English | 한국어
Browse your phone like a Finder window, copy files both ways, and open photos and videos right from the phone — over USB (MTP or ADB) or Wi-Fi. Built with Swift and SwiftUI and its own MTP and ADB code: no Electron, no kernel extensions, nothing to install on the phone.
I used OpenMTP a lot, and it helped me many times — I have a lot of respect for it. Along with Google's Android File Transfer, it's the open-source app most of us have used. But folders with thousands of files (usually the camera folder) take a long time to open, and selecting a range of files with Shift-click has been an open request since 2023. The other well-known apps are paid, and Android File Transfer, even back when it was available, could freeze for tens of seconds on a big folder. So I made the app I wanted to use.
It's hard to compare apps on speed alone, but SolidFerry is fast enough to enjoy using, with lots of handy features and options. All in all, I think it's the best choice you can make today.
The recording above is a Lenovo Tab P11 — a tablet that sold for about $100 in 2021, and the slowest device we test with — opening a folder of 10,000 photos. Even there, over MTP, all 10,000 files show up and are ready to scroll, select and download in 1.9 seconds. On a Galaxy S23 or Z Flip5 from 2023 — not the newest, about mid-range today — it takes less than half a second (see Performance). Shift-click to select a range, sorting and multiple windows work just like in the Finder, and ⌘F searches even tens of thousands of files by name as you type (a regular expression works too).
Photos, videos and music open in a viewer that reads straight from the phone, as if you were playing them on the phone itself: on the same $100 tablet a 1.8 GB video starts playing in about a second (0.2 seconds on a Galaxy Z Flip5), and you can jump to any point without downloading the file first. If the cable comes out while it's playing, it picks up again when the phone is back. Press Space to view the selected file and Space again to close it, like Quick Look in the Finder.
Photos (using the small picture the phone already keeps, when it has one), a frame from a video with its length and size, text, the first page of a PDF, album art, and all the details the phone gives. You choose how much it does: show or hide the panel, stop it from reading the phone at all (it then shows only what the list already has), see All Details by group or as raw tags, and set how big a file it will read in full.
- Mac → device, device → Mac and device → device, by drag and drop, copy and paste or menus — all in one queue with progress, pause, resume and retry for failed files. The queue is kept when you quit the app, and it waits if the connection drops.
- You never lose existing files: skip, overwrite, keep both, or decide by size, date or content — and see exactly what will be copied, skipped or replaced before anything starts. An overwrite replaces the old file only after the new one has fully arrived.
- Phones that change the date of files they receive can get them as one ZIP that keeps the original dates.
Plug in a phone and it shows up. If USB debugging is on, it uses ADB (faster, and it can fix some problems by itself); if not, MTP — the "File transfer" mode every phone has. Wi-Fi works through wireless debugging: pair once, and it connects by itself after that. If something gets in the way — charging-only mode, the Photos service holding the phone, a prompt waiting on the phone — the app tells you what it is and what to do.
New folder, rename, rename many at once (find and replace, numbers, upper/lower case), delete, hidden files. The sidebar shows each device's usual folders, its SD card or USB drive, and folders you add yourself (right-click ▸ Add to Sidebar).
Open folders in tabs or separate windows, from one device or several, and drag files between them — from the Finder to a phone, from a phone to the Finder, and even straight from one phone to another.
 Tabs and windows |
|
 One queue for every transfer |
 Wi-Fi: pair once with a QR code |
Transfer options — keep the original dates on phones that change them, send many small files together in one stream, or write straight to the device without a temporary file — and options that keep things quick: how big a file the viewer and the preview open by themselves, and stopping macOS Photos from grabbing a phone when you plug it in, so its first folder opens right away. You can also set the text size for each part of the window.
 General: text size for each part of the window |
 Devices: macOS Photos, Wi-Fi |
 Transfers: file dates and speed |
 Viewer: what opens in the app, and what the preview reads |
Available in English and Korean.
Over USB; each number is the middle of three runs. The Lenovo Tab P11, a $100 tablet from 2021, is the slowest device we test with; the Galaxy S10+ is a flagship from 2019; the Galaxy Z Flip5 and S23 (2023) are not the newest, about mid-range today.
| Device | Connection | 10,000-photo folder: first files | Ready to browse | 1.8 GB video: playing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Galaxy S23 (2023) | ADB | 0.05 s | 0.9 s | 0.2 s |
| Galaxy S23 (2023) | MTP | 0.2 s | 0.2 s | 0.3 s |
| Galaxy Z Flip5 (2023) | ADB | 0.04 s | 1.9 s | 0.2 s |
| Galaxy Z Flip5 (2023) | MTP | 0.4 s | 0.4 s | 0.2 s |
| Galaxy S10+ (2019) | ADB | 0.1 s | 1.8 s | 0.3 s |
| Galaxy S10+ (2019) | MTP | 1.8 s | 1.8 s | 0.3 s |
| Lenovo Tab P11 ($100 tablet, 2021) | ADB | 0.2 s | 4.1 s | 1.2 s |
| Lenovo Tab P11 ($100 tablet, 2021) | MTP | 1.9 s | 1.9 s | 0.7 s |
"Ready to browse" is when all 10,000 files are in the list and you can scroll, select and download
them. Over MTP the names come first and sizes and dates are filled in afterwards; over ADB sizes and
dates come with the names, so there "ready to browse" means everything has arrived. Folder times
come from the developer tool (sferry ls, sferry mtpfs ls), which reads folders the same way the
app does; video times are from opening the file in the app until the picture starts moving.
Download the DMG from Releases and drag SolidFerry to Applications. Needs macOS 14 or later (Apple Silicon or Intel).
Builds are not notarized yet, so macOS shows a warning the first time you open it:
- macOS 15 and later: open SolidFerry and click Done in the warning. Then go to System Settings ▸ Privacy & Security, find "SolidFerry" was blocked… and click Open Anyway.
- macOS 14: right-click SolidFerry.app ▸ Open, then Open.
On the phone, do one of these:
- choose File transfer in the USB notification after plugging it in (MTP), or
- turn on USB debugging in Developer options (ADB). If
adbisn't installed, SolidFerry can download Google's platform-tools for you (used only by SolidFerry).
SolidFerry is made by one person with only a few devices — some Galaxy phones, Lenovo tablets and a Teclast tablet (tested devices). Every Android maker handles MTP and ADB a little differently, and the only way to find out is to try.
If you have an Android device, please try SolidFerry and tell us how it went — even "it just worked on my Pixel 8" helps. There's also a device test that takes a minute or two and only touches its own test folder (how).
Anyone can make an app like this with AI now. But what makes one good is working through all the real devices out there, and that's easier together than alone. Device reports, bug reports and pull requests are all welcome — see CONTRIBUTING.md.
To build it you need Xcode 26 (which runs on macOS 15.6 or later) and XcodeGen.
brew install xcodegen
make run # make the Xcode project, build, open
make test # unit tests
make cli # sferry, the developer tool (device tests, benchmarks)The Xcode project is made from project.yml. For formatting, adb and the device tests, see
CONTRIBUTING.md.
- docs/PRD.md — what the app is for and how good it needs to be
- docs/QUIRKS.md — device and protocol problems the app works around (MTP, ADB,
Samsung, macOS
ptpcamerad), with measurements. Handy if you're writing your own MTP or ADB code. - docs/DEVICE_TESTS.md — the device tests and tested devices
MIT. Not affiliated with Google. Android is a trademark of Google LLC.