Android's file structure is so incomprehensible. I'm genuinely surprised there hasn't been any significant effort made to make it more readable. Pictures saved in app directories, downloads, camera, images, pictures, media, DCIM???.
I'm genuinely surprised there hasn't been any significant effort made to make it more readable.
Quite the opposite. They've tried to make it better, and in turn, they've made it worse.
They used to have a pretty straightforward Linux file structure, and you were expected to put things in the external Pictures folder. And downloads went to the external Downloads folder. Back then, internal storage was small and SDs were large, so apps couldn't really afford to store these things locally and the SD structure was well enough defined that it was pretty clear where pictures would go.
Now, Google has pushed against SD cards. They also started requiring more permissions for external storage. They've added some "documents" APIs that were supposed to make it easier to tag/find files, but it's a tangled mess and most apps don't touch it. And they've rewritten their storage model multiple times at this point. If you're writing a new app, it's unclear which model to even follow anymore because Google has created a giant cluster fuck of options and paradigms.
Google is actively making this problem worse and worse. I wish they had never tried to "fix" this in the first place.
Open source developer and Linux enthusiast here. Although cluttered, Android's home directory is fairly simple to understand
The nightmare begins when you take a look at the root filesystem.
One time I was trying to port an OS to my phone and I had to figure out the Android init system. Went to source.android.com and what. the. fuck. Just as a side-by-side comparison:
Linux boot sequence:
Android boot sequence (unmodded, SIMPLE):
There are so many wrong things about it like why are there 11, 12 places to put programs (/system/bin, /bin, /usr/bin /system/usr/bin, /sbin, /system/usr/share/bin...)
Why the fuck drivers are scattered around folders instead of just /lib/modules
Why is the home directory /storage/emulated/0/ instead of just /home/0/ (also why the user is named "0")
Where the fuck is everything???
God (Linus Torvalds) forgive me but even Windows is better than that shit
Tbh it doesn't really matter since your gallery shows all of them in one place.
That is until you want to transfer your pictures to a pc...
I feel like if anything they made effort to not have people touch the file manager ever
Android's file structure is bad, yes. But does iOS even have a file structure? In my very limited time using iOS, I couldn't find anything resembling a file explorer.
we had a ducking sane file structure on symbian. Before apple knew what smartphone means. We had sane file structure on siemens phones.
There's no excuse for the unholy abomination of what manufacturers call an "operating system" on a smartphone these days.
I really raeg when someone says "apple invented the smartphone" like let me kill you know and save myself the anguish of wishing i had
I had a Kyocera 6035, literally the first commercially available smartphone. Ran PalmOS. (It's literally my picture on the WP page for it) 2001, a few months before the iPod, never mind the iPhone.
It does. But most of it is locked to the user. Mostly, it's just the user directory that you have access to, which is the correct way.
Files are soo outdated. The user should not have to worry about "Files". What even is a " Directory"? Your nudes are on some guys computer in california but the world is in your hand. there is an app for everything, just use the apps, go with the flow, look at lots of ads, buy a tesla, tell your dirty secrets to google bard — everything is intuitive...
Took me a while to realise this was sarcasm!
Everything is a file /c
Download completed..
Files>downloads>empty 😔
Ah see, the problem is you were looking in /sdcard0/ which of course, refers to your internal storage and not your SD card which is probably called /0xgg0gdjdsjgg/ or something.
z/common/Facebook/dlot/downloads/pics/angry birds/pics/common/ahshhysyyagg.png
You also downloaded ahshhysyyagg.png?
and where exactly is it saved?
On your phone, silly.
Yeah...I don't have any issues with file management on Android. There's a folder structure and that's all I really need. 🤷🏼♂️
My problem with it is how inconsistently things get placed.
App downloaded an image: it could be in the apps main data folder, DCIM, Pictures, Documents, or even a new folder at the base of the tree. Add an sd card and that list doubles as all those same locations exist separately on the sd card as well. (I've had images land in all 10 of these locations before)
/edit missed the 'download' folder. 12 possible locations.
The only issue I had was some torrent app which stored the files in its own data folder which was inaccessibile to any other app. What use is a downloaded file that you can't open? That's almost like having an iPhone.
(edit:apparently my iPhone knowledge is a bit dated now.)
Even if apps store stuff internally, and other things can't find it, the owning app can give temp access to another app. Ie, if you click on it in the torrent software, it should be able to find the relevant media player etc and open that media player playing the file.
Not defending this though, it's fucking stupid for them to do it that way, but just pointing out it's not totally useless as long as they allow you to tap/open it from within their app.
Also applies to the Snap version of Firefox.
Found the Ubuntu user
And you can't rename it and search for it afterwords. It makes that much frustrating to find
Not sure if it's a Samsung thing, but I can easily rename and search the files...
Ok wow, I had no idea!
Yeah this whole post has made me really appreciate Samsung's "my files" app.
Please someone tell me why androids filesystem structure is so damn confusing, I've wondered this forever but have never looked it up
I have spent weeks setting up LineageOs for my unsupported phone and I think I understood it.
- So /storage/emulated/0 is practically your home directory, all folders you can easily change are there.
- I don’t understand these memes, everything gets saved to /Downloads. The default file explorer is just crap. I use amaze
- the only really weird directory is the camera, it is saved in DCIM
- If you care about app specific app data go to /Android/data (for me its like the .config directory)
Well usually you had your Download folder like in pc. Now every app has its own secured workspace where only it can access it's files. If you want to download to the original download folder your app needs full storage access. And since people don't know how to code they download into the secure app storage often.
So now your download is in Android/media/domain.app.name/Download
Great, isn't it.
It's been turbo janky for ages... It really does need to be sorted out.
IOS is worse. You can't even be sure that it's saved, let alone where.
And if you can save it to Files, only like two apps can open it and it's random which ones
Some forced Google bloat ware snatched it and ran
Still can't find 90% of the images i've downloaded, probably will factory reset my phone and them to still take up space.
they're in the obviously named folder called "DCIM"
Digital Camera IMages.
@claymore I've actually tried looking in my DCIM folder but find nothing most of the time.
It seems a lot of people are having issues with this, I've never experienced a problem though
My files app always shows it in my recents view so idk
Credit where it’s due, iOS / iPadOS’s Files app is really good. I use both iOS and Android on the daily and I prefer working with files on my Apple devices.
As someone used to windows and android, I can't find anything on an iPad lol
Yeah, I can see that. I got through college with only an iPad for the Math degree, and the most common issue I see there's two locations in the Files app: iCloud and Local Storage. Once you get comfortable you can start mounting a tiny version of Linux running onto the file system and then it gets REALLY fun :)
Any question just ask!
Oh My God.
This needs fixing. It's infuriating at times
I feel the same way about the macbook I am forced to use by work. I just want my windows back
Finder…finds things. Just sayin
Think different!
Because not thinking in compliance with the Apple approved meaning of "different" is prohibited by the system.
Bit of a hot take after a few beers and I'm going into the weekend. I'm not taking shots at the person I'm replying to:
Strangely enough, I feel the same about my work's Window's laptop at the end of the week. There's a feeling called awe, where I wonder how things aligned for me to experience the daunting interconnected occurrences spanning hundreds of lives for me to be precisely where I am now. Usually it's around a landmark or beautiful art where I stop and wonder. I felt awe working on a fullstack of Microsoft products, but it was a twisted dark one. One where I wonder how on earth people think this company is competent at anything when literally anything else in a software product category is better, save Windows and Office. VSCode is sweet, but even that is open sourced.
And those two only win because of market share at this point. That's all they have, and one has default telemetry and the other a subscription.
Pdf opens in Google drive OK fine. Pdf closes so I have to reopen. Google drive is looking at me like this meme ape.
Can go into files to access it but still
iOS stores it in “downloads”
Oh right, Apple bad!
The iOS Files app only lets you access a tiny part of the OS so you don't accidentally install a non-Apple approved app or god forbid, modify something on a device you own 🥴
can't plug an iphone into a windows pc and access hardly anything
What really grinds my gears is that metadata on pictures you have in iCloud gets stripped when downloading to Windows. I take pictures of stuff for work and label them to know what the hell I'm looking at, but the descriptions disappear on file transfer.
So I gotta either:
-
Re-add in the description in the metadata
-
Label something else, like a sheet of paper or something and put it in the frame
-
Manually name each individual file after transfer, which is just as laborious as adding back in the metadata.
-
LOST.DIRI don't have this issue with my Nokia 5.4 at all. If I download it, it goes into my Downloads folder, and then I can easily move it from there. 🤷🏻♀️
It always shows/asks me the directory to save to, and I just have stock Android.
For all apps? Eg, chrome for me doesn't do that for any of my phones (including on a Pixel).
Chrome usually saves in Downloads folder.
For me it depends on the app, but I do sometimes get asked where to save things. If not, it usually defaults to downloads folder iirc
Yes, for all apps. The share/save window that pops up when long pressing an image or other thing is the same system wide.
Also: Chrome literally has an option to make it ask where to save every time you save an image in it when not using the system share panel. Otherwise it defaults to Downloads.
"Its with the others"
Files and then Downloads. Not hard.
Nope. Depends on the app you're using.
Maybe the device. Samsung saves everything in the exact same spot.
Obvoiusly it's in /Downloads/Firefox/Hidden/Furrystash/
Can one of many the actually-tech-competent humans in the comments please explain why i can never download a pdf of an online recipe unless i send it to myself through a messaging app from my laptop 😭 😭 😭
*iOS
