Opening the Phone's and Network Folders on the Watch

Open Phone on the watch's home screen. It offers the same shape everywhere on the watch: Recents, Video, Audio, Images, Documents, All and Browse - the exact same names and colors your watch's own storage and your network folders use, so a category means the same thing wherever you meet it. All is a flat list of everything of that kind, newest first; Browse walks the phone's actual folders one level at a time, titled with whichever folder you're standing in - the section name only shows at the root. The same screen also lists your local favorites, so a file you starred earlier is never more than a scroll away.

Folders in Browse get a cover picture too, and the whole screen follows your chosen list or grid view. Thumbnails load reliably - a stalled first attempt quietly retries instead of leaving a blank square, and the top row stays clear of the search and sort icons so nothing overlaps them.

Tap a photo under Camera Photos or All Images on the phone and it opens right there on the watch - no detour through a path the phone never gave the watch in the first place.

If a category opens empty, the watch tells you why: a folder with nothing in it right now reads Nothing here yet, while a category no resource on your phone is even set up to hold says No phone resource is set up to hold this type and offers no pointless retry button.

Every screen that lists files - your phone's, a network resource's, or the watch's own - carries small search and refine icons above the list. They tuck themselves out of the way while you scroll and come back the moment you stop, so they never crowd the files underneath.

Tap the search icon to type or speak a name; tap the refine icon to open Refine list, one screen with Sort and Show only as plain, full-label lists instead of a cramped row of icons. If a list holds only one kind of file, it says so - "This list holds one kind of file, so there is nothing to filter by" - instead of offering a filter with nothing to filter by.

Your type filter and sort order are remembered for next time, even after restarting the watch; a typed search is not, since a hidden query would silently leave you staring at an empty screen. The phone's own folders offer five sort orders instead of seven, because the phone never sends the watch a date for them.

*Sideload version only.* On Resources, tap Add resource. Pick a Protocol - SMB, FTP or SFTP - and fill in Name, Server Address, Port, Username and Password, plus Share Name, Domain or Base path where the protocol needs them. Every field is its own full-width row showing its name and what's typed into it, one column whatever view mode you've chosen, so there's nothing to pinch or scroll sideways for.

Tap Test before Save to make sure the watch can actually reach it - the same check the saved-source menu uses later.

Press and hold a saved source and the watch offers Test next to Delete instead of heading straight for deletion - so a share that stopped answering can be checked without retyping it. Test runs in the free Google Play version too, even though the form that adds a source in the first place does not.

When a connection genuinely fails, the watch names the reason instead of guessing: refused, timed out, wrong user name or password, or the computer isn't found on this network. Behind the scenes it tries every address the phone knows for that resource in turn and settles on whichever one answers - the same trick that keeps a moved home server working.

A network resource that only holds file kinds the watch cannot show says exactly that - "This resource holds only file kinds the watch cannot show. Open it on the phone." - rather than blaming a media-type switch you never touched.

Resources stay in step with the phone on their own: delete one on either device and it disappears from the other at the next sync; clear its tick on the phone's Resources for the watch screen and the watch drops it too, with no re-adding needed if you tick it again. That screen only ever lists SMB, FTP and SFTP sources, since those are the only kinds the watch channel can carry.

Both the watch's own storage and a network resource offer Browse beside their flat category lists. On the watch itself, Browse covers the app's own files plus anything copied over from the phone that the system's own media index never sees, and rebuilds the folder structure of your shared storage on the fly. On a network resource, Browse opens the same way over SMB, FTP or SFTP: subfolders are their own rows, tapping one shows its contents, the back gesture takes you a level up, and tapping a file opens the player. Thumbnails over FTP and SFTP load properly here too, instead of sitting on "Unavailable".

Pick your watch in the phone's Send to.. menu and whatever you have open there - a photo, a GIF, a video or a track - opens on the watch. If the watch app was closed and its screen dark, you'd once have found nothing until you opened the app by hand; now the watch raises a notification - The phone sent something to open - and one tap plays it straight away. With the watch app already open, the player just starts, no notification needed.

Once a file is in front of you on the watch, its own menu opens with Send to.. - the very same list your phone offers: email, messengers, printing, the clipboard, the system share. It's built once on the phone, so switching a receiver off there removes it from the watch too, and a receiver the watch can handle by itself works with no phone nearby; one it can't is marked "via phone" and says so before it starts, never as a failure afterward.

A photo, track or video you've already opened from the phone, or one browsed over SMB, FTP or SFTP, can move in properly: open its menu and pick Copy to watch or Move to watch. The copy lands in the watch's own storage next to your other pictures, music and videos, so it shows up in the local lists afterward and survives closing the app. A name already taken gets a new one, and the watch tells you which.

A move only drops the original once the watch has confirmed the copy is whole and correctly sized. If the original can't be removed - the phone needs a confirmation dialog it can't show remotely, the file changed since it was copied, the share is read-only, or the phone stays silent - nothing is lost: the copy stays and the watch says Copied to the watch - the original stayed where it was. Not enough room on the watch refuses before anything is written, and documents never offer this, since the watch's own picture, music and video lists have nowhere to put them.

A file that came from the phone this way no longer offers Send to phone or Move to phone, since the phone still has the original; a file the watch recorded or shot itself keeps both.

It runs the other way too: add your paired watch as its own resource on the phone's main screen, right beside your local and cloud ones. Browse whatever the watch holds, copy or move files onto it from any phone screen, and anything the watch sends back lands wherever you choose. Each transfer is capped at 32 MB and reports its outcome through the usual transfer notification, the same one every other copy or move uses.