Although everything that is said about Android also applies to every Samsung smartphone, we make here a dedicated article talking about how to connect the phones of the Samsung Galaxy series, which are always the best selling with the Android system, to the PC to manage them and transfer files. Connecting a smartphone to the computer is necessary for backing up data, photos, personal files stored in the mobile phone and also for transferring multimedia files, music and videos from the PC to the phone. Compared to other Android smartphones, those who have a Samsung Galaxy S, Galaxy Note or other Galaxy models, can take advantage of a special program from Samsung itself called Smart Switch, necessary to install the drivers to make the phone recognize the PC.
Here is the guide to connect a Samsung mobile phone to your PC, step by step .
Before using the USB cable, pick up the phone, enter the settings, go to the developer options and activate USB debugging .
If it is not present, see here how to activate the developer options and make it appear.
Also from the settings, you can select the menu wireless and network> USB settings and touch the button to activate the Storage function for the PC .
In practice, the phone is said to allow the use of its memory as if it were a USB stick.
A window will then open that says to connect the USB cable to the computer to use mass storage .
Without touching anything on the phone, connect the Samsung Galaxy to the PC via USB cable and press the button to connect.
In theory this should be enough to be able to open the phone memory as a USB stick or external disk to be found in computer resources.
If the Windows PC does not see the Samsung Galaxy memory, you need to manually install the drivers to make it recognize it and there are three possibilities.
1) Samsung Smart Switch (formerly Samsung Kies), which I have already talked about in the past as the program to update and manage the Samsung mobile phone from a PC, is the official (but not the only) program to install the drivers. The program includes drivers and the management program, working a bit like iTunes, to transfer files and set up a backup of your smartphone.
If Smart Switch should give problems in recognizing the phone, go to the Galaxy settings, in the wireless and networks> USB settings menu, select Smart Switch then exit the menu and press the power button to turn off the screen. Connect the USB cable and let the PC install the drivers automatically. If there are still problems try:
- connect the cable to another USB port on the computer
- open Samsung Smart Switch and press the button to try to connect again after a connection error.
- disable anti-virus software or firewall on the computer.
- Try another computer.
It is a software designed especially to transfer contacts and data from the old to the new phone, which also works well for some basic operations such as backing up the app files, messages, photos, videos and settings, which also allows you to update the phone if new firmware is available. If Smart Switch does not recognize the phone, you can go to the program menu, to the Other section and ask to reinstall the device driver .
2) Alternatively, you can always manually install only the Samsung mobile phone driver for Windows, without Smart Switch and without any external management program. After installing the driver, the phone will be recognized as mass storage and you can drag and drop files as you would any folder or flash drive.
Finally, if you want to try a different program, all the programs to manage Android from PC and transfer data (in wifi or USB) also work with the Samsung Galaxy, including the legendary Aidroid that does not require you to install any program and which, according to me, it is always the easiest and least invasive solution to connect every smartphone to any computer, Windows, Mac, Linux or other.
