How to transfer pictures, music and videos from and to your Nokia phone using Bluetooth in Ubuntu

This should work with all phones with OBEX (pretty much any phone) and all versions of Ubuntu. I have tried different applications for the task of transferring files from and to my phone. The good thing about this solution, is that the phone will be mounted as a device, meaning it can be incorporated with Nautilus / Rhythmbox / Amarok / F-spot / Picasa / any application you’re using for your music and pictures.

080226phone.pngInstall needed applications
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es, this is a copy and paste from my How to use your Nokia to connect to the Internet in Ubuntu. If you’ve already followed the first step in that how to, just install obexfs.

  1. Open up a Terminal and copy&paste these 3 commands:
    wget -q http://download.tuxfamily.org/blueman/blueman.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -

    sudo wget http://download.tuxfamily.org/blueman/hardy.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/blueman.list

    sudo apt-get update

  2. Go to System – Administration – Synaptic …

  3. Find “blueman” and “obexfs”, mark them for installation and click Apply

  4. When done, all open applications can be closed .

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080220blueman.pngUse Blueman

  1. Start Blueman from Applications – Accessories

  2. Click Inquiry, select your phone and click Bond

  3. Type the same pin on both your computer and your phone and the bonding should be successful

  4. With the phone selected, click Other and select “Set trusted”

  5. With your phone selected, go to Properties – Get Service List

  6. Take note of the OBEX File Transfer channel (ex: 11)

  7. Click “Device Information” and copy the Device Address (ex: 00:1D:FD:6C:9B:66)

  8. When done, Blueman can be closed

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System changes

  1. Click Alt + F2 and the Run Application dialog pops up. Write:

    gksudo adduser YOURUSERNAME fuse && gksudo chgrp fuse /dev/fuse

  2. Log out and in again (System – Quit – Log out)

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Create a folder

  1. Go to Places – Home Folder

  2. Select File – Create Folder and name it Phone

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080226mount.pngMake shortcuts for mounting and dismounting the Phone

  1. Right click Applications and select “Edit Menus”

  2. Click “New Menu”
    Name: Phone
    Click the image and select any icon

  3. Select Phone in the sidebar and click “New Item”

  4. Name: Mount Phone
    Command: “obexfs -b THEDEVICEADDRESS -B THECHANNEL /home/YOURUSERNAME/Phone”
    (ex: “obexfs -b 00:1D:FD:6C:9B:66 -B 11 /home/ramvi/Phone”)
    Click the image and select any icon

  5. Click OK and “New Item” again

  6. Name: Dismount Phone
    Command: gksudo umount /home/YOURUSERNAME/Phone
    (ex: gksudo umount /home/ramvi/Phone)
    Click the image and select any icon

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  • Select Mount Phone under Applications – Phone and Nautilus should pop up with your phone. It’s now accessible from any application

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  • Here’s some icon ideas:

    1. http://www.iconfinder.net/?q=phone
    2. /usr/share/icons/ on your machine

    aUPDATE
    There seems to be a bug in Ubuntu Hardy’s obexfs. I’m only able to read files. I’m not able to write files to the phone. This should be working in Ubuntu Gutsy though..? The bug in hardy will probably be fixed soon as well.