Backup android app, data included, no root needed, with adb

android-backup-apk-and-datas.md

Backup android app, data included, no root needed, with adb

Note: This gist may be outdated, thanks to all contributors in comments.

adb is the Android CLI tool with which you can interact with your android device, from your PC

You must enable developer mode (tap 7 times on the build version in parameters) and install adb on your PC.

Don't hesitate to read comments, there is useful tips, thanks guys for this !

Fetch application APK

To get the list of your installed applications:

adb shell pm list packages -f -3

If you want to fetch all apk of your installed apps:

for APP in $(adb shell pm list packages -3 -f)
do
  adb pull $( echo ${APP} | sed "s/^package://" | sed "s/base.apk=/base.apk /").apk
done

To fetch only one application, based of listed packages results:

adb pull /data/app/org.fedorahosted.freeotp-Rbf2NWw6F-SqSKD7fZ_voQ==/base.apk freeotp.apk

Backup applications datas

To backup one application, with its apk:

adb backup -apk org.fedorahosted.freeotp -f freeotp.adb

To backup all datas at once:

adb backup -f all -all -apk -nosystem

To backup all datas in separated files:

for APP in $(adb shell pm list packages -3)
do
  APP=$( echo ${APP} | sed "s/^package://")
  adb backup -f ${APP}.backup ${APP}
done

Restore Applications

First, you have to install the saved apk with adb:

adb install application.apk

Then restore the datas:

adb restore application.backup

Extract content of adb backup file

You will need the zlib-flate binary. You will able to use it by installing the qpdf package.

apt install qpdf

Then, to extract your application backup:

dd if=freeotp.adb bs=24 skip=1 | zlib-flate -uncompress | tar xf -

If adb backup doesn't work

If you have problems using adb backup (empty files, no prompts, other oddness), you can give a try to bu backup through adb shell. Thanks to @nuttingd comment.

Backing up

adb shell 'bu backup -apk -all -nosystem' > backup.adb

Restoring

adb shell 'bu restore' < backup.adb

Miscellaneous: remove non-wanted applications

Sometimes, you have already installed (but non wanted) apps when you buy an Android Smartphone. And you can't uninstall these apps. So Bad. And some pre-installed app are not present on PlayStore. WTF.

You can remove them with this command, and root is not needed:

adb shell pm uninstall --user 0 non.wanted.app

You can first disable them, then when you are sure, you can remove them.

To list disabled apps:

adb shell pm list packages -d

Example:

# Google Chrome
adb shell pm uninstall --user 0 com.android.chrome
# Gmail
adb shell pm uninstall --user 0 com.google.android.gm
# Google Play Films et Séries
adb shell pm uninstall --user 0 com.google.android.videos
# Youtube
adb shell pm uninstall --user 0 com.google.android.youtube
# Google Play Music
adb shell pm uninstall --user 0 com.google.android.music
# Google Hangouts
adb shell pm uninstall --user 0 com.google.android.talk
# Google Keep
adb shell pm uninstall --user 0 com.google.android.keep
# Google Drive
adb shell pm uninstall --user 0 com.google.android.apps.docs
# Google Photos
adb shell pm uninstall --user 0 com.google.android.apps.photos
# Google Cloud Print
adb shell pm uninstall --user 0 com.google.android.apps.cloudprint
# Google Actualités et météos
adb shell pm uninstall --user 0 com.google.android.apps.genie.geniewidget
# Application Google
adb shell pm uninstall --user 0 com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox

Resources

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4032960/how-do-i-get-an-apk-file-from-an-android-device https://androidquest.wordpress.com/2014/09/18/backup-applications-on-android-phone-with-adb/ https://stackoverflow.com/questions/34482042/adb-backup-does-not-work https://stackoverflow.com/questions/53634246/android-get-all-installed-packages-using-adb https://www.dadall.info/article657/nettoyer-android https://etienne.depar.is/a-ecrit/Desinstaller-des-applications-systemes-d-android/index.html

adb backup was made essentially useless, for 'security reasons' since Android 12 👎 👎
And most of those HowTo articles were not updated and thus have become misleading 👎

Of course, it would be possible to provide secure ways of doing data backups.
For instance, simply define a backup password to be used with adb backup and other tools.
If a device encryption password is set, which is recommended, this could be reused.
Or more elegantly, one could set up an asymmetric key pair, as can be done with ssh,
and use this, which boils down to a very simple form of device owner certificate.

Since Google etc. simply crippled adb backup without providing a user-controllable backup mechanism,
one can only conclude that they do not want us users have control over our data on our devices 👎 👎 👎

Need to backup my Pixel 4a as it's now out of support.

Running Linux with 'adb backup ...' and tried 'adb shell 'bu backup...'

both give me a hint that backup is deprecated and resulting DATA files have 47 bytes.

What has changed? How can I backup DATA of my apps as of today?

Thanks!

you have to root your device and use app like swiftbackup or something else I guess

Since Google etc. simply crippled adb backup without providing a user-controllable backup mechanism, one can only conclude that they do not want us users have control over our data on our devices 👎 👎 👎

then how apps developers are able to create backup and restore their applications if it's deprecated by google?!

Backup process is starting for all apps but when I try with only one app it says "creating backup" and after 1 second it's closing and only makes 1 kb file, what a crap

The method works.

Remember to enable "Stay awake" and "Enable usb debug" in "Developer options"
Check your syntaxis. Look at this example.

In your terminal, go to a directory where the backup file will be stored IN YOUR COMPUTER
adb usb

adb backup -user 0 -apk -obb -shared -keyvalue com.nintendo.zaka

must specify user
I suggest you include apk
You most probably want the app libraries/databases (obb)
Just to be on the safe side, include shared storage
I have no idea what keyvalue means, but it looks like encryption
Finally, the package name.

Now unlock your phone screen as requested and accept

The file should be located in the computer folder you are in. Check the file size. For the app in the example it as over 1 GB

If you are successful, don't ask me how to restore it. Read TFA
adb shell bu help

edit: spelling

After extract .adb file, how I can compress it back? I've tried to ark but can't restore that file

Hi. I want to extract the backup, but it is not working on CMD, what app shoould I use to run this then?

Backing up the base.apk is not enough. The script didn't consider the split apks which many apps on the Google Play store are in this format now. the split apks which can be installed using adb install-multiple. you probably need to use adb shell pm path {appid} to get the paths of the split apks first, and backup each one of them.

I wish all the good old ADB restore methods worked for WSL too!

For all the apps not synced with the cloud I had to do everything from scratch by hand... 😫

I came here with the idea of cloning WhatsApp from a phone with PlayIntegrity and then restoring it to one with root and I read that WhatsApp cannot be cloned

Thank you it worked.

For those who don't have bash for Windows I recoded commands to work for powershell:

Backup apk of all installed apps

foreach ($APP in $(adb shell pm list packages -f -3)) {Invoke-Expression $($APP.replace('package:','adb pull ').replace('base.apk=','base.apk ')+'.apk')}

Backup data of all installed apps

foreach ($APP in $(adb shell pm list packages -3)) {Invoke-Expression $($APP.replace('package:','adb backup -f ')+'.backup '+$APP.replace('package:',''))}

Thanks for the description of the commands for powershell, but you must use .\ before adb. Otherwise it won't work.

I made abarms, which a tool that helps to simplify a lot of this.

`abarms` is a *handy* Swiss-army-knife-like tool/utility/console app for POSIX-compatible systems for manipulating Android Backup files (`*.ab`, `*.adb`) produced by `adb backup`, `bmgr`, and similar tools.

With abarms you can do a full-system adb backup and split into per-app pieces later.

It's a pure Python tool, you don't need a heavy Java VM to run it, like with android-backup-extractor and android-backup-toolkit.

@oxij sadly I doubt that works on Android 12 due to limitations.

To help protect private app data, Android 12 changes the default behavior of the adb backup command. For apps that target Android 12 (API level 31) or higher, when a user runs the adb backup command, app data is excluded from any other system data that is exported from the device.

@krupennikov , your scripts are working, what to do for restore? just replace pull with install and backup with restore ?

--
adb backup -f all -all -apk -nosystem
give me:
Now unlock your device and confirm the backup operation.

@robt24, I have not checked this script for restoring.

Thanks all for your comments. I wrote this gist some years ago and I am not using it anymore, as backup doesn't work for some apps.

adb pull $( echo ${APP} | sed "s/^package://" | sed "s/base.apk=/base.apk /").apk

'sed' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

Is there any way to backup apps to my device? I want to use ADB to save backup files to my device and get the path of the backed-up file. Does anyone have a solution to this issue?

Is there any way to backup apps to my device? I want to use ADB to save backup files to my device and get the path of the backed-up file. Does anyone have a solution to this issue?

Just root your phone and use swift backup

Is there any way to backup apps to my device? I want to use ADB to save backup files to my device and get the path of the backed-up file. Does anyone have a solution to this issue?

Just root your phone and use swift backup

Is there any way to solve the problem without rooting? I have two current issues:

1.Backup the app into devices.
2.Get the path of the app that has just been backed up."

Backup is working because it is executing in android owner user
Restore will not work for non-owner user. We can't restore for user,
Reason for Restore not Possible:
android user can't prompt confirmation for restore.

--------- REQUESTING HELP-----------------
@AnatomicJC
@ArRiMartinez

adb install app.apk
Performing Streamed Install
adb: failed to install app.apk: Failure [INSTALL_FAILED_MISSING_SPLIT: Missing split for com.gameloft.android....]

Is this can be solved somehow?

@artasoftware did you put all the files in the command line? you need the others too

@artasoftware did you put all the files in the command line? you need the others too

What files do you mean? I have only one apk and one adb.

@artasoftware we don't know which app you tried to install, but usually they (game?) come in multiple APK files, did you download/extract them all?

@artasoftware we don't know which app you tried to install, but usually they (game?) come in multiple APK files, did you download/extract them all?

Yeah it's a game but I have only one file. I've used this command: adb backup -apk org.fedorahosted.freeotp -f freeotp.adb

How can I backup multiple APKs for one application?

if you need the app APK (not the data) you can use other tools too, like https://f-droid.org/packages/io.github.muntashirakon.AppManager/