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Andrea
Asked: 2015-12-02 08:37:33 +0800 CST

How to move files between Ubuntu and iPhone

  • 772

I recently got an iPhone 6s. Is there a way to transfer files (music, photos, PDF, or really anything actually) between Ubuntu and the phone? It should not involve syncing via an internet service, as I may have the need to transfer large or private files. Also, I do not want to jailbreak the device.

There are a few results when searching for this on Google, but none seems very up to date.

iphone

4 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    I don't know whether there's any difference between versions, but I can simply access the files of my iPhone 5s via the file manager when it's plugged over USB (using the AFC protocol).

    I'm using iOS 9.2 beta, I have no idea whether it works on 9.1 or earlier. I can access the device from Nautilus' sidebar, if it doesn't show up, try navigating to the following address:

    afc://<your iPhone's UDID>/

    Also, most music players (at least Rythmbox, Banshee and Clementine) support music synchronization over AFC (Apple File Conduit).

    EDIT: I just learned I can easily synchronize my pictures using tools like gThumb.

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  2. Apple constantly breaks Linux applications' access to iPhones. As of 2019, the best way of uploading and downloading files is to use a 3rd party app on iOS. Apparently, the file you upload is only accessible by that 3rd app.

    Phone Drive is a good app for this. First, take note of the IP address of your iPhone, then, when PhoneDrive is in the foreground, typing the IP address of the iPhone from a PC connected to the same local area network would give you a website where you can upload and download files. You can also use FTP protocol on the same iPhone IP address. Phone Drive supports playback of a lot of video and music formats.

    https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/phone-drive-file-storage-sync/id431033044

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  3. Sandisk now makes a USB device that plugs directly into the iphone and can backup and move pictures, music, calendar items, and some file items. It can't do notes and some other items, but what it does it does very well. It is especially nice for multiple large video files. Just dump it on the usb pen drive and plug it into whatever and move the files over.

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  4. FREE and best way for me is installing a webserver in your local machine and share everything via Safari browser on the iPhone, this are the steps YMMV

    sudo apt install nginx php-fpm git
mkdir ~/iphoneFiles
sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/default

    Delete everything in there and put something like this, remember to modify <YOUR-USER> and if necessary change the php version php7.4-fpm.sock

    server {
    listen 80;
    server_name localhost;

    root /home/<YOUR-USER>/iphoneFiles/elFinder;

    index elfinder.src.html;

    location ~ \.php$ {
        include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
        fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.4-fpm.sock;
     }
}

    Installing https://github.com/Studio-42/elFinder

    cd ~/iphoneFiles
git clone https://github.com/Studio-42/elFinder.git

    Configuring elFinder

    mv elFinder/php/connector.minimal.php-dist connector.minimal.php

    Setting the (probably) right permissions for the upload folder

    sudo usermod -a -G www-data $USER
sudo chown -R $USER:www-data elFinder/files/
sudo chmod a+rwx,o-rwx,ug+s elFinder/files/
ln -s ~/iphoneFiles/elFinder/files/ ~/Documents/iphoneFiles

    Making nginx to load the new set directives

    sudo service nginx reload

    Now get your local network IP

    hostname -i | awk '{print $1}'

    Enter with your iPhone to that IP and start uploading pictures or whatever you want

    note: you will need to modify elFinder setting to allow upload of all types of files

    sed -i 's/.*uploadDeny.*/'uploadDeny' => array(''),/' elFinder/php/connector.minimal.php
sed -i 's/.*uploadDeny.*/'uploadAllow' => array('all'),/' elFinder/php/connector.minimal.php

    If you did everything good you should have your files in:

    ~/Documents/iphoneFiles
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