It’s frustrating how many older Windows programs handle MTP – they simply pretend it doesn’t exist.

I wanted to dedupe some photos and videos between my OnePlus 3 and the files stored in Google Photos/Drive and the otherwise excellent dupeGuru simply didn’t show the OnePlus 3 as a possible target for scanning.

I ended up getting it to work by firing up my Linux Mint 18.1 virtual Machine in VMware Workstation and using a more up-to-date copy dupeGuru in there instead. Even then I had to go through the rigmarole of finding the longer paths for the USB connected OP3 and the shared Folder from VMware that allowed me to access my Windows-based Google Drive folder on the host machine.

OnePlus 3 Path

/var/run/user/1000/gvfs/mtp:host=%5Busb%3A001%2C003%5D/Internal shared storage/DCIM

VMware Shared Folder Path

/mnt/hgfs/U/Users/Luke/Google\ Drive/Google\ Photos/

It seems there are some good reasons for MTP existing – I just wish it wasn’t so horribly broken :/