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I wish to pull a directory from an Android device which contains screenshots, reason why, is that I don't know the name of these screenshots to pull them 1 by 1, so pulling the directory seemed a better idea.

My command is, 

adb pull "\\$EXTERNAL_STORAGE/screen/" .

However I get the error,

remote object '\\$EXTERNAL_STORAGE/screen/' does not exist

I have tried with and without the trailing '/' but both same error message, and I have verified that 'screen' does actually exist.

My question, is it even possible to pull a directory, as opposed to individual files, and if so, what am I doing incorrect?

EDIT: I have read a similar issue, but my device still shows the error above rather than "Is a directory" Recursive adb pull

Thanks.

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  • See this answer by Gilles. It should help in using that variable.
    – Firelord ♦
    Aug 27, 2015 at 12:22

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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If the screenshots are getting saved in external SD card then I believe external SD card is set as default write-disk. In that case, you can do,

adb pull /sdcard/{YOUR_DIR}/ {TARGET_DIR}

I use my custom alias named adbshots which is,

/usr/bin/adb pull /sdcard/Pictures/Screenshots/ /root
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  • thanks, this did work. I was attempting to utilise the EXTERNAL_STORAGE parameter but its fine. On further thought, I guess its that adb pull does not initialise local parameters like adb shell does; therefore it doesn't work.
    – jerrythebum
    Aug 25, 2015 at 11:24
  • Your $EXTERNAL_STORAGE seems to be a variable initialized in your OS. It needs to be a path like /XYZ/ABC/ -- the *nix way which ADB can use to trace the source dir in Android. While the question is solved, you may still troubleshoot the issue. See what is the value of $EXTERNAL_STORAGE.
    – Firelord ♦
    Aug 25, 2015 at 11:31
  • $EXTERNAL_STORAGE points to the path of the external sdcard on the device. adb shell echo \\$EXTERNAL_STORAGE \/storage/emulated/legacy I just wanted to use that to find te location of the ext sd card, I was unaware that /sdcard/ was basically a pointer to what I was attempting
    – jerrythebum
    Aug 25, 2015 at 11:56
  • It is true that $EXTERNAL_STORAGE points to the external SD card but the variable has its scope inside the Android. When you use it with adb pull, then ADB treats it as a variable defined in the host system, ultimately, the command would fail if the variable is not defined or initialized explicitly in your host or the current shell session.
    – Firelord ♦
    Aug 25, 2015 at 12:23
-1

try this. This should work.

adb pull /sdcard/screen/

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  • Typical usage of adb pull goes by adb pull <remote> <local>. Please explain how your command is relevant for the objective OP wants to achieve.
    – Firelord ♦
    Aug 25, 2015 at 11:35
  • Yes, that point is true that <local> is not needed if you want the source to be copied into the directory from where the shell is invoked from. But in your command, /sdcard/. is <remote> and screen is <local>. It would fail for sure.
    – Firelord ♦
    Aug 25, 2015 at 12:06
  • Firelord Thanks for reply it was a mistake.I have corrected it.
    – Saif-RX
    Aug 25, 2015 at 12:09

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