Android Nexus 5 USB Driver

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Recently I had to install the driver for Nexus 5,  but I completely forgot how to do that so I decided to write a post about this.  So what problems did I have? Well, I did some research on the internet (again) and found the steps to install, but for some reason my Nexus 5 still was not recognized by the Android Studio, which was really frustrating.  And again I did a research and I found out that is really important to have at least one option selected on your USB Storage. And in order to not forget these steps any more I wrote this post which might help others like me :D.

So,  if you had problems installing the driver for your Nexus device this post might help you.  Below are the steps:

1. First step is to make sure your USB Storage is checked for one of the 2 opions (Media device (MTP) or Camera(PTP)).  I missed this step and I spent about 2 hours until I figured out what the problem was (at first none of them was selected, and afterwards I selected the PTP option but it is working for MTP too), so this is an important step!

2. From SDK Manager make sure you have the Extras directory up to date. If it is not installed or it is not up to date you have to install what the SDK Manager suggests. I always install everything I can from the SDK Manager in order to avoid issues like this, so even if it takes a while until everything is installed I suggest you to take that time because it might save you some time later 🙂

2. Now,  that everything is installed and/or updated, you should plug your device into USB and let windows to do its job. Windows will try to install the driver and recognize the device, but the driver must be installed manually.

3. Now that your Windows system tried everything he could in order to recognize your device, it’s your time to do something 🙂 You have to install the driver manually by following the next steps:

  • Go to Desktop and right click Computer -> select Properties -> select Device Manager from the left of the screen
  • Right-click on the Nexus 5 from Other devices and select Update Driver Software

Nexus 5 driver

  • Now select “Locate and install driver software manually”

Nexus 5 Browse

  • Now browse my computer for driver software. The path should be
<sdk>\extras\google\usb_driver\

In my case the path is:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-studio\sdk\extras\google\usb_driver

Now, after all this steps are completed, you should be able to install the driver, and Android Studio, Eclipse or whatever IDE you use should recognize your Nexus 5 🙂

I tried to explain as simple as possible these steps I followed myself, so I hope is helpful for you too (for me will certainly be useful because I am pretty sure that I might forget all these steps next time I will need to install the USB driver for Nexus 5 🙂 ). If you have any questions please feel free to write us.

References: Android Developer USB Driver