![[image]](usbsync.png)
This page covers fetching, installing, and running the Android and PC versions of this app. For more on what you can do with the app after you start it, see the Usage Overview and GUI Guide.
This app is available for Android in full and trial form on the Play store, and for PCs in full form as free downloads at this website. You'll need both Android and PC versions to sync your computer to or from your phone, but the Play-store product is required only for the Android side of this equation; all PC versions are free and unlimited, and all versions of this app are advertising free.
This app's Main-tab actions run code in the open-source Mergeall system, which has been actively developed and regularly used on both PCs and Android for a decade. That said, this app, like all apps, has some version constraints which are called out here. As noted along the way, Mergeall's free GUI and scripts are fallback options on all PCs, should the app's executable prove subpar for your usage.
Before we jump into package details, here are two general guidelines up front:
The rest of this page covers install steps and usage info for each supported platform, as well as Mergeall alternatives for PCs. Click a platform's name for its downloads and resources:
This app's Android version is available on the Play store. There, you can fetch both the full version for a modest fee, and a free trial version that allows you to open the app a fixed number of times so you can evaluate it on your phone. Neither version uses advertising or limited features. Per the note above, please use the trial version to verify that this app will work for your goals before purchasing the full version.
See also Android screenshots for visuals of many of the following package details.
Android manages uninstalls; use your phone's normal procedure.
Logfiles are retained on uninstalls in your Documents folder,
per the Data section ahead. On Androids 10 and later, uninstall dialogs
include a toggle that allows you to save the app's storage so that it is
restored on reinstall; be sure to enable this if you store content
in the app's own storage space or wish to retain app settings,
also per the Data section ahead.
Either way, this is a firm requirement on Android, so please follow the prompt's directions. The app cannot process your content without this, and will prompt for storage permission again before each Main-tab action and folder popup if not granted. When granted, this app respects the privacy of your content in full; see the privacy statement in both its About and Help tabs. There's more on Android storage here and here.
On some phones, you may also need to restart the app immediately after granting these permissions to fully enable access. This is a one-time startup task, and the app will prompt you to do this if needed when storage accesses fail in both Main-tab actions and the folder-chooser popup.
Android may also ask you to permit notifications for running Main-tab actions, the first time one is started. This is a feature of foreground services, the default run mode for actions; see the separate services coverage here.
Also on Android, logfiles are stored more permanently in your phone's
shared-storage Documents folder in a subfolder named for
this app, and sync backups are saved in the
__bkp__ folder of the sync's TO on all platforms.
You can tell if you're using the free trial version of this app for Android by looking for "Trial" in its name, icon, or splash screen, or checking the About tab in the app itself: the trial version includes an extra fourth line at the top which shows the number of opens remaining. These are the only ways the trial version differs.
Orientations: This app works in both portrait and landscape phone orientations. Landscape is useful if content is too crowded in portrait, but this app may work better in portrait mode on narrow phones due to landscape's display constraints. This naturally is less of a factor for foldables, tablets, and stylus-enabled phones; on other devices, you can address landscape crunch to some degree by adjusting font size in the Config tab for better fit.
Removables: There is a special case for updates to removable drives on Androids 10 and earlier; see its coverage here and here if you will using this app to manage content on these older Androids. As noted in the second of those links, you should also generally wait until a USB drive mounts before trying to access it to avoid odd but temporary states.
App storage: As a reminder, content in Android app-specific storage only (labeled APP in the Main-tab's folder choosers) may be erased on both uninstalls and app-data clears. See here and here for details, and use shared storage (PHONE) for on-phone content that's immune to these risks.
Power kills: Some phones kill apps to save battery power more aggressively than they perhaps should. This app runs its long-running actions as Android foreground services to avoid this risk, and no automatic kills have been seen or reported to date (even for multi-hour runs), but it's impossible to test every phone in use. If an action is ever killed on your phone, please disable battery optimizations for this app in Apps Settings. Alternatively, try running actions as threads via Config-tab settings. See also the Tech Note on this subject.
Rotations: Though rare, the app's top-of-screen tabs bar has been known to not appear immediately after rotating a phone to landscape orientation. This has been seen only on a Fold4 running Android 13; reflects an unresolved glitch in the underlying GUI toolkit; and may be triggered by the large-screen taskbar introduced in Android 12L. If you stumble onto this, simply rotate to portrait and back again to restore your tabs bar.
This app's Windows version is free. It's available on this website as a zipped self-contained executable, which requires no other software to be installed.
See also Windows screenshots for visuals of many of the following package details.
PC-Phone USB Sync,
which contains a Windows executable named PC-Phone USB Sync.exe.
To start the app, run the executable as usual (e.g., by clicking its icon in Explorer).
To uninstall, simply delete the executable's folder;
logfiles are retained on uninstalls in your Documents folder,
per the Data section ahead.
Main-tab actions
continue running if you navigate to another program.
Note that the app's Windows executable will not run without all the other items in its unzip folder—and will warn you and shut down if it detects this case. To move the app elsewhere after unzipping, move the entire folder, not just the executable inside it.
settings.pkl
in the install folder (the one made when you unzipped the download), and
can be saved and restored there if you delete and reinstall the app's folder.
Logfiles appear in
the Documents folder of your home directory, in a subfolder named
for this app. Sync backups are saved in the __bkp__ folder of the sync's TO.
Title bar: To change the color of the app's title bar on Windows, set your Accent color in Settings' Personalization=>Colors. For example, if you use Windows' dark theme, you can apply a darker title-bar color than that shown in some screenshots by enabling Accent Color's Automatic mode, as well as its option to show on title bars.
Antivirus conflicts: This app accesses content folders to do its work. Make sure that neither your content folders nor this app's install folder or executable are blocked or throttled by your antivirus program. Else, over-aggressive antivirus software can impede, and even cause failures in, this and other programs on Windows. Though rare, this is known to have caused this app's folder chooser to hang.
This app's macOS version is free. It's available on this website as a zipped and self-contained macOS app, which requires no other software to be installed.
See also macOS screenshots for visuals of many of the following package details.
PC-Phone USB Sync.app.
To start the app, run it as usual (e.g., by clicking its icon in Finder).
To uninstall, simply delete the app;
logfiles in your Documents folder and settings in
Library are retained on uninstalls, per the Data section ahead.
Main-tab actions
continue running if you navigate to another program.
Note that the app's macOS version is an app bundle created by unzipping. This is really a folder, but must be treated as a whole; the executable inside it won't run without all the other items in the app bundle. Fortunately, macOS makes it difficult not to treat the app as a single item.
Also on this platform, macOS will ask you to approve removable drives and some folders when they are first accessed by the app, and the app will suggest but not require macOS's Full Disk Access storage permission on the first run only. Drives and folders are required, but Full Disk Access applies only to app and system-level content, and is likely optional in typical usage; you can opt to turn it on later in Settings if actions fail because of permissions.
settings.pkl
in the PC-Phone USB Sync subfolder of
/Users/yourid/Library, and are not deleted if you
remove and reinstall the app (you may have to unhide this folder to see
it in Finder: try shift+command+.). Logfiles appear in the Documents
folder of your home directory in a sub folder similarly named for this app.
Sync backups are saved in the __bkp__ folder of the sync's TO.
In addition, this executable was built on macOS Catalina (10.15); it is expected to run on this and newer versions of macOS, but not older. If you have trouble using it on your PC, please see the Mergeall alternatives below.
Applications
folder to make it available in Launchpad. You can also add an alias to the app on
your desktop or drag it to your Dock, using your platform's
conventions.
Filename issues: Though rare, if you run across errors and skips for some non-ASCII Unicode filenames on macOS, please see the Tech Note for possible solutions, including a precoded fixer script. This crops up only for Unicode variants, and only in atypical use cases on macOS.
This app's Linux version is free. It's available on this website as a zipped and self-contained executable, which requires no other software to be installed.
See also Linux screenshots for visuals of many of the following package details.
PC-Phone USB Sync,
which contains a Linux executable named PC-Phone USB Sync.
To start the app, run the executable as usual (e.g., by clicking its icon in your
file explorer or running it from a command line)
To uninstall, simply delete the executable's folder;
logfiles are retained on uninstalls in your Documents folder,
per the Data section ahead.
Main-tab actions
continue running if you navigate to another program.
Note that the app's Linux executable will not run without all the other items in its unzip folder—and will warn you and shut down if it detects this case. To move the app elsewhere after unzipping, move the entire folder, not just the executable inside it.
settings.pkl
in the install folder (the one made when you unzipped the download), and
can be saved and restored there if you delete and reinstall the app's folder.
Logfiles appear in
the Documents folder of your home directory in a subfolder named
for this app. Sync backups are saved in the __bkp__ folder of the sync's TO.
ppus-linux.desktop
in its usbsync-pc folder. See this file's top comments for detailed
install instructions. In short, you'll edit the file for your user name and paths,
add the app to Applications with a simple desktop-file-install command, and
right-click the app to add it to the quick-access panel. The file has URLs for more help.
While this app has been ported and built to run on most recent PCs, it may not work on some devices whose hardware or software varies from current norms.
If you have trouble running this app on your PC, you can also try using Mergeall's free GUI executable or source code, captured here. This GUI's Report and Update buttons work the same as (and in fact use identical code to) this app's SHOW and SYNC buttons, respectively. They can be used in place of this app to sync content on your Windows, macOS, and Linux PCs, both before and after using this app's Android version on your phone.
Mergeall's GUI app and executables for PCs are platform- and chip-specific too, but its source-code version will work broadly on nearly all PC platforms. You can find resources for using both the app/executable and source-code versions of Mergeall's GUI at the download link above.
Mergeall source-code package also includes command-line scripts that mirror all
the actions on the app's Main tab. For example, mergeall.py corresponds
to the app's SYNC, SHOW, and UNDO, and diffall.py to DIFF. These scripts
can be used as a last-resort content solution for PCs, though both the app and
Mergeall's GUI are naturally more user friendly.
Mergeall's scripts and GUI work on Android too—the former in the Termux app, and the latter in Pydroid 3 with patches—but only on Androids 8 through 10, and with much less convenience than the newer Android app. As of Android 11, USB drives are not accessible to Mergeall's code without a permission that requires a stand-alone app. While this can be partly addressed with multi-step heroics, the results are dependent on other apps, and not in line with Android usage paradigms.
The PC-Phone USB Sync app works around this Android constraint in full, while adding ease of use, enhanced functionality, and a graphical and consistent content-management experience across phones and PCs.
That wraps up this guide to the app's packages. For info on using the app after you install it, see the other sections of the User Guide.
