How to search subfolders?

[Sunny Rio]

On a PC running Windows, it's easy to search for a file and it looks in subfolders. My Android (4.4) doesn't do this. How do I make it do so?

 

[Hadron]

Install a decent file browser rather than whatever junk (if any) the manufacturer included with your phone.

I just tested this with 3 file browsers, Solid Explorer, X-Plore and Root Explorer (which has a cousin without root capabilities just called Explorer). Solid Explorer was much the fastest, Root Explorer significantly the slowest (mainly, I suspect, because it didn't show any results until it had searched the entire storage), but all 3 found the random file I'd chosen to search for (a couple of levels down in my folder structure) with no problem.

I'd imagine that pretty much any other file explorer app could do it too, but those are the ones I had installed (actually I've probably got Google's Files app as well, as that will have come with the phone, but I tend to forget that one exists because its usability is so poor IMO).

 

[MrJavi]

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ru.zdevs.zarchiver

 

[Sunny Rio]

Wow, I thought this would be a basic part of the OS, not required to be installed by the manufacturer or me.

 

[ocnbrze]

Wow, I thought this would be a basic part of the OS, not required to be installed by the manufacturer or me.

well i think also it could be your phone as it is on 4.4(kitkat) which is a fairly old os by now. my note 10+ can look into subfolders with just using the "my files" app that comes with the phone.

 

[Hadron]

Wow, I thought this would be a basic part of the OS, not required to be installed by the manufacturer or me.

How do you do it in Windows? I'll bet you use Windows Explorer, which is an app installed by Microsoft. It's not so different as you think.

(Of course MS have before now tried to pretend that their apps are an intrinsic and irremovable part of the system, e.g. when they were fighting complaints of anti-competitive behaviour wrt Windows Explorer. They were lying, as was straightforwardly proven).

 

[Hadron]

my note 10+ can look into subfolders with just using the "my files" app that comes with the phone.

But that is just Samsung's file explorer app. No different from installing one from the Play Store except that Samsung bundled it (just as different Linux distros bundle the files manager from their desktop environment, or MS include Windows Explorer).

 

[Dannydet]

Windows / Android....
File explorer applications are installed by either manufacturer or 3rd party.
We've given you the information so the next step is yours.

 

[Sunny Rio]

well i think also it could be your phone as it is on 4.4(kitkat) which is a fairly old os by now. my note 10+ can look into subfolders with just using the "my files" app that comes with the phone.

Actually it's only a 1 year old phone, sold as Android 6.0! And the system app says 6.0! It lies! How did the manufacturer do that? If I try to install an app that needs 6.0, it says "no, you only have 4.4". CPU-Z (a free utility) also says it's 4.4. Restoring to factory settings, it still claims 6.0. Rooting, it still claims 6.0. How is this possible?

 

[Sunny Rio]

How do you do it in Windows? I'll bet you use Windows Explorer, which is an app installed by Microsoft. It's not so different as you think.

(Of course MS have before now tried to pretend that their apps are an intrinsic and irremovable part of the system, e.g. when they were fighting complaints of anti-competitive behaviour wrt Windows Explorer. They were lying, as was straightforwardly proven).

It's very different. Windows Explorer comes with Windows, it's installed along with it. I don't expect something that basic to require me to add it.

 

[ocnbrze]

Actually it's only a 1 year old phone, sold as Android 6.0! And the system app says 6.0! It lies! How did the manufacturer do that? If I try to install an app that needs 6.0, it says "no, you only have 4.4". CPU-Z (a free utility) also says it's 4.4. Restoring to factory settings, it still claims 6.0. Rooting, it still claims 6.0. How is this possible?

what phone do you have?

 

[Sunny Rio]

Windows / Android....
File explorer applications are installed by either manufacturer or 3rd party.
We've given you the information so the next step is yours.

Something that basic should come with the OS.

 

[Sunny Rio]

what phone do you have?

Alps P20, although that could also be a lie. It came from a Chinese seller on Ebay....

Although I now have it for free when I kicked up a fuss about it being nothing like what they advertised.

 

[ocnbrze]

its probably a rooted phone that has been modified to look like android 6 when in reality it is on kitkat(4.4)......i just do not trust chinese phones especially the no name ones.

 

[Sunny Rio]

its probably a rooted phone that has been modified to look like android 6 when in reality it is on kitkat(4.4)......i just do not trust chinese phones especially the no name ones.

Shouldn't my root have undone theirs? I installed Kingoroot and it seemed to go on ok.

I don't trust anything Chinese, but they know they're ripping us off. If you want free stuff, buy something you know is not what it says, but you know it will be useful to you. Then complain it's not what you paid for, and you'll get all or most of your money back. If not, report them to Ebay, and you get it free and they lose their account. They sell Li Ion batteries AA size that claim 2500mAh capacity. Even Panasonic can only get up to 1000. I measured them as 300. Got them free, they only last a third as long as an expensive one, but they work

 

[Sunny Rio]

its probably a rooted phone that has been modified to look like android 6 when in reality it is on kitkat(4.4)......i just do not trust chinese phones especially the no name ones.

Actually the phone I got after it is brilliant. That was a Chinese seller too, it's a VKWorld, dunno if you'd call that "no name". I got it half price (£20 instead of £40) because it loses all the contacts when you turn it off or reboot it. But that was worked around easily by using a Google account, so it's stored at their end and comes straight back. Everything else is as advertised. 720p very sharp screen, unscratchable gorilla glass, quad core processor, 32GB storage, 3GB RAM, suits me fine.

 

[ocnbrze]

yep still do not trust them.....i will never touch anything that is cheap and made in china.....especially electronics. there are only a few brands that i would consider even purchasing. anything no name or off brand, i'm gonna ignore no matter how good the deal is.

plus i'm also weary of buying phones off of ebay. you could have gotten a phone that has a black listed imei and your phone will not work on any cellular services.

i have no clue on your device so i'm just saying that whoever made your phone could have modified it to seem like a marshmallow phone when in fact it really is a kitkat phone. this would explain why some of the marshmellow apps will not work on your phone.

and since this is a modified phone, not surprised that the file management app does not work correctly. can't really blame android on this one. if this was a name brand phone that could be a different story......so back to part of your op, you can get any good file management app and be able to look at sub folders quite easily.

 

[Hadron]

It's very different. Windows Explorer comes with Windows, it's installed along with it. I don't expect something that basic to require me to add it.

That's a trivial difference. Anyway most android phones have something similar, yours is unusual in not having it (though that's not the most unusual thing about it from what you say).

 

[Hadron]

Actually it's only a 1 year old phone, sold as Android 6.0! And the system app says 6.0! It lies! How did the manufacturer do that? If I try to install an app that needs 6.0, it says "no, you only have 4.4". CPU-Z (a free utility) also says it's 4.4. Restoring to factory settings, it still claims 6.0. Rooting, it still claims 6.0. How is this possible?

The obvious answer is that it's a fake phone.

In more detail, "fakes" are cheaply-made phones, almost always Chinese, that pretend to be something they aren't. Usually they are made to look like a model from an established brand, sometimes sold openly as copies, sometimes passed off as the real thing. The key thing is that they lie about their specs: what Android version they run, how much RAM they have, how much storage, screen resolution, you name it. The system software is programmed to tell you it has the specs they want you to think it has (or which the real one would have), but the actual hardware and software are different. So what you have here is an Android 4.4 phone whose system Settings are coded to tell you it is running Android 6, which is what happens with fakes. Count yourself lucky if that's the biggest problem you meet: I've seen people have nasty shocks when they start getting "internal storage full" messages unexpectedly because the phone actually only has 32GB of internal storage but told them it had 128GB...

Factory reset won't change anything because that does nothing to the system software, it just erases user data. Rooting won't do anything because that just lets you give admin access to apps you install yourself, it doesn't in itself change anything else. And as Android software always has to be built for the particular hardware configuration, you probably have no choice but to use the phone as it is.

 

[Dannydet]

Currently phones are sold with android 9 or 10.
Anything less is just junk.... Or fake. Or Chinese fake junk, lol.

 

[Sunny Rio]

yep still do not trust them.....i will never touch anything that is cheap and made in china.....especially electronics. there are only a few brands that i would consider even purchasing. anything no name or off brand, i'm gonna ignore no matter how good the deal is.

It depends what I need the item for. If I want a drill bit for one job, I'll get the 10 times cheaper ones and won't care if a few snap. If I want batteries for a low power device, I'll put up with lower capacity ones if I pay virtually nothing (or sometimes nothing at all).

plus i'm also weary of buying phones off of ebay. you could have gotten a phone that has a black listed imei and your phone will not work on any cellular services.

Oh that can be worked around very easily.

i have no clue on your device so i'm just saying that whoever made your phone could have modified it to seem like a marshmallow phone when in fact it really is a kitkat phone. this would explain why some of the marshmellow apps will not work on your phone.

I do wish they'd do away with the names, who can remember the names of 10 different sweets? If you say "7" and "9", everyone knows 9 is newer than 7!

It's odd that certain things know what version it is: CPU-Z utility, and even Google Play tells me certain things will not work on that phone, so it's reporting the correct version to Google Play, maybe they do that so you don't end up with apps trying to install that won't work, which would make the customer very angry.

and since this is a modified phone, not surprised that the file management app does not work correctly. can't really blame android on this one. if this was a name brand phone that could be a different story......so back to part of your op, you can get any good file management app and be able to look at sub folders quite easily.

What I find weird is that so much is down to the manufacturer. If I buy a Windows 10 PC, it will behave pretty much like any other Windows 10 PC, whether it's a Dell or anything else. All the interface and basic utilities come with the OS, and are not aftermarket stuff that varies per manufacturer. It makes it easier to use someone else's computer.

The obvious answer is that it's a fake phone.

In more detail, "fakes" are cheaply-made phones, almost always Chinese, that pretend to be something they aren't. Usually they are made to look like a model from an established brand, sometimes sold openly as copies, sometimes passed off as the real thing. The key thing is that they lie about their specs: what Android version they run, how much RAM they have, how much storage, screen resolution, you name it. The system software is programmed to tell you it has the specs they want you to think it has (or which the real one would have), but the actual hardware and software are different. So what you have here is an Android 4.4 phone whose system Settings are coded to tell you it is running Android 6, which is what happens with fakes. Count yourself lucky if that's the biggest problem you meet: I've seen people have nasty shocks when they start getting "internal storage full" messages unexpectedly because the phone actually only has 32GB of internal storage but told them it had 128GB...

Yeah I bought a couple of USB memory sticks from China on Ebay that claimed to be 2TB. Turned out they were about a tenth of that. Since I wanted to trust them and always test stuff I get on Ebay, I tried to fill them with 2TB of TV programs then play them back at random to see if anything got corrupted. Windows actually refused to write more than a tenth of the capacity to the first one, saying the device was not responding. The other one was programmed a little differently, and let me store 2TB, but it looped round on itself several times, and overwrote the earlier files!

Why Ebay allows any Chinese sellers at all is beyond me. I've actually had about 10 of them lose their accounts, Ebay don't seem to realise it's almost every Chinese seller, and just closing down a few won't help! China is becoming like Nigeria - nobody believes the "I'm a Nigerian King and I want to give you a million dollars" scam.

Factory reset won't change anything because that does nothing to the system software, it just erases user data. Rooting won't do anything because that just lets you give admin access to apps you install yourself, it doesn't in itself change anything else. And as Android software always has to be built for the particular hardware configuration, you probably have no choice but to use the phone as it is.

Isn't there a format command? On a PC I can format everything and I'm left with just the hardware and no peculiar settings at all. If it's in a ROM, can't I change the firmware to what it should be?

Currently phones are sold with android 9 or 10.
Anything less is just junk.... Or fake. Or Chinese fake junk, lol.

Rubbish. 9/10 phones cost a fortune. My 7 phone is good (a VKWorld Mix Plus) and does everything I need it to. It browses the web and plays YouTube at 720p perfectly, and it has a decent 4 core processor and plenty of storage space and RAM. Damn good for 25 dollars.

 

[ocnbrze]

I do wish they'd do away with the names, who can remember the names of 10 different sweets? If you say "7" and "9", everyone knows 9 is newer than 7!

It's odd that certain things know what version it is: CPU-Z utility, and even Google Play tells me certain things will not work on that phone, so it's reporting the correct version to Google Play, maybe they do that so you don't end up with apps trying to install that won't work, which would make the customer very angry.

What I find weird is that so much is down to the manufacturer. If I buy a Windows 10 PC, it will behave pretty much like any other Windows 10 PC, whether it's a Dell or anything else. All the interface and basic utilities come with the OS, and are not aftermarket stuff that varies per manufacturer. It makes it easier to use someone else's computer.

Rubbish. 9/10 phones cost a fortune. My 7 phone is good (a VKWorld Mix Plus) and does everything I need it to. It browses the web and plays YouTube at 720p perfectly, and it has a decent 4 core processor and plenty of storage space and RAM. Damn good for 25 dollars.

that has always been the complaint about android from the get go. it is very fractured. we are getting android 11 on most new devices, but there are phones out there that are on android 5-10. and also google has allowed the manufactures to add in their own skins to make their device more unique like One UI for Samsung.

and for me i always will want the latest and greatest.....so yeah these flagship phones are expensive. but i usually find some way to afford them. right now i'm saving up for the z fold 3 coming out mid year next year.

 

[lunatic59]

Most people won't use 25% of the horsepower of a flagship, if that. But, there is always some killer feature, or spec that makes them attractive enough for suckers ... er ... enthusiasts to buy. (He says while looking at the Pixel 4XL that listed for close to a grand )

The problem with cheap phones is that most likely they are orphaned or unsupported almost immediately. Not a problem if they work, but if there are any issues at all then it becomes a huge, sometimes unsolvable problem.

Isn't there a format command? On a PC I can format everything and I'm left with just the hardware and no peculiar settings at all. If it's in a ROM, can't I change the firmware to what it should be?

Sorry, no. Because Android is a mobile OS, space is of the utmost concern, so only those drivers and services configured for the phone's specific hardware are in the build. There is no universal Android installer like there is for a Desktop OS. While it might be possible for a developer to create a custom ROM for your device, it's not practical. That would be a LOT of work for only a few devices -- assuming they could identify all the hardware components correctly in the first place.

 

[Sunny Rio]

that has always been the complaint about android from the get go. it is very fractured. we are getting android 11 on most new devices, but there are phones out there that are on android 5-10. and also google has allowed the manufactures to add in their own skins to make their device more unique like One UI for Samsung.

and for me i always will want the latest and greatest.....so yeah these flagship phones are expensive. but i usually find some way to afford them. right now i'm saving up for the z fold 3 coming out mid year next year.

What on earth do you use your phone for? My 50 dollar phone has a 720p 6" screen without those stupid rounded corners of an Iphone,so I can use all the screen, happily plays videos without stutter, plays games smoothly, browses the internet without a problem, makes phonecalls, has a loud enough speaker so I can sit it on the desk (why do people get hands free kits when all phones have speakers?) texts perfectly with a very good autocorrect, will make 10 hours of phonecalls on a single charge, and takes reasonable photographs and videos, what else do you need?

 

[Sunny Rio]

Most people won't use 25% of the horsepower of a flagship, if that. But, there is always some killer feature, or spec that makes them attractive enough for suckers ... er ... enthusiasts to buy. (He says while looking at the Pixel 4XL that listed for close to a grand )

The problem with cheap phones is that most likely they are orphaned or unsupported almost immediately. Not a problem if they work, but if there are any issues at all then it becomes a huge, sometimes unsolvable problem.

If it doesn't work when I buy it, I send it back. If it works when I buy it, there's no reason it will stop working later. And since I'm paying 10 times less than a lot of people, I can replace it 10 times and still not be worse off. And if it's lost or stolen or broken, no big deal.

Sorry, no. Because Android is a mobile OS, space is of the utmost concern, so only those drivers and services configured for the phone's specific hardware are in the build. There is no universal Android installer like there is for a Desktop OS. While it might be possible for a developer to create a custom ROM for your device, it's not practical. That would be a LOT of work for only a few devices -- assuming they could identify all the hardware components correctly in the first place.

Is the same true of Windows phones? I always assumed they made those install with a generic OS, like on a PC. Or were they all made by Microsoft themselves so were identical?