How to access an Android phone with Total Commander

When working with modern Android devices, however, developers and administrators encounter distinct architectural hurdles: the absence of standard drive letters, Media Transfer Protocol (MTP) driver limitations, and strict OS permissions (Scoped Storage).

Below, we detail four robust methods for accessing Android storage through Total Commander: standard USB MTP, the advanced ADB File System plugin, wireless local Wi-Fi transfers (FTP/WebDAV), and encrypted on-device SFTP.

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#Total Commander MTP connection over USB

MTP is the universal default protocol for USB communication between Android and desktop operating systems. It replaced the legacy USB Mass Storage (UMS) standard where a PC gained exclusive block-level control over the physical flash memory.

#How to open an Android phone over MTP

Under MTP, the mobile device presents an abstract transactional database of files rather than a block device. The Android operating system retains ownership of its filesystem (such as ext4 or EROFS/F2FS), enabling apps to continue writing records while desktop file operations occur simultaneously.

Configuration steps:

1. Connect your smartphone to the PC using a certified USB-C data cable (plug directly into the motherboard IO shield or an active USB hub to prevent voltage drops).
2. Unlock the smartphone screen. For security purposes, modern Android versions present an empty storage container to the host while the device is locked.
3. Swipe down the notification panel, tap Charging this device via USB, and change the operating mode to File Transfer (or MTP / Android Auto).
4. In Total Commander on your PC, press Alt+F1 (for the left pane) or Alt+F2 (for the right pane) to trigger the drive selection dropdown.
5. Select This PC or open the drive list using the internal command cm_OpenDrives.
6. Scroll down to the Portable Devices section and double-click your phone model.
7. Open Internal shared storage or your removable MicroSD card to view and manage files in the dual-pane layout.

#MTP limitations on Windows

MTP works natively out of the box without requiring third-party drivers on Windows 10 and Windows 11. However, it exhibits known operational constraints:

• No Windows drive letter: You cannot map the storage to a drive letter like Z:\ or reference paths inside batch scripts and CLI utilities.
• Timestamp overwriting: The Windows MTP driver frequently overwrites original file modification timestamps (mtime) with the moment of transfer, disrupting chronological sorting for photograph archives.
• Queue stalling: Transferring directories containing thousands of tiny files (such as web assets or app cache) can freeze the Windows MTP driver stack.

#Which Total Commander versions support Android MTP

Total Commander does not see the phone as a disk but as a Windows virtual folder with no local path. Support for those folders has grown release by release, and the official changelog (history.txt on ghisler.com) tells you what to expect from each:

Two practical consequences. If the DCIM folder on your phone takes ages to open, VirtualFolderDetails=0 speeds up the listing at the cost of the size and date columns. And if you want to inspect a .zip stored on the phone, copy it to a PC disk first: Total Commander cannot open it in place. The latest stable release at the time of this review is 11.58, published on 1 July 2026 according to the ghisler.com news page.

#Total Commander ADB plugin for Android

For administrators, power users, and engineers who demand maximum transfer reliability and exact file timestamp preservation, the Total Commander Android ADB Plugin is the definitive desktop solution.

#How to install the ADB plugin

The ADB (Android Debug Bridge) plugin communicates directly with the Android user-space daemon (adbd) over a secured debugging channel, bypassing the Windows MTP subsystem entirely.

1. Enable Developer Options on Android:
   • Open Settings -> About phone.
   • Tap Build number seven consecutive times until you see the confirmation message You are now a developer!.
2. Enable USB Debugging:
   • Navigate to Settings -> System -> Developer options.
   • Toggle USB debugging to active.
3. Install the ADB Plugin in Total Commander:
   • Download the Android ADB plugin from its listing on totalcmd.net. It is not a Christian Ghisler plugin: the official plugin page does not list it.
   • Open the .zip archive inside Total Commander to initiate automatic plugin installation.
4. Authorize your workstation:
   • Connect the phone via USB.
   • Total Commander will trigger an authorization popup on your Android display displaying your computer’s RSA key fingerprint.
   • Check the box Always allow from this computer and tap Allow.

#How to browse Android files via ADB

In Total Commander, navigate to Network Neighborhood (by clicking the root drive button \ or typing cd \\\). Open the ADB folder.

Your smartphone will appear as an active root container. Through this interface, you can:

• Access internal storage (/sdcard or /storage/emulated/0/) with full read/write capabilities.
• Transfer multi-gigabyte directories while strictly preserving Unix file attributes and modification timestamps.
• Get faster transfers than MTP, making use of USB 3.x connections.

#Who maintains the ADB plugin and what it requires

The plugin is written by Jakub Klos and distributed as freeware. Its totalcmd.net listing shows version 8.7, updated on 19 November 2019; version 8.8 circulates in the official forum thread. It has not changed much in years, which matters with recent Android releases.

Besides file management, the listing names features MTP does not offer: installing, uninstalling and backing up apps, APK icons shown without downloading the files, LogCat, BugReport and Dmesg access, a shell, a reboot menu (recovery, download mode, power off), screenshots, reading and setting the phone clipboard, copying between two devices and changing file permissions.

Requirements according to the same listing:

• Android debugging enabled on the device.
• The phone connected over USB with proper drivers, so that it appears as an ADB device in Windows Device Manager.
• For wireless ADB inside the plugin, a rooted device and the WiFi ADB app from Google Play.

The plugin ships its own adb tools in its bin folder. In the forum, several users report that the file list stopped showing on some Android versions and recommend replacing those binaries with the current SDK Platform Tools from Google.

#Copy files with adb pull and keep the original date

If the plugin does not work with your phone, the official adb tool does the same job from the Total Commander command line or a console. According to the Android documentation, adb has three parts: the client on the PC, a server on the PC that listens on local TCP port 5037, and the adbd daemon on the phone. Since Android 4.2.2 the phone shows a dialog to accept the computer’s RSA key, so nobody can use debugging without unlocking the device.

The client’s own help text (commandline.cpp in AOSP) documents two options that solve the timestamp problem:

# Copy DCIM to the PC, keeping modification time and permissions
adb pull -a /sdcard/DCIM/Camera D:\Photos_Backup

# Push only the files whose timestamp differs from the PC copy
adb push --sync D:\Music /sdcard/Music

The -a flag of pull literally means “preserve file timestamp and mode”. push --sync only sends files with a different timestamp on the host, which turns a full copy into an incremental update.

#How to use Android 11 wireless debugging

Since Android 11 you no longer need root for cable-free ADB. The official documentation asks for the PC and the phone to be on the same Wi-Fi network and for up-to-date Platform Tools. On the phone, under Developer options and Wireless debugging, choose pairing with a code; the phone shows an IP address, a port and a code. On the PC run adb pair IP:port and enter the code. Pairing happens only once. After that adb finds the phone on the network over mDNS, and adb pull and adb push work exactly as over USB. If the phone does not show up in adb devices, the documentation suggests running adb server-status and checking that the version is 37.0.0 or higher and that mdns_enabled is true. The plugin listing does not mention this method, so inside Total Commander plan to use it from the command line, not from the plugin.

#Total Commander Android over Wi-Fi with FTP or WebDAV

When physical cables are inconvenient or unavailable, you can transform your Android device into a local network file server.

WIRELESS CONNECTION ARCHITECTURE (LOCAL WI-FI):
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| Android Device (192.168.1.145)                               |
|   - WiFi/WLAN plugin: local Web + WebDAV server              |
|   - or a separate FTP server app (e.g. port 2121)            |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
                            |
                     [Local Wi-Fi Router]
                            |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| Windows Desktop (192.168.1.100)                              |
|   - Runs Desktop Total Commander                             |
|   - WebDAV plugin, or built-in FTP client (Ctrl+F)           |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+

#Method A: Total Commander WiFi/WLAN plugin for Android

Christian Ghisler publishes Total Commander for Android for free and, as a separate app, the WiFi/WLAN plugin. According to its Google Play listing, the plugin creates a local Web and WebDAV server over HTTP on the phone, which any web browser or WebDAV client can connect to. It is not an FTP server.

1. Install Total Commander and the WiFi/WLAN plugin from Google Play (the Android page on ghisler.com recommends getting the plugins from the store whenever possible).
2. Make sure the phone and the PC are on the same Wi-Fi network (turn off VPNs and client isolation on the router).
3. Open the plugin on the phone and start the server. The screen shows the server URL and a QR code. By default the URL contains a random path.
4. In Total Commander on Windows, open Network Neighborhood (\\\) and enter Ghisler’s WebDAV plugin. Type the URL, or, since version 2.6 of the WebDAV plugin, scan the QR code shown by the WiFi plugin.
5. The phone’s storage appears in one of the panels. If you only need a few files, opening the same URL in the PC’s browser is enough.

#How to mount the phone as a network drive with WebDAV

The plugin listing adds details that change how you use it day to day:

• Fixed user name and password: since version 3.4 you can replace the random path with a fixed path and a login. It uses DIGEST authentication, so the password is never sent in clear text, and the author recommends it precisely for connecting regularly to the same phone or mounting it as a drive in Windows or macOS. This is how the phone gets a drive letter, which MTP cannot give you.
• No shared Wi-Fi network: if the sending phone is not on any network, the plugin offers to create its own access point or a WiFi Direct connection. Android 10 and newer require the Location permission for the WiFi Direct server; the plugin asks for it only at that moment.
• Use without Total Commander: it also works standalone. Select files in any file manager, use the system share function, and the plugin starts the server with its URL and QR code.
• Between two Android devices: if the other phone scans the QR code with its own copy of the WiFi plugin, the connection is set up and closed automatically. Your data never leaves your local network.

#Method B: standalone FTP server on Android

1. Start an FTP server app on the phone and note the address and port it shows (in this example, 2121).
2. In Total Commander on Windows, press Ctrl+F to open the FTP connections dialog.
3. Click New connection, enter a descriptive title, put 192.168.1.145:2121 into the Host name field and tick passive mode.
4. Connect. Both panels now show the phone’s folders next to your desktop drives.

#Android SFTP server with Termux for Total Commander

For high-security corporate environments where unencrypted local FTP traffic is prohibited by security policy, you can host a lightweight SFTP server directly on your phone using Termux.

1. Install Termux (from F-Droid) and open the terminal interface on Android.
2. Give Termux access to shared storage with termux-setup-storage and accept the permission. Without this step the SFTP session only sees Termux’s private folder, not your photos or downloads.
3. Update packages and install OpenSSH:

   pkg update && pkg install openssh openssh-sftp-server

4. Set a local authentication password:

   passwd

5. Start the SSH/SFTP server daemon:

   sshd

6. Termux runs SSH on non-standard port 8022 by default. Check your device IP address with ifconfig (e.g., 192.168.1.145).
7. In desktop Total Commander, open Ghisler’s Secure FTP (SFTP) plugin in Network Neighborhood, create a new connection to 192.168.1.145:8022, enter the user name that whoami prints in Termux and your password (or use a key), and connect.

All traffic travels encrypted over SSH, which is what you want on shared or public Wi-Fi.

#Which folders the Termux SFTP server can see

The Termux wiki explains that termux-setup-storage creates links inside ~/storage: shared points to the root of shared storage, and there are shortcuts to downloads, dcim, pictures, music and movies. In Total Commander you land in the Termux home folder and go down to storage/shared. The permission does not give write access to the external SD card or to USB drives attached to the phone. On Android 11 the wiki documents a known issue: “Permission denied” appears even though the permission is granted; the fix is to revoke Termux’s storage permission in Android settings and grant it again.

According to the wiki’s remote access page, password authentication is on by default. If you prefer keys, copy your public key with ssh-copy-id -p 8022 -i id_rsa PHONE_IP, set PasswordAuthentication to no in $PREFIX/etc/ssh/sshd_config and restart with pkill sshd; sshd. The same wiki advises against the Termux FTP server: it supports anonymous login only, with no authentication, so anyone on your network could read the files.

#ADB vs MTP vs Wi-Fi compared

The following table contrasts the four primary connection methods across reliability and security parameters:

#How to access Android/data without root

Starting with Android 11, Google tightened storage rules with Scoped Storage, which separates each app’s data to protect user privacy:

If you need to back up data stored in /Android/data/, standard MTP shows the folders as empty. To get around this without rooting the phone, use the ADB plugin or an archiving app on the phone to pack the data into a .zip file inside /Download/ before transferring it.

#Why a Wi-Fi server on the phone cannot see Android/data

The Wi-Fi column of the table has a concrete explanation in the Android documentation. An FTP or WebDAV server on the phone is just another app, and the Android 11 storage notes say apps can no longer access files in any other app’s dedicated directory on external storage. Asking the user for the folder does not help either: with the Storage Access Framework, apps targeting Android 11 cannot request Android/data/, Android/obb/ or their subfolders.

The special “All files access” permission (MANAGE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE) does not open that door. According to the official guide to this permission, it grants read and write access to all of shared storage but excludes write access to /Android/data/ and most of /sdcard/Android, and apps holding it still cannot enter other apps’ specific directories. Total Commander for Android uses this permission on Android 11 and newer to get full file system access, according to its official page, which is why it sees all of shared storage but not other apps’ private data.

#How to sync folders between Android and a PC in Total Commander

The built-in Synchronize directories tool (cm_FileSync) is one of Total Commander’s strongest features for keeping exact backups between your workstation and your phone.

+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| SYNC PROCEDURE (PC <-> DEVICE):                              |
|                                                              |
| [ Left panel: D:\Photos_Backup ] <-> [ Right: /DCIM ]        |
|                                                              |
| Step 1: Open 'Commands' -> 'Synchronize directories'         |
| Step 2: Set the file masks (*.jpg;*.mp4;*.png)               |
| Step 3: Press 'Compare' to find new and changed files        |
| Step 4: Check the direction arrows carefully                 |
| Step 5: Click 'Synchronize' to apply the changes             |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+

#How to sync without losing files

1. Manual check on the first run: In folders with thousands of items, press Compare and visually check the marked files before pressing the final synchronize button.
2. Compare by date and size: When syncing over MTP or Wi-Fi, untick comparison by content, because it would force the program to download every file just to compare it.
3. Keep timestamps with ADB: The ADB plugin keeps timestamps, which avoids false positives in later sync sessions.

#Fixing Total Commander Android connection problems

#Wi-Fi transfer stops when the phone screen turns off

If file copying halts after three to five minutes when your smartphone screen turns off, the Android battery management system has entered Doze Mode.

• Solution: Navigate to Settings -> Apps -> Total Commander (or your FTP/SFTP server app) -> Battery. Change the battery profile from Optimized to Unrestricted.

#Cannot access the Android/data folder

Starting with Android 11, the operating system restricts file managers from reading /Android/data and /Android/obb folders via standard MTP or storage APIs.

• Solution: Connect through the Android ADB Plugin with USB Debugging enabled, which possesses elevated debugging privileges to inspect and transfer app private caches.

#Total Commander does not detect phone in drive list

If cm_OpenDrives or Alt+F1 shows no portable device:

1. Ensure the USB cable supports high-speed data transfer (cheap charging-only cables omit data lines D+ and D-).
2. Confirm the smartphone screen is unlocked.
3. Check the Windows Device Manager under Portable Devices to verify that no yellow exclamation mark indicates a missing MTP driver.