aft-mtp-mount

aft-mtp-mount [options] mountpoint

aft-mtp-mount is the FUSE helper from Android File Transfer for Linux. It exposes an MTP device — typically an Android phone or tablet, but also cameras and Zune players — as a normal directory tree, using the project's own MTP stack rather than libmtp or libptp.The mount point's top level is one directory per storage (internal memory, SD card, and so on), named from the device's storage description, or `sdcard0`, `sdcard1`, … when the description is empty. Partial reads and writes are supported when the device implements the corresponding MTP extensions, so media players can seek and editors can patch files in place. There is no file-size cap from the client side.FUSE is convenient for `ls`, `cp`, and file managers, but the same project documents it as several times slower than aft-mtp-cli or the Qt UI for bulk copies. Album art is only picked up by media players if a file named `albumart.*` is copied into the destination folder first.

-D name

Connect only to a device whose manufacturer, model, or serial matches name (partial match).

Reset the USB device before opening a session.

Do not claim the USB interface (when another process already owns it).

Enable MTP and FUSE debug output (implies foreground).

Run in the foreground (do not daemonize).

Single-threaded FUSE loop.

FUSE mount options. allow_other lets users besides the mounter read the tree; user_allow_other must be uncommented in `/etc/fuse.conf` first.

Print AFT-specific options and exit.

Print the FUSE library version and exit.

The device must be unlocked and in MTP (or PTP) mode; charging-only USB or a lock screen yields `connect failed: no MTP device found`. Only one process may talk to an MTP device at a time — stop aft-mtp-cli, the Qt UI, jmtpfs, GVFS, and adb if they have claimed the interface. Always unmount with fusermount -u before unplugging; a surprise disconnect can abort the FUSE process. Samsung devices that dropped Android MTP extensions often mount read-only. Devices without GetPartialObject keep a tiny in-memory cache of recently read files. USB timeouts can leave the phone unresponsive until it is replugged. Access to `/dev/bus/usb/*` needs udev rules (for example the android-udev package) or membership in the plugdev/usb group.

Android File Transfer for Linux was written by Vladimir Menshakov starting in 2015 (LGPLv2.1) as a Linux counterpart to Google's macOS Android File Transfer, after gvfs/libmtp clients proved unreliable. The CLI, FUSE helper, and Qt UI share the same MTP stack.

aft-mtp-cli(1), jmtpfs(1), simple-mtpfs(1), fusermount(1), gio(1), gvfs-mount(1)

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