How to connect an Android smartphone to a computer via a cable for file transfer?

Transferring photos, music, videos, and documents between a smartphone and a personal computer is a classic task faced by almost every user. Despite the development of wireless technologies and cloud storage, a wired connection via USB remains the fastest and most reliable way to move large amounts of information to a PC hard drive.

Take a standard power cable, connect one end to your smartphone, and the other to an available USB port on your computer or laptop. After physical connection, the device will immediately start charging, but to transfer files, you will need to change the port operating mode. To do this, unlock your phone screen and swipe from top to bottom to open the quick notifications panel.

Find the system notification from Android stating that the device is charging via USB, and tap on it. A connection mode selection menu will open before you, where the No data transfer option is set by default. Change it to File transfer or Android Auto / MTP. After that, the computer's operating system will recognize your phone as an external storage device, and you can open its memory via File Explorer.