 520 and i noticed it does not have a file manager... is this normal?
I'm used to have file manager on Android so this is quite lame...
Also any idea on how to add musics (MP3/WMA) on the ringtones?
Thks
So... the Internet has these things called "search engines" which you can use to find all manner of cool things. You should really try using one of them.
1: Yes, it's normal that there is no file manager built into WP8. There wasn't one in WP7, either. This is not news. Know what you're buying...
2: There are apps (both on the Store and on this forum) which add very limited file browsing and management capability. However, the OS is extremely restrictive of app permissions - moreso than your typical Android build - so most of the filesystem is unreadable and all but a tiny portion of what's left is read-only.
3: Did you even read the little info sheet that comes with your phone? You would save us all a bunch of time if you did. Connect the phone to your computer using USB. It will appear as an MTP (Media Transfer Protocol) device. You can use this to copy media files (including songs and ringtones) to the phone, as well as copying other media files (such as pictures or video you took) from the phone to the PC. If you're running Windows, it will also offer to install an app to make synching easier. Pretty much every OS has tools for working with MTP devices, including all desktop-oriented Linux distros I've ever tried.
Think of the apps as the file browser. An app that can manipulate a certain file type will show you all of that type of file on your phone. Coming from android you will have to rework your way of using your phone. And SKY DRIVE is your friend. And I'm glad you posted your question because I for one have used and love wp8 although I use my note 2 as my daily. I love people that say search for the answer yet give a long drawn out sarcastic answer anyway.
1.No file browser.
2.Use apps for manipulation of said files
3.Sky drive is your friend. It COULD be said it's wp8s file manager.
4. Have fun!
Sent from my SCH-I605 using Tapatalk 4 Beta
You can hook your phone to your PC and use the Windows Phone app for desk top, this will let you browse your files as far as music, ringtones, pictures and videos; I'm not sure if it includes documents but it the closest to what you are looking for because system files are off limit like the guys just explained.
What I don't understand is if you can view your files from your PC why can you do the same from the phone? Oh well maybe one day like in an update; this would be cool for browsing for files on your SD card...
GoodDayToDie said:
So... the Internet has these things called "search engines" which you can use to find all manner of cool things. You should really try using one of them.
1: Yes, it's normal that there is no file manager built into WP8. There wasn't one in WP7, either. This is not news. Know what you're buying...
2: There are apps (both on the Store and on this forum) which add very limited file browsing and management capability. However, the OS is extremely restrictive of app permissions - moreso than your typical Android build - so most of the filesystem is unreadable and all but a tiny portion of what's left is read-only.
3: Did you even read the little info sheet that comes with your phone? You would save us all a bunch of time if you did. Connect the phone to your computer using USB. It will appear as an MTP (Media Transfer Protocol) device. You can use this to copy media files (including songs and ringtones) to the phone, as well as copying other media files (such as pictures or video you took) from the phone to the PC. If you're running Windows, it will also offer to install an app to make synching easier. Pretty much every OS has tools for working with MTP devices, including all desktop-oriented Linux distros I've ever tried.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok so i appreciated the help but i don't really explain well in the OP.
I apologize for the way i wrote the OP, i was frustrated after unsuccessful search for a way to work around the limitations of the OS...
I did not know that the WP7 and 8 did not add an file manager, but the other part i did know :/ so no need to be so sarcastic in your reply (last time a used a Windows based phone it add windows mobile and it did have file explorer much like other OS's).
What i really meant was if anyone knows a way to work around the OS locks on the file system and of course an file explorer that uses it... But after more search i find none
I'm still pretty happy with the lumia 520... just frustrated that i cant add files were i wanted.
Yeah, that exact question has been asked before. People are working on it. Part of the reason I wrote my webserver app was to facilitate deeper exploration of WP8 in the hopes of finding a way to unlock more permissions. So far, no dice. The OS is still young, however.
With that said, from a "what can I do with it" perspective, it's best to think of WP8 as being like iOS: until or unless "jailbroken", everything runs with extremely low permissions.
GoodDayToDie said:
Yeah, that exact question has been asked before. People are working on it. Part of the reason I wrote my webserver app was to facilitate deeper exploration of WP8 in the hopes of finding a way to unlock more permissions. So far, no dice. The OS is still young, however.
With that said, from a "what can I do with it" perspective, it's best to think of WP8 as being like iOS: until or unless "jailbroken", everything runs with extremely low permissions.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok thanks for the info .
After some research i got the idea that WP8 as worst than iOS in terms of restrictions :/...
Thats really a shame because this Lumia 520 hardware its really nice for the price. It will be awesome wen someone is able to root it.
Still i will keep using Android on my personal phone... (this one was bought for my wife).
sinister1 said:
You can hook your phone to your PC and use the Windows Phone app for desk top, this will let you browse your files as far as music, ringtones, pictures and videos; I'm not sure if it includes documents but it the closest to what you are looking for because system files are off limit like the guys just explained.
What I don't understand is if you can view your files from your PC why can you do the same from the phone? Oh well maybe one day like in an update; this would be cool for browsing for files on your SD card...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So far i can't move files (wma and MP3) to the inner folders on the ringtone folder... and the custom ringtone option does not let me chose other files than the one it came from factory
Not really a big bummer but it just seems a stupid limitation...
"Inner folders"? I just dragged files to Phone\Ringtones and they appeared at the top of the list, under "Custom". I didn't even need to resize them or change the genre, as WP7 required.
GoodDayToDie said:
"Inner folders"? I just dragged files to Phone\Ringtones and they appeared at the top of the list, under "Custom". I didn't even need to resize them or change the genre, as WP7 required.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well i tried every folder on the phone (that are available to the user) and the OS still does not let me choose custom musics for ringtones... :/
Exnor said:
Well i tried every folder on the phone (that are available to the user) and the OS still does not let me choose custom musics for ringtones... :/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Music files should go into the music folder and ringtone files go into the ringtone folder, this is what I did; I put in an SD card and created Folders on it with the same name as the ones on the internal storage and placed all my music and ringtone files there, when you go to ringtones it shows up under custom, if your talking about alert tones for MMS or SMS then you are out of luck other than ringtones the only thing you can change is your alarm tones.
This is a big mistake by MS by not allowing users to use customer tones form email and SMS or MMS their are customers that are actually returning their phones and exchanging them for Android and even iPhones because of this and other limitations. Users have been asking for this since 2011 on MS's very own suggestion page (check it out here) and MS hasn't even responded or given a hit to fixing this issue.
For you guys who know me well and see that I bring this subject up a lot, I apologize but MS needs to wake up and stop trying to restrict even the simplest of tasks.
1. Connect the phone via USB. An MTP device, with the phone's name, will appear (for example, in Windows Explorer).
2. Open the phone device. You will see a "drive" called "Phone". There may be a second volume called "SD card".
3. Open the Phone volume. You will see the following folders: Documents, Music, Pictures, Ringtones, Video.
4. Open the Rintones folder. It should not have any sub-folders.
5. Copy the music you want to use, as MP3 or DRM-free WMA (I think DRM-free AAC/M4A also works), into this folder.
6. On the phone, go to Settings, then Ringtones+Sounds, and tap on the box under Ringtone.
7. Scroll to the top of the list. There will be a header "Custom", under which the music you added to the Ringtones folder will be listed (by title metadata, not file name).
8. Tap the Play icon beside a song if you want to see how it sounds as a ringtone, then tap the song you want to use as your ringtone.
If this doesn't work, be very, very specific about what step looks wrong (i.e. is not as described) and what you see instead. Also, be specific about the kind of music you're trying to use. I have tested using 128Kbps (constant bit rate) stereo 44.1KHz MP3 and WMA files of up to about 4:40 long.
sinister1 said:
Music files should go into the music folder and ringtone files go into the ringtone folder, this is what I did; I put in an SD card and created Folders on it with the same name as the ones on the internal storage and placed all my music and ringtone files there, when you go to ringtones it shows up under custom, if your talking about alert tones for MMS or SMS then you are out of luck other than ringtones the only thing you can change is your alarm tones.
This is a big mistake by MS by not allowing users to use customer tones form email and SMS or MMS their are customers that are actually returning their phones and exchanging them for Android and even iPhones because of this and other limitations. Users have been asking for this since 2011 on MS's very own suggestion page (check it out here) and MS hasn't even responded or given a hit to fixing this issue.
For you guys who know me well and see that I bring this subject up a lot, I apologize but MS needs to wake up and stop trying to restrict even the simplest of tasks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok i'm gonna try with an SD card and i will post my results. Thks for the tip :good:
GoodDayToDie said:
1. Connect the phone via USB. An MTP device, with the phone's name, will appear (for example, in Windows Explorer).
2. Open the phone device. You will see a "drive" called "Phone". There may be a second volume called "SD card".
3. Open the Phone volume. You will see the following folders: Documents, Music, Pictures, Ringtones, Video.
4. Open the Rintones folder. It should not have any sub-folders.
5. Copy the music you want to use, as MP3 or DRM-free WMA (I think DRM-free AAC/M4A also works), into this folder.
6. On the phone, go to Settings, then Ringtones+Sounds, and tap on the box under Ringtone.
7. Scroll to the top of the list. There will be a header "Custom", under which the music you added to the Ringtones folder will be listed (by title metadata, not file name).
8. Tap the Play icon beside a song if you want to see how it sounds as a ringtone, then tap the song you want to use as your ringtone.
If this doesn't work, be very, very specific about what step looks wrong (i.e. is not as described) and what you see instead. Also, be specific about the kind of music you're trying to use. I have tested using 128Kbps (constant bit rate) stereo 44.1KHz MP3 and WMA files of up to about 4:40 long.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep did all that ...
The only thing i did not try yet is to create a subfolder in the Ringtones folder like i've read somewhere... i will try to do all the processes again and try other tips and i will post my results as soon as i can.
Thks for the help
GoodDayToDie said:
1. Connect the phone via USB. An MTP device, with the phone's name, will appear (for example, in Windows Explorer).
2. Open the phone device. You will see a "drive" called "Phone". There may be a second volume called "SD card".
3. Open the Phone volume. You will see the following folders: Documents, Music, Pictures, Ringtones, Video.
4. Open the Rintones folder. It should not have any sub-folders.
5. Copy the music you want to use, as MP3 or DRM-free WMA (I think DRM-free AAC/M4A also works), into this folder.
6. On the phone, go to Settings, then Ringtones+Sounds, and tap on the box under Ringtone.
7. Scroll to the top of the list. There will be a header "Custom", under which the music you added to the Ringtones folder will be listed (by title metadata, not file name).
8. Tap the Play icon beside a song if you want to see how it sounds as a ringtone, then tap the song you want to use as your ringtone.
If this doesn't work, be very, very specific about what step looks wrong (i.e. is not as described) and what you see instead. Also, be specific about the kind of music you're trying to use. I have tested using 128Kbps (constant bit rate) stereo 44.1KHz MP3 and WMA files of up to about 4:40 long.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Finally i got it to work...
Like i've said i've done the above (like you suggested) the 1st time and repeated and nothing happen.. so i reset the phone!
Copied just one file to the ringtone folder and success it worked (!). I don't know why it did not the other times ... Now my wife can copy her musics and put hers ringtones as she like.
Here is my device info in case its usefull for anyone:
model: Lumia 520
MMN: RM-914_eu_portugal_281
OS version: 8.0.10211.204
HW rev:1.0.0.0
Firmware rev: 1030.6408.1309.0003
Thanks for the help guys
OS is young and the questions you posted, really needs to be solved. MS has put too much restrictions in OS but I think it will open some APIs and remove some restrictions in WP blue update due in early 2014. I only need limited file explorer to manage my personal files, a good Music & Video app(VLC is coming) and a notification center, that's it. All would be well for me to jump the ship from Android.
Btw, try Kirik file browser. It gives you some limited accessibilities on SD card.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 4 Beta
Vishwal said:
OS is young and the questions you posted, really needs to be solved. MS has put too much restrictions in OS but I think it will open some APIs and remove some restrictions in WP blue update due in early 2014. I only need limited file explorer to manage my personal files, a good Music & Video app(VLC is coming) and a notification center, that's it. All would be well for me to jump the ship from Android.
Btw, try Kirik file browser. It gives you some limited accessibilities on SD card.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 4 Beta
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I completely agree. MS still as lot to do on this OS... But for people who don't need more computing options its a good choice (i think i like it better than iOS...).
Thx for the tip, i've already try it does help a little.
So far besides the OS limitations my biggest disappointment is the store... there is not enough programs to satisfy my needs :/ But like i stated before i'm happy with the device (actually my wife is lol since its her that uses it).
Switching from Android... hmm no. I don't see myself switch to WP or iOS (btw i have iPod touch 4th gen) for so many reasons, but to start the integration with my Google account and services.
I had a Qtek back in 2k3 (actually was a job phone) and used Windows Mobile (or was it CE?? cant remember) and back then i love it. But the "updated" Windows OS for mobile does not give me the same experience. Android so far is my favorite (gonna give a try to Ubuntu touch since i use Ubuntu at work... lets see how it performs).
The whole thing is that WP8 is designed to protected installed apps _from other installed apps_. Any data an app writes, is completely off limits to any other application. So a file manager would be compeltely pointless. If someone would create one, you could create files and maybe even download files in the folders you created.... but no other app would ever see that data.
this makes programs that can download data (Windows File sharing, FTP clients, etc..) to be played by another program (music player, video player, etc..) impossible.
I do agree though that WP8 needs to create a single 'unmanaged, unprotected data pool' where all apps can write / read, probably organized by folders just so people understand it.
If an app then wants to write data there, it knows it got no protection and is on its own. But if an app wants to write personal data (appointments, messages, contacts, that kinda of thing) it can write it in it's own data store like WP8 is now and the data is protected from every other possible app.
If they will do this for Blue... I don't know. I haven't seen it on a list anywhere yet.
Well, you can ask the OS to open a file (the equivalent of ShellExecute on Win32) and that can be used as a form of inter-app communication and file passing (sending a file from a file browser to the media player is possible, for example). The trick is that it's a blind push; there's no way to ask for the file back, or query what files there are. Also, the other app needs to choose to download the file.
There are Capabilities in the WP8 security policies which could be used to make a decent file browser, at least for the basic stuff (media libraries, documents, a "common area" on the file system, etc.). However, we cannot currently sideload any application which uses them, and I very much doubt MS would let us publish such an app through the store (although it might be worth trying...)
GoodDayToDie said:
Well, you can ask the OS to open a file (the equivalent of ShellExecute on Win32) and that can be used as a form of inter-app communication and file passing (sending a file from a file browser to the media player is possible, for example). The trick is that it's a blind push; there's no way to ask for the file back, or query what files there are. Also, the other app needs to choose to download the file.
There are Capabilities in the WP8 security policies which could be used to make a decent file browser, at least for the basic stuff (media libraries, documents, a "common area" on the file system, etc.). However, we cannot currently sideload any application which uses them, and I very much doubt MS would let us publish such an app through the store (although it might be worth trying...)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am fairly certain the current situation will probably change with WP8.1.
if wpdev voice website is an indication of their intentions for wp8.1, things will look very nice soon enough.
Two issues with my new Note 5.
1. When I copied my mp3 ringtone file to storage/sdcard0/ringtone it worked for one day, then failed. Tried to convert to wma, ogg, mp3, the program said, "unable to set as ringtone"
2. I copied the photos from the old phone to storage/sdcard0/dcim, but the new gallery can't find them. Any solution on this?
3. Actually mp3 files disappeared too.
5.1.1 no longer have the option to select where to store your photos, any work around, or should i use third camera and gallery app?
Thanks.
Ken
If you simply use a file exploer and go to Storage/DCIM you will have your photos in the correct place.
If you are using an apk like Root Explorer just go to SDCard/DCIM - (there is no SDCard0 that I know of. (unless you are trying to create a new folder there) Just put the new folder directly in SDCard directory and you should not have any issues. I have lots of personal photos and special ringtones I copied to the phone adn they all work fine. By the way, when I transfer audio files to any of my phones, it always asks me if I want to convert the file to a diffeent format - says if I don't it may not play correctly - I never do that - and they always work fine.
Good Luck - I hope I have helped in some small way
mocsab said:
If you simply use a file exploer and go to Storage/DCIM you will have your photos in the correct place.
If you are using an apk like Root Explorer just go to SDCard/DCIM - (there is no SDCard0 that I know of. (unless you are trying to create a new folder there) Just put the new folder directly in SDCard directory and you should not have any issues. I have lots of personal photos and special ringtones I copied to the phone adn they all work fine. By the way, when I transfer audio files to any of my phones, it always asks me if I want to convert the file to a diffeent format - says if I don't it may not play correctly - I never do that - and they always work fine.
Good Luck - I hope I have helped in some small way
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks Mocsab. Unfortunately, i tried, been using andriod phones for 4 years, this is the only time i felt this no longer an android product. The permission setting and other restriction make it an iOS duplicate.
Going back to my issues, it was still resolve.
bigeneral said:
thanks Mocsab. Unfortunately, i tried, been using andriod phones for 4 years, this is the only time i felt this no longer an android product. The permission setting and other restriction make it an iOS duplicate.
Going back to my issues, it was still resolve.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I understand - I am not sure why are having the issues you described - they didn't happen for me - and personally, i think this is one of the best Android Phones I have ever used. Love it,
yeah, now that i have my data pretty much transferred, maybe i should do a full back up and reset to factory setting. Not able to change the ringtone i've using for 10 years really bother me.....
Ok, i did a factory reset and start from scratch. I was able to setup a custom ringtone by putting the file in the same ringtone directory, and copied the photos to the DCIM folder. It actually worked for 10 hours. 10 hours later, when i deleted a whatsapp images from the Gallery app, the entire photos collections as well as my ringtone were gone, ringtone back to default setting. I think this is a bug, if anyone experience this, please share your experience.
Thanks
ok, read another forum and found a solution to change the ringtone file name to ring.mp3 and amusingly, the file show up on the list of ringtone and it works.
now the bug on why photos and music disappear still unsolved.
Custom ringtone problem
I renamed the file to ring.mp3 as you said but the note 5 is still saying can not set as ringtone. Help?
killa28 said:
I renamed the file to ring.mp3 as you said but the note 5 is still saying can not set as ringtone. Help?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
try to see if you have a .nomedia file on your storage card root directory.
what happen to my case was, i found a .nomedia in the storage card root "/sdcard/ .nomedia" so all medias were omitted.
Now that i have deleted the file, my mp3 player work correctly.
Yes, I know how to use google, yes, I tried many things now and I don't know where else to look for help so I'm asking here, a place with many smart heads full of ideas.
I was doing pretty normal thing on my phone this morning, just trying to copy all the files from internal memory onto the PC. Of course I couldn't do that thanks to "Unspecified error" during copying some of the folders, including Downloads and DCIM. I managed to copy only some of the files from internal storage. I thought a reboot might help. And so the nightmare began. All the other files I wanted to copy disappeared from gallery and Total Commander. They must be on the phone though, as there is something on the phone that uses 2gb of memory. I did not delete them, the system just fails to see them. I already tried deleting all the ".nomedia" files, clearing cache and data from Media Storage app, disabling it, rebooting and enabling again but it was of no use. I'm helpless and I don't know what to do, why did android even do this? I lost a lot of photos and images and I'm really upset about that. Any ideas what to do? The phone is not rooted, never played with software in it, it's updated to 5.1
Download any File Manager from Play Store, check if the files are on the phone memory. If not, well, they are somehow lost. Maybe you cut-paste them onto your PC, and the files were deleted, but you got an 'unspecified error' on moving.
Thanks a lot for a response. I use Total Commander on every android phone I had, I can see that my files look like they disappeared completely, android just generated empty generic folders ("Pictures etc) after I cut off the previous folders along with their content so I saved a little bit that I could. On the other hand something is occupying 2gb of data but the phone refuses to show what, so there is a chance my files are there. After copying the whole content of the phone to the folder on desktop it just shows it weight few hundreds KB. I'll be trying to use some recovery software for android. The question is how did this happen at all? It had no right to happen, what if this happened to someone who has completely no idea about that stuff? Who's to blame and who's responsible for helping such a person? Motorola? Google? Anyway, this is the last phone with no micro-sd card slot I used. A memory card is the best backup
You COULD recover your files even if they were deleted if Android still had a mass storage mode. I don't think any of the data recovery softwares play nice with the MTP transfer that android offers. Of course, the SD card is infinitely better, but a rarity these days. I am sorry for your lost data. You seem like you did everything within your reach to get it back.
EDIT: Just to be sure, did you cut-paste the folders on your PC from phone, or just copy-paste. It might be possible for files to be deleted in cut-paste, if some error occurs in copy.
Thanks for contributing. It seems Google knows better then any of us what we need and there's no more Mass Storage option which gives free access to memory. Unfortunately I don't have that option. First I ensured which files are not affected by error by trying to copy them folder after folder. Then there were left files I couldn't copy, it was DCIM with most recent photos (unfortunately) and download where I kept lots of images with cool infographics found on the internet. I thought a reboot would help to get access to them and you know the rest. Files were there no longer. I'm seriously considering switching to Windows Phone, it seem it's too much to ask for a phone that just "werks" nowadays...I have a painful lesson to use memory card as well as cloud synchronizing but didn't give up yet, still trying anything I can I also wrote to Motorola with help request but I don't think they'll help me any better than people here, although it's more their responsibility to fix that stuff, the phone is barely 6 months old.
I rooted my 4XL and find that I'm locked out of doing anything with /sdcard (AKA /storage/emulated/0). Specifically, I'm trying to point Poweramp at the Music folder, and d/l AdAway's hosts files. Obviously there's a work-around to let apps use /sdcard, but what?
Apps have to ask permission through scoped storage.
For example, in PowerAmp, go to Settings > Music Folders... delete your previous selections if you're having trouble... click "Enable" next to your device name(which points to sdcard in effect) or click the + icon to pick otherwise. The system's folder picker will show up and you can either choose the root of device storage(~sdcard) or the Music folder. Once you tap "Use this folder" at the bottom, PowerAmp will show a list of checkboxes to select folders rooted at your selected folder. Check the desired folders and tap "Select Folders". PowerAmp should initiate a scan automatically.
Some apps cannot select the root of your device storage, but it seems like PowerAmp can. (I guess it identified itself to Google as a file manager)
I'm not following what you're trying to do with AdAway... it systemlessly modifies /etc/hosts and that will be overwritten every list update. Are you trying to get into Android/data/org.adaway?
Thanks for getting back to me.
PowerAmp has, in "Misc." options, a legacy option to manage access to SD's. That moved from my previous phone to the P4XL as part of the overall porting effort (I hate moving phones!!). Turn off the option and life is good. End of that problem.
AdAway... I'm confused about what happened right after I installed it, but it's alive and well now. It looked as though I couldn't get the host list to store anywhere in the phone. That's what prompted the question. When I looked at AdAway just now, it says it killed off five figures worth of ads. Yea!
Why things looked weird then, and look fine now, is a mystery I leave for others to fret over. Having too many other mysteries in my life (e.g. where do my car keys go when I need them the most?), I'll let this mystery age out of my "to be puzzled over" queue.