Question

Eclipse is connected to my rooted phone and I can run debug sessions and see LogCat messages. I can also see the phone in Devices view in the DDMS perspective, but: When I open the File Explorer view (in same perspective) I see nothing.

I could swear that I saw it working once but for the life of me I can’t recall if there was anything special that I had to pre-configure on the device-under-debug or Eclipse.

The Working with an emulator or device’s file system on the Android Developer’s Using DDMS page says:

DDMS provides a File Explorer tab that allows you to view, copy, and
delete files on the device. This feature is useful in examining files
that are created by your application or if you want to transfer files
to and from the device.

To work with an emulator or device’s file system:

1. In the Devices tab, select the emulator that you want to view
   the file system for.
2. To copy a file from the device, locate the file in the File
   Explorer and click the Pull file button.
3. To copy a file to the device, click the Push file button on the
   File Explorer tab.

But… these 3 easy steps don’t work for me. What am I doing wrong?

What do I need to do to view files on my rooted device on Eclipse’s File Explorer?

1. P.S. adb pull works, but I would like to be able to use File
   Explorer, too.
2. P.S. Turning on USB storage (from the notification area) doesn’t
   help File Explorer either.

Answer 1

File explorer in DDMS works fine with real devices. Just use the stand alone one, not the Eclipse plugin.

From the command line, type ddms.bat, then select the (real) device, and only then select Device > File Explorer from the menu: