Not sure if I misunderstood what a full adb backup is

dragomerlin — Mon, 18 Mar 2024 07:15:59 -0000

adb backups are nowhere near a ISO/raw/dd/1:1/clone/mirror/backup of an android phone. Only very few apps and its data gets actually backed up. adb backups are actually partial backups.

The adb backup was intended initially to backup only user apps and data (probably al), but as time went on it got neglected, because Google didn't have the courage to fully remove it but didn't want people to use it either.

You see, there are reasons for that:

App developers don't want people randomly backing up stuff from the phone. Sometimes due to proprietary source code (system executables, IMEI/MAC information, saved WiFi networks).
Other times because of privacy (certain messaging apps or banking apps don't allow to take a screenshot while open) or export to a new device, you have to reconfigure everything in each new device.
Other times because the content that the app uses is not theirs, so they have to forbid any manipulation. It includes Spotify music, Netflix movies, and so on.
Google want everybody to use Google One instead. Check if you did backup to it, it's possible you have there most of the things you want.
Devices firmware include proprietary/licensed/patented software and drivers from third parties that the vendor (Samsung, whatever) can't redistribute, hence don't allow any backup of it.

Since iOS 9 Apple doesn't allow to backups apps (.ipa) to local backups, so you have to reinstall them from the Apple Store, so you see a common denominator here: everything is moving to cloud.

It's clear that Android should strongly warn users in the screen dialog how it works exactly (kind of Terms & Conditions), but actually most people don't backup anything. Social networks store everything on remote anyway and the same for media streaming, so almost nobody cares.

But the worst thing is that you made a serious mistake: you should have kept the old phone untouched, until you could confirm that the new device had everything to your liking, specially when the devices are managed by an external organization.

The only way to do a ISO/carbon copy backup of any smartphone, is to root it. Of course you need the new smartphone to be rooted to restore things. Otherwise backups are partial (very) and eventually will most disappear.

I'm so sorry that you were caught off guard so much, but the issue has been known for more than 10 years, and people that expect smartphones to be like desktop computers get so disappointed.

I'll add some uppercase warnings to the README with some legal advisory at the top to force feed people when they reach this project. Most issues reported come from the fact that they don't know what the terms of use of their devices are. Even some device manufacturers implemented their own variations of the adb format which is not compatible with the official one.

Not sure if I misunderstood what a full adb backup is

Courtney Alan White — Sun, 17 Mar 2024 05:45:33 -0000

Hi, I did a simple console command in adb app control to create a backup.ab file that I THOUGHT had my full phone contents, from pictures to app data and everything

When I finally got this tool to work, I was presented with a measly selection of a few random app data's, nowhere close to my full library. I thought this was gonna take like an iso image of my phone, a complete replica of the internal file structure

What I got doesnt seem to be the case. Can you guys verify that I either did something wrong or I just need to do something different. The big problem is I wiped the phone to factory settings and ebayed it so all the data is gone for good except whats in samsung cloud.

Basically my main goal was to get a few select apps to retain their data, for example I have custom alarms for AMDroid alarm clock app saved that are pretty complex and hard to reproduce. In addition I use Tasker to automate a bunch of stuff around my house with NFC tags and I dont feel like doing that all over. if I did everything right, the only contents were like 8 apps and it doesnt look like the actual files that were on the phone memory.

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dragomerlin — Wed, 06 Sep 2023 20:08:39 -0000

Since you are extracting you must provide tar name:
java -jar abp.jar -debug unpack viewer.ab viewer.tar

Then you can view or extract tar with any app, is similar to zip or rar.

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Conrad Braam — Wed, 06 Sep 2023 15:28:55 -0000

step 1: adb backup -f viewer.ab -noapk com.realvnc.viewer.android
this creates a nice 1.2Mb file called viewer.ab , all good
step 2: java -jar "<path to="" binary="">\abp.jar" -debug unpack .\viewer.ab <some file="" name="">
now that last parameter is terribly confusing do I need to know what fiels to pull out of the backup, how do i list the backup contents? No commandline documentation nearthe top of any of the readme files.</some></path>

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Conrad Braam — Wed, 06 Sep 2023 15:17:18 -0000

the documentation says to replace abe with abp , but since .ab files get emitted by the backup tool, not TART files, which abp wants. The new abp tool will not ingest these.ab files, so this tool looks like it's just undocumented in a way that cannot serve it's purpose. Are there alternative updated tools that dont require large downloads and other setting up for simple scripted .ab extractions?

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Ashish Kumar — Sat, 22 Jul 2023 07:36:48 -0000

DSC_0006.JPG is the encryped file and i used 123 for unpack file name and yes these files are from the folder ".semc-fullbackup".

By the way its unpack successfully thanks :)

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dragomerlin — Fri, 21 Jul 2023 17:34:33 -0000

If you could give me a hint, is the file DSC_0006.JPG 123.jpg which is encrypted in adb backup format, or are the files inside the folder ".semc-fullbackup"?

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Ashish Kumar — Tue, 18 Jul 2023 05:07:14 -0000

OMG!!

After posting last comment I accidently try password "1234" and its works. :)

Now i can restore any file from the folder ".semc-fullbackup"

Thanks you so much for this tool.
AKPaharia

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Ashish Kumar — Tue, 18 Jul 2023 04:51:51 -0000

@dragomerlin

Thanks for the reply.

OK. i create this backup in 2015 with my sony Xpera M2 Dual (D2302) (android kitkat) via backup & restore app.
But i don't have that device anymore. However i have that backup & restore apk file (com.sonyericsson.vendor.backuprestore) BUT it doesn't work in todays androids phone might be due to changing android version or it works only in sony phones.

I download the tool (android-backup-tookit-20221220.zip) and after extracting run for files located in ".semc-fullbackup" where i have all the files with its original extensions like (DSC_0004.JPG)

I run the command in same path where the image and abp.jar located in this way:

java -jar abp.jar unpack DSC_0006.JPG 123.jpg

screenshot: https://www.loom.com/i/a63d79adcc6b4e84aee2ed658455d92a

Its ask for password which i don't remember now :(
(Might be one main password ask within the app for all .semc-fullbackup folder)

when i open any image in a notepad it shows like the below

screenshot: https://www.loom.com/i/1b3b92349d6040ad9920634d232a80af

Is there any way to restore files without password or removed password from notepad file?

Thanks in advance
Ashish.

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dragomerlin — Mon, 17 Jul 2023 16:43:43 -0000

Sony backup & restore app which you used already should be able to restore the same ".semc-fullbackup" to your phone. Did you try this already? At which exact step are you having issues and which steps did you follow?

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