[X Style (Pure) Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Ohmster:
Hey guys,

I have an issue with my Moto X Pure edition, 32 GB XT1575. Nothing wrong with the phone, I adore this phone because with the unlocked bootloader and root, this phone is a dream. No decent roms for it, I was really hoping for a sweet CyanogenMod rom but no joy. Does not matter, with Xposed, Nova Launcher Pro, and root, I get all I want.

The issue is file access, especially large files that I need or want to copy from phone to PC or USB drive. I installed the Motorola Device Manager which gave me the drivers I need to access the phone and run adb and fastboot commands. The problem is, when I want to remove a TWRP backup which are pretty darned big folders, approximately 11 GB in size, I cannot just "Plug in a USB cable, tap PTP mode, and then copy or move files in either direction, for either internal or external sd cards. The moment I copy and try to paste, or drag and drop, both Windows Explorer windows disappear. Poof, gone! I am now on Windows 10 Pro x64 but prior to the MS upgrade, I had the very same issues with Windows 7 Ultimate x64 so it is not the operating system of the PC. Developer mode is enabled. I will show you some pictures in PTP mode.

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I just don't get it. Ever since Lollipop and then this phone and Marshmallow, I cannot use USB to quickly transfer files at all. I can use a WiFi file manger and try to use that to copy the folder over to the PC, but at a whopping 11 GB, the operation estimates a 1.5 hour transfer time and it never finishes. I can grab big files like this by shutting down the phone, removing the sd card and using a card reader to make file transfers quick and painless. But that is a pain in itself, shutting down the phone, finding the small tool to open the card drawer, being careful not to lose the SIM card, removing the sdcard for the card reader, and all this in reverse just to turn my phone on again. :(

There must be a better way or better drivers. Yes I have tried AirDroid and it works, but same deal, huge transfer over WiFi, takes forever and probably will not finish. How do you guys transfer large or numerous files to and from the Moto X Pure? Suggestions? Please?

EDIT:

Supposedly you can plug a USB drive into this phone for temporary storage. Now I have never done this since I do not have a USB cable that has a micro phone plug on one end. I just ordered a USB to USB adapter so I can connect my phone's data cord to a standard USB cable to connect to a portable USB drive. If that were to show up in /Settings/Sorage & USB/ then maybe I could copy the file with some sort of impressive speed to the external USB drive, then plug that into PC for offloading. Have not tried it, have any of you done this? It would probably be the ONLY way to get large files to/from the internal sdcard since it cannot be put in a card reader.

EDIT 2:

I turned off the USB Debugging and had no trouble transferring files at all. First I tried a file, internal card, no problem. Then a file ext card, no problem. Then since I was on a roll, one of the TWRP backup folders on the ext card. Poof, Explorer closed. Maybe too many files or too big in that folder? I tried to copy the TitaniumBackup folder over to PC which is chock full of files, lots of them. The transfer started while determining the time this transfer would take, then the transfer began.

Back to TWRP because those backups I want to copy off in the event I might need them, for a little while, anyway, rather than just delete them. This time I used EX file Explorer to zip up my earliest backup and the archiving as a zip file began. Since this is an 11 GB folder the estimated time was over an hour. I will let it run and create the zip, then see if I can transfer the zip file over. If it works, I have my answer. It seems there is something funny about the TWRP backup folders. The one on the internal card cannot be accessed by any means, including root, if Android is running. Boot to recovery and the internal card TWRP folder and files are totally accessible.