What is android device driver

Download Android USB Drivers for popular OEMs

So you’ve got an Android device and want to dive deep into the world of modding? Be it rooting or installing a custom ROM like LineageOS, most of the aftermarket modding requires you to connect your Android smartphone to a computer using a USB cable so you can use tools like the Android Debug Bridge (ADB) and Fastboot to interact with the device. For an Android power user, you may also want to reinstall the factory firmware on your phone, which means you have to deal with the OEM-specific flashing utilities.

However, none of these tinkering jobs are possible if your PC can’t see the target device in the first place. As in the case of Windows, the operating system may require an additional piece of software known as the “driver” in order to properly recognize all the different connection modes exposed by the Android device. Below you can find a list of official OEM-provided Android USB driver packages and a generic driver installation guide. If you don’t see the maker of your device listed or you see a misplaced link, send a message to Skanda HazarikaВ (SkandaHВ on the forums) with the device details.

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Purpose of Android USB drivers

The USB interface of an Android device is a pretty complex object. Depending on the configuration, it may expose the standard Android USB debugging interface, the fastboot interface, and various other SoC-specific diagnostic interfaces to the computer. Simultaneously maintaining more than one interface is supported as well, e.g. you can interact with your device with ADB while configuring the internal modem parameters.

Keep in mind the aforementioned scenarios are a bit different from connecting the device through the plain old Media Transfer Protocol (MTP) or Picture Transfer Protocol (PTP) mode. MTP enables the end-user to browse the internal memory on the device from a PC as if it’s an external storage drive. Microsoft ships a generic MTP/PTP driver with every edition of Windows since Windows XP, so you don’t need an external driver for that.

Download Android USB drivers for popular OEMs

Most Android OEMs offer official driver packages for their devices. Besides the ADB and Fastboot interfaces, these drivers also support proprietary flashing protocols designed by the corresponding device maker. For example, if you want to flash a Samsung Galaxy device, you must install the Samsung USB driver package beforehand.

Note that Microsoft has been shipping a generic ADB driver with Windows for a while, so installing the OEM driver just for the sake of USB debugging might not sound worthwhile anymore. Windows can also check and install the missing drivers on the fly through Windows Update. However, Microsoft-recommended drivers are not always the best choice for complex USB interfaces, so do check out the official driver pack whenever possible.

The inbox Android USB debugging driver of Windows in action

Get the appropriate driver for your device from the index below:

OEM	Android USB Driver
Acer	Download Link
Alcatel	Download Link
ASUS	Download Link
Blackberry	Download Link
Dell	Download Link
Fujitsu	Download Link
Google	Download Link
HTC	Download Link
Huawei	Download Link
Intel	Download Link
Kyocera	Download Link
Lenovo	Download Link Download Link
LG	Download Link
Motorola	Download Link
MediaTek	Download Link
NVIDIA	Download Link
Samsung	Download Link
Sharp	Download Link
Sony	Download Link
Toshiba	Download Link
Vivo/iQOO	Download Link
Xiaomi	Download Link
ZTE	Download Link

How to install Android USB drivers

Now that you’ve downloaded the suitable driver package for your device, it’s time for you to install it. Some OEMs offer standard installer executables, which means you can easily install the whole driver suite by double-clicking on the setup file and following the wizard.

However, Google and a few other vendors prefer to stick with the bare INF and associated binary files which are packed inside a zip or rar archive. Such packages need to be installed using Device Manager, but you have to extract the contents of the archive beforehand.

• Right-click on the Start button and select the Device Manager entry. You can also call the Microsoft Management Console snap-in named devmgmt.msc directly from Run to open Device Manager.

Device Manager under Windows 10

• Connect the Android device to your PC. Depending on the selected configuration, you may see one or more unknown devices popping up.

• (Optional) Right-click on the unknown device entry, select Properties, move to the Details tab, and finally select Hardware Ids from the dropdown menu. Now open your favorite search engine, paste the hardware identifier in the search box, and go through the search results. This is a crude way to determine the probable interface your device is currently exposing.

• Right-click on the unknown device entry and select Update drivers. Now select Browse my computer for drivers/driver software and point the wizard to the folder where you extracted the driver package.

• If everything goes right, you should see a confirmation page like the following.

Manually install the driver for an unsupported device

On some occasions, the OEM drivers aren’t enough. Perhaps you’ve stumbled upon a no-name generic tablet, or the flash mode interface of your shiny new phone has yet to get an official driver from its maker. In that case, you can forcibly install an existing driver package for a similar USB interface through Device Manager.

• Open Device Manager and locate the unknown device entry.
• Right-click on it and select Update drivers. Select Browse my computer for driver software and then choose the option named Let me pick from a list of available drivers on my computer.

• Now select Show All Devices and click Next. On the next screen, click on the Have Disk… button.

• At this point, you need to browse to the location where the extracted driver for a similar device is located. Pick the INF file from the list of files and select Open.

• Now carefully choose the driver model. For example, if you’re trying to install the Fastboot mode driver for a device, select the Android Bootloader Interface from Google’s driver set. Windows might show a warning related to compatibility, but you can ignore it and continue the installation process anyway.

This method lets you force-install a signed driver without breaking its digital signature, so you don’t need to turn off driver signature enforcement on a 64-bit Windows instance.

You’ve now got the correct USB driver installed on your computer and your Android device is ready to receive instructions. Now it’s time to put it all together and run your first ADB command!

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Download and Install Android USB Drivers [Every Device]

From this guide, you could download and install the latest Android USB drivers for your device. While your Android device itself comes power-packed with tons of useful functionality, there are some tasks for which it needs a helping hand from your PC. Right from the file transfer process between your device and PC to the ability to share your device’s WiFi to your PC via USB Tethering, there are a lot of activists that call for the need for your PC.

Furthermore, if you take it a step ahead, then the need for a PC becomes an absolute necessity in custom development. These include the likes of booting the device to Fastboot or Recovery Mode, installing TWRP Recovery, unlocking the bootloader, and executing tons of other ADB and Fastboot Commands all require you to have a PC nearby. But if you simply connect your device to your PC via USB cable, the latter wouldn’t be able to identify the connected device.

This is where the need for USB Drivers arises. Once you install these drivers, your PC will be able to identify the type of device that has been connected via the USB cable. After that, it may bring up the required menu and would allow you to carry out the desired task. All in all, to establish a successful connection between your Android device and PC, these UDB Drivers are a must. So on that note, let’s start off with the instructions to download and install the latest Android USB drivers for your device.

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How to Download and Install Android USB Drivers

First and foremost, there’s an important point worth discussing. Nowadays, most OEMs place the driver files inside the device. So as soon as you connect your device to the PC via USB cable, the drivers will then be automatically installed on your PC. And you don’t need to carry out any manual installation steps. So it’s better you check beforehand via this method and if the driver gets installed, then you don’t need to proceed to the below instructions.

To verify the same, launch the File Explorer app on your PC and if you see your device there, then you don’t need to manually install any drivers. On the other hand, if your device isn’t listed there, then it means that the drivers weren’t installed, and you would have to manually install them. So follow along for the instructions to download and install the latest Android USB drivers for your device.

USB Drivers and android_winusb.inf file

You might have come across various sites where they have hosted different driver files for different devices. Truth be told, that isn’t required. This is because as opposed to the general notion, there is just one single USB Driver for all Android devices. Even the OEM specif tools such as Motorola Device Manager for Motorola, Mi Flash Tool for Xiaomi, etc also install the same drivers.

To be a little more specific, it is only the android_winusb.inf that acts as the Android USB Drivers. You could verify the same by installing any driver file from any OEM and upon extraction, all will lead to the android_winusb.inf file itself. With that said, this guide will focus on the official USB drivers provided by Google and we will list out their installation steps. So without further ado, let’s get started.

Download Android USB Drivers

You may now use the below link to download the drivers directly from Google’s Android Developer Forum page.

However, if you are looking for the drivers that are required in ADB and Fastboot environment, then you should install the Android SDK Platform Tools on your PC. On the other hand, if your device is bricked or is booted to EDL Mode, then you would require the Qualcomm HS-USB QDLoader 9008 Drivers.

How to Install Android USB Drivers

1. To begin with, extract the contents of the downloaded USB drivers (usb_driver_r13-windows.zip) to any convenient location on your PC. This shall give you the usb_driver folder.
2. Now connect your device to the PC via USB. It is recommended that you connect it to USB 2.0 Port and not to USB 3.0 Port.
3. Then use the Windows+X shortcut keys to bring up the menu and select Device Manager from there.
   
4. Now expand the Other Devices section and you should see your device listed as Android or by the OEM or model number, but with a yellow exclamation mark. This signifies the absence of USB Drivers. [If you can’t find your device listed under Other Devices, then do check the Ports or the Universal Serial Bus Controllers section as well].
   
5. So right-click on your device name and select Update Drivers.
   
6. Then select Browse my computer for driver software in the menu that appears.
7. Browse to the extracted usb_driver folder and select it.
   
8. Finally, click Install and wait for the process to finish. Once done, you shall be notified of the same.

That’s it. These were the steps to download and install the latest Android USB drivers for your device. If you have any queries concerning the aforementioned steps, do let us know in the comments. We will get back to you with a solution at the earliest. Furthermore, if the above-mentioned method didn’t work out in your favor, then there’s another method to install these Android USB drivers. Follow along.

Install Android USB Drivers via android_winusb.inf

1. To begin with, download the USB drivers from the above Downloads section.
2. Extract it to any convenient location on your PC and you should get the usb_driver folder. Within that, there will be the android_winusb.inf file, which we will be using in this section.
   
3. So right-click on the Windows icon and select Device Manager from the menu.
4. Within that, go to Other Devices and your device will be listed there with a yellow exclamation mark.
5. Right-click on it and select Update Drivers.
   
6. Then click on Browse my computer for driver software.
   
7. After this, select Let me pick from the list of device drivers on my computer.
   
8. Then select Show all devices and hit Next.
   
9. Now click on the Have Disk button, then click on Browse.
10. Navigate to the usb_driver folder, select the android_winusb.inf file and click Open > OK.
    
11. Select Android ADB Interface and click Next.
    
12. You will now get an update driver warning, click YES, and finally click Install.
    
13. The installation process will now begin and once completed, you will be notified of the same.

So with this, we conclude this section on how to install Android USB Drivers using the android_winusb.inf. Have any queries? Let us know in the comments below.

About Chief Editor

Sadique Hassan

A technical geek by birth, he always has a keen interest in the Android platform right since the birth of the HTC Dream. The open-source environment always seems to intrigue him with the plethora of options available at his fingertips. “MBA by profession, blogger by choice!”

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