What USB driver should we use for the Nexus 5?

Question

As of the time of this writing, Google does not provide a USB driver (for Windows) for the Nexus 5. The usual link (http://developer.android.com/sdk/win-usb.html) shows Wind

Answer 1

Are you sure it's a driver problem? A device that isn't detected probably has a hardware or firmware problem. If it isn't detected, you won't hear the USB device detected chime. It might not be serious, e.g. some "USB" cables are really only charging cables. Try a USB cable that you know works for data, e.g. the one that came with the phone or one you use for connecting an external hard drive.

Answer 2

I had the same problem too. In the Device Manager all drivers were OK, but Eclipse couldn't find the device. Even after updating the Google USB drivers with the SDK Manager.

The problem was that I didn't have the developer options enabled. For that I came here, How to Enable Developer Options on the Nexus 5 & KitKat.

Then I had to manualy update the Google USB drivers, see Download and Install Google Nexus 5 USB Drivers (ADB / Fastboot).

After that, my installation of Eclipse recognized my device.

Answer 3

I just wanted to bring a small contribution, because I have been able to debug on my Nexus 5 device on Windows 8, without doing all of this.

When I plugged it, there wasn't any yellow exclamation mark within Device Manager. So for me, the drivers were OK. But the device was not listed within my Eclipse DDMS. After a little bit of searching, it was just an option to change in the device settings. By default, the Nexus 5 USB computer connection is in MTP mode (Media Device).

What you have to do is:

• Unplug the device from the computer
• Go to Settings -> Storage.
• In the ActionBar, click the option menu and choose "USB computer connection".
• Check "Camera (PTP)" connection.
• Plug the device and you should have a popup on the device allowing you to accept the computer's incoming connection, or something like that.
• Finally, you should see it now in the DDMS and voilà.

I hope this will help!

Answer 4

I'm running Windows 7 Ultimate N version and my Nexus 5 showed up with a yellow exclamation mark in Device Manager and none of the solutions here worked.

I verified that the phone reported itself as:

USB\VID_18D1&PID_4EE1

Which doesn't work with the current (v11) of the Google USB driver.

But after enabling Developer Options and USB debugging on the phone it identified itself as:

USB\VID_18D1&PID_4EE2&MI_01
USB\VID_18D1&PID_4EE2&REV_0232&MI_01

Which installs just fine.

So just enable Developer Options on your phone and retry the device install.

Answer 5

I am on Windows 8.1, and I tried everything from the other answers and nothing worked. Finally, I decided to try "Pick from a list of drivers" and found "LGE Mobile Sooner Single ADB Interface" under "ADB Interface". ADB.exe was finally able to find the Nexus 5 and sideload 4.4.1.

I hope this helps.

Answer 6

I was lost at first as well but found a fairly easy solution. Please note that I did all this on Windows 7 after enabling Developer Options and USB debugging on my Nexus 5 (on 4.4.2), then connecting it to my PC via USB.

If you go to the download link - http://developer.android.com/sdk/win-usb.html - you'll notice at the bottom in step 4, the installation location of the driver. If you then navigate to Devices and Printers from Control Panel and find your device, right-click and go to properties, then click the Hardware tab at the top, click the device displayed that is having issues, click properties, then Change settings. Next, select Update driver, choose the location manually, and choose the directory Google noted as the installation directory, which they noted as \extras\google\usb_driver\

This fixed the problem for me and my Nexus 5 now appears in DDMS.