Mounting Kindle Fire on a Mac

Question

I'm working with someone who has a 1st generation Kindle Fire to test Amazon's in-app purchasing. According to Amazon's docs, we need to create a response file named /mnt/sdcard/amazon.sdktester.json on the device. My colleague prepared the .json file and tried to transfer it to the device via a USB connection. However, when he connects his device to his Mac, the root folder of the mounted device does not have a /mnt folder. He also tried mounting it on a virtual Windows machine on his Mac, with the same result.

I'm assuming that for some reason the Kindle Fire is mounted in a way that does not provide access to the root folder of the device. Can anyone recommend a way around this, or some other way to put a file into /mnt/sdcard/ on my colleague's Kindle Fire?

If there's a way to directly type in the file on his Kindle Fire, that would be acceptable; it's just a few lines of text. All suggestions are welcome.

Have you tried a file explorer such as `Expert Explorer`? – ssantos Oct 09 '13 at 17:39 — ssantos, Oct 09 '13 at 17:39

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 09 '13 at 18:06

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When you say "transfer via USB connection", do you mean that you mount the device like an external drive, or are you accessing it via ADB? You will need to access the device via adb to get to the root folders.

answered Oct 09 '13 at 18:06

Nick Davis

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This was mounting the device like an external drive. My colleague does not have a development environment installed. Is there any way to put the file where we need it under these conditions? – Ted Hopp Oct 09 '13 at 18:17

score 0 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 11:43

So we figured it out. The problem, as Nick Davis pointed out, is that the root folder is only visible when connecting through adb. My colleague does not have a development environment and does not want to install it.

Instead, he installed the Text Edit app on his device, mailed the text to himself, copied it into a new document and saved the file directly to /sdcard/android.sdktester.json (which is an alias for /mnt/sdcard/android.sdktester.json).

This was practical only because there wasn't a lot of text involved. For large files, I suppose he could have copied them to a different folder through the USB connection and used a file manager like @ssantos suggested in a comment to move it to the right folder.

Mounting Kindle Fire on a Mac

2 Answers2