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On my Nexus S running 4.1.1, I am unable to find where the current wallpaper is stored. I referred to Where is the background image saved?, but my /data/data/com.android.settings/files folder is empty (I do have my file browser showing hidden files). It was confirmed in that question that ICS stored it in that location, but did Jellybean move it to a different place?

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Unless you are rooted (Thanks @Izzy) you can't see the files and folders under /data folder. I am running 4.1.1 CM10 and as I am rooted, I can see files and folders under /data – Narayanan Aug 16 '12 at 6:15
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In my CM10 4.1.1, I do not have "/data/data/com.android.settings/files/wallpaper" but under "/data/data/com.android.settings/" I have folders: cache, lib, shared_prefs only. And only share_prefs folder is not empty with two xml files with no pointer to wallpaper info. – Narayanan Aug 16 '12 at 6:19
I switched file browsers and now have a similar situation to @Narayanan where the shared_prefs is the only folder with files in it. The files folder isempty – penguinrob Aug 16 '12 at 14:22

2 Answers

up vote 8 down vote accepted

The wallpaper was in

data/data/com.android.settings/files/

on previous versions of Android. However it appears that it was moved as part of the multi-user preparations. The current location is

data/system/users/0/

The file is conveniently called wallpaper and it is a png file.

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I am not using default wallpaper, and my files folder is empty (see my comment on the question). Is there some utility that let's you see what files are being modified? – penguinrob Aug 16 '12 at 16:01
@penguinrob It's not moved in JB. What do you mean by being modified? – Richard Borcsik Aug 16 '12 at 18:54
On Mac, I can use fs_usage to monitor what files an application accesses. I'm wondering if there's something similar that could be used to see what files are modified when I change the wallpaper. – penguinrob Aug 17 '12 at 2:06
@penguinrob you're right it was moved. I haven't noticed as I haven't wiped when I upgraded to JB. – Richard Borcsik Aug 22 '12 at 18:29
I'm glad I'm not the only one then! – penguinrob Aug 22 '12 at 21:26
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up vote 0 down vote

I have been trying to retrieve the wallpaper as well but found it too difficult. So to solve this I have create the app "Wallpaper Saver". It automatically saves your wallpapers and makes it easy to restore an old wallpaper again. It also supports live wallpapers. It is free to use. You can download it from Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=dk.alroe.apps.WallpaperSaverFree

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