Moto e4 Plus not allowing picture downloads with Windows 10 Home

[denjones52]

I recently purchased a new Motorola e4 Plus smartphone. I took some pix with it and wanted to quickly download them. I plugged the USB cable from my PC (running Windows 10 Home 10.0.17134.81) to the phone. At first it was not recognized and would not allow a Microsoft driver install. I researched and found that I needed the Motorola Device Manager and drivers. I downloaded both. The first installs did not function (no change - no joy). I uninstalled them both. I restarted the PC. I did some more searching on Google and found that there was a possible piece missing in my version of Win 10 - the media player piece. Even though further searching revealed that this is only missing in versions typically sent to South Korea, I installed it anyway. Windows didn't complain nor note that it was already installed. I then re-installed a freshly downloaded version of the Motorola Device Manager which apparently "worked" this time around. (first time had no indication of any problems). I say this because when I plugged my phone into the USB port on the PC, it was found and installed the correct drivers - indicated in the Device Manager by "Moto E (4) Plus" in the "Portable Devices" and "Motorola ADB Interface" appearing in "Android Device." However! Though all this appeared to bring joy... when I double clicked the "Moto E (4) Plus" icon in the Windows Explorer window, it did nothing. I right-clicked it and selected "Import Pictures and Videos" which errored out with "No pictures or videos were found on this device." I'm at the 5 hour mark and am severely weary. I read something about the USB connection and whether it was set to PTP (Photo Transfer Protocol) or MTP (Media Transfer Protocol) but haven't the foggiest idea where to "see" if that is set correctly to one or the other. Last, I didn't clearly state prior that nothing appears when I double-click the Moto E (4) Plus icon in Windows Explorer. If anyone could help me, I would be very grateful... no one should have to go through this much slogging to simply offload a picture or two! So if you can help, and I haven't provided enough info, let me know. Thank you ahead of time.

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! You shouldn't have to install addtional drivers. When you connect the phone to the PC via USB, swipe down the notification panel and look for the USB connection icon. Tap it, then select MTP (aka File Transfer). Then, on Windows Explorer, double click the phone in the device list, and then double click the Internal Storage icon that shows up for the phone. You should see the user-accessible folders now.

If you don't see that USB connection icon in the notification panel, then try a different USB cable, since certain cables are designed for charging only, while other cables can have faulty data transfer wiring.