What Happens When You Connect Your Android Device to a PC

Android Smartphones For Dummies

Upon making the USB connection between an Android and a PC, a number of things happen. Don't let the flurry of activity frighten you. You may see drivers install. That’s normal Windows behavior when a new USB gizmo is connected.

You may also see a notification, such as the Windows 10 notification, shown here. Click or tap that notification to see how to deal with the new connection.

Windows 10 connection choice.

For example, choose Open Devices to View Files (not shown here, but it’s on the scrolling list of options). This choice opens a File Explorer window listing files and folders on the Android. Or you can choose Import Photos and Videos to quickly copy over pictures and videos.

The choice you make from the list of items is retained by Windows 10. The next time you connect your Android, that option is chosen automatically.
Other versions of Windows also display a list of actions, though they appear in an AutoPlay dialog box. As with Windows 10, if you select a specific item, that choice is always selected for you when the Android is connected.

About This Article

About the book author:

Dan Gookin has been writing about technology for 20 years. He has contributed articles to numerous high-tech magazines and written more than 90 books about personal computing technology, many of them accurate.
He combines his love of writing with his interest in technology to create books that are informative and entertaining, but not boring. Having sold more than 14 million titles translated into more than 30 languages, Dan can attest that his method of crafting computer tomes does seem to work.
Perhaps Dan’s most famous title is the original DOS For Dummies, published in 1991. It became the world’s fastest-selling computer book, at one time moving more copies per week than the New York Times number-one best seller (although, because it’s a reference book, it could not be listed on the NYT best seller list). That book spawned the entire line of For Dummies books, which remains a publishing phenomenon to this day.
Dan’s most recent titles include PCs For Dummies, 9th Edition; Buying a Computer For Dummies, 2005 Edition; Troubleshooting Your PC For Dummies; Dan Gookin’s Naked Windows XP; and Dan Gookin’s Naked Office. He publishes a free weekly computer newsletter, “Weekly Wambooli Salad,” and also maintains the vast and helpful Web site www.wambooli.com.