Using Bluetooth phones with Mac OS X

Like so many Mac operations, getting pictures from a Bluetooth phone to your Mac is actually very simple once you have done it once. If you've never done it, you may not have a clue where to start, and your phone's manual probably sends you off to get some piece of Windows software that won't help you at all. That's OK: everything you need is already built into your Mac. Here I'll lead you through the whole process, complete with screenshots. With your phone, the procedure may be slightly different on the phone side, but I'll show two examples.

Note: the usual instructions you find have you SENDING files from the phone to your computer. Here, we're doing it the opposite way: GETTING files FROM the phone with our computer.

The first thing to do is to turn on Bluetooth on your phone. On my Motorola phone, that's Settings -> Connection -> Bluetooth -> Setup. On my wife's Nokia, it's Settings -> Connectivity -> Bluetooth.

Back on the Mac, open System Preferences -> Hardware -> Bluetooth. Click on Devices and then Set Up New Device. Select Mobile Phone as the Device type. After clicking Continue, your phone should show up in the next screen. If it doesn't, power cycle your phone and then try again. Click continue there, and your Mac will make an initial connection to your phone to gather information.

If you still have trouble, check that some other program isn't already using your phone. For example, I have to turn off my BluePhone Elite software before I can do this.

The next step is "pairing". Your Mac is going to show a screen like this:

Pay attention to your phone now: it will be asking you whether it is OK to pair with your computer. When you affirm that it is, it will ask you to enter the passkey that your Mac screen is displaying. Type that in with the phone's keyboard. If you do that correctly, the two devices will be "paired". Your phone may ask you once more if it's OK to accept the connection; you say that it is.

The next screen on your Mac would allow you to use the phone to access the Internet (assuming you have that feature with your phone service) and with Address Book. As we're just after pictures here, we'll skip those features.

Back at System Preferences -> Hardware -> Bluetooth -> Settings, click "Show Bluetooth status in menu bar". A Bluetooth icon will appear and disappear in your top menu bar as you click that on and off. It's the same icon shown for Bluetooth in System Preferences -> Hardware but won't be blue.

Click on that Bluetooth icon in your menu bar and choose Browse Device. Your phone should be in the list; select it and click Browse. Your phone will probably again ask you if it's OK to connect with the Mac (it may have a setting where you can tell it that it's always all right to do this). After getting permission if necessary, your Mac will display folders on the phone. Navigate to the appropriate place (different on every phone), select your pictures, and click Get. A Save dialog will pop up, and that's it: the pictures will transfer to your Mac. This picture shows my Motorola phone; your screen may look slightly different and the path to your pictures folder is probably different too.

Comments /MacOSX/bluetooth.html


Mon Nov 13 14:14:17 2006: Subject:   bruceg2004
This is good, except for Verizon users - we cannot browse our pictures on a Treo-650. I am not sure about other models, but Verizon has crippled this feature, in an attempt to get your to buy ringtones from Verizon, instead of using a bluetooth file transfer to the device. Very, very annoying. I think there was a lawsuite about this, and Verizon is supposed to enable this in a future software update on the phone.



- Bruce


Mon Nov 13 16:10:17 2006: Subject: Maybe this works?   TonyLawrence
Possible answer: http://www.palminfocenter.com/view_story.asp?ID=8015


That says you *CAN* send an Album..

But that's sending from the phone, not what I outlined here.. they've disabled browsing your phone FROM the computer also?

Sun Dec 10 09:27:33 2006: Subject:   anonymous
You can't do anything that requires OBEX, including OOP (Obex Object Push). These are required features for browsing and uploading/downloading from your Verizon phone. There are seem patches for certain phone models that will activate the standard USB/Bluetooth OBEX features, but the OOP code was completely removed from all new Verizon firmware, and that is required in most cases for the Mac OS X bluetooth device browsing feature.



You need to use Bitpim (www.bitpim.org) for any Verizon phones on Mac OS X. Unless of course you are using a Motorola phone from Verizon. In that case, Bitpim has a problem accessing it for the most part. For Motorola Verizon phones on Mac OS X, the only way to really access it is to either run Windows through Parallels or Bootcamp. I have a minimal Windows XP install through Parallels that I run in a tiny screen with "Motorola Phone Tools v4" (no earlier versions work with the new firmware) and access my phone via Bluetooth with a nice interface for navigating pictures, ringtones, movies, etc. You need the standard Motorola Drivers (www.modmymoto.com), and you can find "Motorola Phone Tools v4" through eMule, Bittorrent and other places, or you can simply purchase it for $29/$49 depending on the version.

Again, these are the ONLY ways to access locked down Verizon phones, unless your phone model that has an equivalent model from Alltel, Cingular or Sprint, in which case you can flash your phones Firmware with the firmware of any of those 3 carriers. This will give you completely UNBLOCKED features while retaining your Verizon cell service. Of course, if you have the Verizon RAZR V3m, forget about it... no V3m firmware has been leaked to the wild yet... have to wait on that. For other phones, try using google and search for the model of your phone along with the words "flash" and "firmware". For Motorola flashing, go to www.modmymoto.com

Thu Apr 26 12:12:40 2007: Subject: It doesn't work   anonymous
If I try to transfer a file from the phone to the computer a message appears in the Bluetooth File Exchange Application, it says "The last operation failed: bad request". Why this?



Thu Nov 22 07:07:22 2007: Subject:   anonymous
I just had my VERIZON RAZR firmware updated today and now OBEX works. Latest version is 24.1_01.19.05. This update allows you to remove the horrid VERIZON banner on your phone, put different pics on the inside and outside screen, and shows you both EV sig strength and 1X sig strength.



Wed Jan 9 02:24:14 2008: Subject:   anonymous
I do all of those steps, but when i get to the part about browsing devices my phone and computer wont connect. It says that Device does not have the necessary services. I have the Samsung Gleam, and a MacBook and i cannot get the computer to see my phone. I cant get it to browse on cingular phones, but not verizon. help ... please. Anyone know how to fix this ????



Wed Jan 9 08:49:39 2008: Subject:   TonyLawrence
That's Verizon.



They cripple your phone so that it won't work.

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Fri Feb 8 16:13:38 2008: Subject:   anonymous


i followed the steps you listed and it shows all my picture files on the screen but when i try to save them to my computer it doesnt get past the transferring window, it just says waiting for target to respond... can you help me out at all as to why its doing this?

Fri Feb 8 16:25:36 2008: Subject:   TonyLawrence


OS and version?

Fri Feb 8 16:49:00 2008: Subject:   anonymous


My computer is a macbook... OS X...?
my cell phone that im trying to get pictures off of is a LG 800

Fri Feb 8 16:51:57 2008: Subject:   TonyLawrence


Apple Menu "About this Mac" will tell you the version.

And you aren't with Verizon, right?

Fri Feb 8 17:04:27 2008: Subject:   anonymous


version 10.4.11

no, my cell phone provider is Bell Mobility

Fri Feb 8 17:24:35 2008: Subject:   TonyLawrence


OK, your version is OK (though Leopard is better)

It's possible that Belll Mobility has programmed your phone not to allow this.. as you can see in comments above, Verizon plays that game too.



Tue Feb 19 07:31:03 2008: Subject: T-Mobile Dash   anonymous


Using T-Mobile Dash and OS X 10.5. After pairing, a "browse" command returns: "The device does not have the necessary services." Not sure if I can send from the Mac, but I want to get photos and videos off the Dash. Thanks for any assist.

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Tue Feb 19 13:00:58 2008: Subject:   TonyLawrence


I'm pretty sure T-Mobile is one of the ones who want to get money from you from sending the pics..

Tue Mar 11 20:16:42 2008: Subject: Name Card?   Taylor


I have a question. So i did all of that, i got to the part where it even said 'your device has been paired', yet i go to send something and it goes to my phone, but then it says something about a failure with a name card. Thing is, i have a 2GB micro memory card..sooo i dont know whats up with that..

Sun Apr 27 19:34:42 2008: Subject: OSX is as retarded as windows   anonymous


I thought such stuff only happened in windows... but it seems osx can be pretty retarded too. How the fuck do i transfer the contents of the whole memory card to my hard drive, without manually going through each and every folder and subfolder and copying the files... the bluetooth client wont let you copy folders... how utterly retarded.... and i've been googling without success for software that lets you do that.

Thu Jun 5 23:36:34 2008: Subject:   anonymous


You are absolutely right!
The MAC team wrote this code has done a very smelly job!

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