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I'm looking for the data-store of a certain application so I can take backups of some files that are important to me. Connecting the phone to my computer and browsing the file-system I get revealed a surprisingly empty file-system.

Is the a generic way of locating data created by a certain application on the phone? Since Android tracks the storage use on a per-application basis, I assume there is a register somewhere, but I don't know where to look.

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  • Do you mean that you're connecting your device in "mass storage" mode (or MTP if applicable)? Android sets aside separate partitions for internal application storage and external. The storage typically used by apps is the former, and it won't be mounted on your PC when your device is plugged in (and you must be root to access application specific data). The partition mounted on your PC would be the external storage data.
    – eldarerathis
    Commented Mar 23, 2012 at 14:54
  • @eldarerathis: I didn't have any external storage on my Android phone until about a week ago but many files on the internal storage always were accessible via MTP when I plugged my phone into my PC. I do not know if they were all available but certainly not only external storage. My phone may be "rooted" or not require rooting. I'm not sure. It's from one of the major Chinese brands and I bought it in China and did not re-burn the ROM to the non-Chinese version.
    – hippietrail
    Commented Nov 16, 2017 at 8:46

2 Answers 2

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Android can't/doesn't keep track of arbitrary data created on the SD card. If you're looking for regular app data such as settings, it's located at /data/data/qualified-app-name where the name is something like com.rovio.angrybirds for Angry Birds, for example.

As eldarerathis notes you'll need to be root to view the data partition; it's protected to prevent malicious apps from stealing your data (etc.).

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  • While it's true that Android doesn't track data written by apps to SD Card, you can usually make an educated guess as to the data's owner from file/folder names. Also, while browsing contents of media area/SD Card via a PC, make sure to enable showing of hidden files and folders, since some apps make use of that flag in order to avoid cluttering up the "normal" display.
    – Chahk
    Commented Mar 23, 2012 at 15:15
  • @Chahk True enough. I haven't noticed any hidden files myself, but there are certainly files and folders named with a leading period that aren't shown by default on Mac/Linux.
    – Matthew Read
    Commented Mar 23, 2012 at 15:19
  • @MatthewRead There are two data folders in my Samsung: /data (inacessible) and /storage/sdacard0/Android/data/. The former is not SDcard, despite the name. It contains com.android... but I can't find specific application there. Could you clarify on this? Which path is the correct?
    – Tomáš Zato
    Commented Dec 26, 2014 at 20:26
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just go to sd card and find the file android and keywords that you have in your app then connect your android device to your system and back up that file thats all [NOTE: Some deivces does support this function.]

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    Clarify? The answer is very vague and no instructions to explain exactly... care to add more information?
    – t0mm13b
    Commented May 5, 2013 at 22:35

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