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When connecting two Android phones via a cable, how can I choose which phone is charging which phone? E.g. when I connected a Samsung Galaxy S9 (Android 10) with a Google Pixel 6 (Android 12) via a male-to-male USB-C cable, the Google Pixel 6 got charged.

Franck Dernoncourt
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1 Answers1

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Under USB preferences, whichever device has Charge connected device as enabled is charging the other device.

Snapshot from Pixel 4a (Android 12) connected to and charging One Plus 7 (Android 10)

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And the reverse (One Plus charging Pixel)

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If you want to switch charging when connected, toggle the switch on any device and the selection on the other device gets reversed.

Edit: To address the comments, charging cannot be switched off on both devices. I couldn't find any documentation around this.

beeshyams
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    Looks like this feature was added since Android 9 Pie. – Andrew T. Dec 03 '21 at 09:54
  • If you want to switch charging when connected, toggle the switch on any device and the selection on the other device gets reversed seems less than ideal - what if you want no charging to take place at all? – Chris H Dec 03 '21 at 16:30
  • @ChrisH: Then presumably you'd set it to "off" on both phones, instead of "on" on one or the other. – Peter Cordes Dec 04 '21 at 02:21
  • @PeterCordes that's what I'd hope to happen, but "toggling one reverses the other" means that when you turn one off the other turns on – Chris H Dec 04 '21 at 11:38
  • Regarding charging not being able to be switched off completely on both, I bet this has something to do with USB certification. There are all kinds of seemingly odd edge cases involved there, and it would not surprise me if one o them is ‘no data transfer without power transfer’. – Austin Hemmelgarn Dec 05 '21 at 13:22