Hi: A friend of mine has a Motorola phone (I presume the O.S. is Android). I have a text file in my desktop with Windows 7 which I want to transfer to her phone. So I am in the file manager, and after plugin in the cable I see a directory COMPUTER\MOT (4) or something like that (realy I can't find the directory with MS-DOS but this is the path shown by the file manager). However, the window does not show any dir/files. So I ask the file manager to show hidden files, just in case. To no use (forgot: at a given time I was shown a window with an option "View files in device" and I clicked it)
Should I take some action at the phone or should the filenames be automatically be shown in my file manager after connection?

Usually with Android phones when you connect it to a computer - the phone should prompt to allow a connection - also check the documentation about the phone - you have to have drivers for windows so it can act as mass storage. Have you tried just connecting it to a Linux computer instead? I can connect my Samsung S4 to my and Linux automatically sees it as mass storage. For Windows, you need drivers.

Thanks, I'll try with linux in the desktop and let you know the result.

However, it depends on OS version. Since the S4 (I believe) Android can only connect using MTP. Are there any files in the phone's file directory? I am unfamiliar with the Motorola phone but have you tried copying the file from the computer to the "COMPUTER\MOT" directory in the file browser. With MTP there is no actual directory where you can go via the windows command box (MS-DOS).

I use Airdroid to move files to and from my Android; it's free in the Play Store. It will encourage you to create an account for their "cloud," but it works quite nicely for direct transfers from computer to phone.

Just be sure to turn it off when you are done, or it will hit every wireless connection you pass by.

Well, I don't now have the phone here, but I'll check the OS version. I did both things. First I used the host (desktop) file manager, which SHOWED NO files at all. Then I went to the command interpreter and tried to find the phone directory there, but I couldn't. However, that may be because I don't know how to find it: neither could I find directory 'users', so...

I'm in a hospital and the nurse's phone is sometimes available. It's a long time since I've been trying to register to planetmath.org and the administrator never answers me. But the nurse does not speak English and can't write the mail. So I wrote the mail in my machine and tried to transfer it to the phone. I thought if I use another IP perhaps he would notice. Just an anecdote.