How to Copy Files when Skip for All Current Items Fails

When copying multiple files from a PC to an Android phone over USB if some of those files are already on the device, Windows may bring up this prompt.

Look at the second picture on the right hand side:

If you check "Do this for all conflicts" and then click "Don't Copy" then none of the files will be moved to the device, even the files which are not already on the device.

This is a long standing bug in the interaction between the Windows File Explorer and the including MTP driver for Android. If you instead click on "Copy and Replace", then the operation will finish successfully. However this can be very time consuming when copying large amounts of files such as many pictures or large files such as videos.

There is also an unrelated but similar issue where if you try to copy files with file names longer than 128 characters, the copy will not occur. This is due to a limitation on the Android side, so none of these workarounds will help with that unfortunately. To resolve this, just make sure that the names of the files you are copying do not exceed this limit.

Windows has had this issue for a long time, Mirosoft does not seem to have much if any motivation to fix this issue. Like many longstanding Windows issues.

There are a couple of workarounds that you can use to fix this issue but unfortunately you are going to have to use one of a few 3rd party tools. This article goes over some of these options.

What does NOT Work

1. Phone Link/Link to Windows (app). Unfortunately this does not work as Phone Link only allows you to copy one photo from the phone at a time (only photos, no videos) and you cannot copy photos from the PC to the phone.
2. Total Commander. This product does not work because it uses the same file copy dialog as File Explorer which also does not work.
3. Copying files using File Explorer. This does not work above a certain amount of files or a certain file size.
4. Copying a folder instead of files. This is generally more reliable than copying the files themselves with File Explorer, however this solution fails above a certain amount of files.

Double Commander (Free and Easiest method)

Double commander is an alternative file manager for Windows, MacOS and Linux.

Double Commander is inspired by a proprietary program called Total Commander (which does not work).

Double Commander lets you have 2 file locations open at the same time and you can copy files from PC and Android (and vice versa) and this works well.

Double Commander has been around since at least 2008 and is open source.

1. Download and install Double Commander here choose Installation packages, then doublecmd-[version].x86_64-win64.exe
2. Navigate to the desired PC location on the left side panel
3. Click the phone icon at the top of the right side panel (Next to the C button)
4. Select the desired files on the left side panel (CTRL + A selects all files)
5. Click Copy on the bottom (or press F5)
6. In the dialog box that opens, click "Start"
7. When prompted select "Do this for the next ___ conflicts" then click "Don't Copy"

MTPDrive (Easy but Paid with Free Trial)

MTPDrive allows you to map Android devices to drive letters, similar to how a removable USB drive would appear. This can be done automatically and the issue does not occur when copying files this way.

1. Download and install MTPDrive here
2. Once MTPDrive is installed you will be prompted to map the device whenever you plug in an Android phone. If your phone is already plugged in, you will need to unplug it and plug it back in
3. From here you can copy files to the phone as if it was a regular USB drive

The free trial is usually enough but you may want some of the features of the full version. A one user license is $50 and gives you the following:

1. Automatic mapping of a device to a drive letter without asking for drive mapping details
2. Mapping via Command-Line
3. Unlimited number of transferred files
4. Unlimited number of concurrently mapped MTP devices
5. Configurable cache size

Cloud Storage Options (Free for small file capacity)

There are a number of cloud providers that can sync files from Android to PC and back.

1. Google Drive allows file management. Google Drive is free up to 15 Gigabytes, if you have this issue you likely have need more drive space. The next step up is 100 Gigabytes (enough for most users) for $1.99 per month. You can see more information here.
2. Dropbox does as well. Free plans allow 2 Gigabytes of file storage which is unlikely to be enough. Dropbox is more geared for business use and not personal use, but there is a personal plan available for $19.99 per month which allows 3 Terabytes which is more than enough space for this use.
3. You can also use OneDrive for this purpose. OneDrive free tier is 5 Gigabytes which is unlikely to be enough. The cheapest plan is $6.99 per month and gives you 1 Terabyte which should be plenty.
4. If you want a more private option, you can set up a Nextcloud instance. Nextcloud is free and open source. Since a local Nextcloud instances uses your own hardware, the file capacity limit is determined by your hardware.

CX File Explorer and Filezilla (Free but Moderately Complex)

CX File Explorer can create an FTP server on the phone and FileZilla can be used on the PC to interact with the FTP Server.

Since this issue only occurs when transferring files over USB, transferring files over the network works fine and can be faster. Before you begin, ensure that the phone and PC are on the same Wifi network.
Phone Steps:

1. Install CX File Explorer on the phone
2. Go through the basic app setup (click Next and Allow)
3. Go To the "Network" tab in the app
4. Tap "Access From Network"
5. Tap "START SERVICE"
6. Note the URL, port, username and password. The IP address will be something like 192.168.1.154 (omit the ftp:// and omit the :___) and the port will be the 3-4 digits after the :

PC Steps:

1. Install FileZilla on the PC.
2. Open FileZilla
3. Enter the IP address into the Host field towards the top
4. Enter the username into the Username field ("pc")
5. Enter the password into the Password field
6. Enter the port into the Port field
7. Click "Quickconnect" if the connection fails, check each field again
8. On the top right panel select the phone file location
9. On the top left panel select the PC file location and in the lower left panel select the desired files (CTRL + A selects all files), then right click the files and click "Upload"

Self Hosted FTP or Local Shared Folder (More Advanced)

If you have your own self hosted FTP or NAS, you can connect to it from the phone and copy files that way. You can also share a folder from the PC and then connect to it from the phone.

1. On Samsung Devices, you can use the My Files app to connect to an FTP My Files app.
2. There are other FTP apps you can use on the phone side such as AndFTP (FTP Client) for non Samsung devices.

Locally Shared Folder PC Steps:

1. On the PC open File Explorer and locate the desired folder
2. Right click the folder > Properties
3. Click the "Sharing" tab
4. Click "Advanced Sharing"
5. Check "Share this Folder"
6. Click "Permissions"
7. Click your username and then below check "Allow" on every permission and then click OK > OK > Close

Locally Shared Folder Phone Steps (Samsung):

1. Go to the phone and open the My Files app
2. Tap "Network Storage"
3. Tap the "+" icon in the top left
4. Tap "Network Drive (SMB)"
5. Tap "Add Manually"
6. In the "IP Address" field, put in the PC's IP Address, you can find this by going to https://www.whatsmyip.org/ on the PC
7. In the "Port" field, put in 445
8. In the "Username" field, put in your PC username
9. In the "Password" field, put in your PC password
10. In the "Display Name" field, put in "Shared Folder" or any other name
11. Tap "Add"
12. From there you can move files from the PC to the phone using the My Files app