How to restore a backup created using `adb backup`?

UlyssesZhan

How to restore a backup created using adb backup? Apparently adb restore does nothing.

hemlockiv

The adb backup feature has been deprecated for a while, but adb restore would have been the appropriate command. It may be fully nonfunctional at this stage. Did you get any kind of error message when you tried it? Have you looked up documentation for syntax, flags, parameters, etc that might be needed for adb restore?

UlyssesZhan

hemlockiv What I ran was adb restore some-backup.ab. The phone then prompts me to enter the password I used to encrypt the backup, and I entered the correct password. After that, there is a toast saying "restoring". After a while, there is another toast saying "restore ended" (something like that, I didn't remember the exact words). There is no error message either on the adb terminal output or on the phone. Then nothing seems to happen.

IDtheTarget

UlyssesZhan I'm having a similar problem. I have an app that I paid $20 for back in 2014, but it's not available on Google Play any longer. I've used adb backup and adb restore to migrate it to each tablet I've owned since then. I currently have it on a Samsung Galaxy Tab S7+, and it's working fine.

I just purchased a Pixel Tablet 2023 as an experiment to see if I wanted to migrate to GOS. Trying to restore this app to the owner profile is literally the first thing I've been trying to do after I installed GOS on the tablet. And I keep getting the same thing. The restore starts, the command line goes back to the command prompt (as if it was done, WAY too early), and the tablet just sits there doing nothing.

I'm okay with using a different app to side-load the app from the Samsung to the Pixel, but I don't have the option of installing from Google Play since it's not available there any longer. Is there a different app I can use to back up just this one app on the Samsung and restore it onto the pixel/GOS?

UlyssesZhan

IDtheTarget I'm not sure what you are trying to do, but if you just want the app instead of both app and data, just installing the APK does not require adb. If you want it to be marked as installed from Play Store, you can use adb to do that too.

IDtheTarget

UlyssesZhan I'm trying to restore app with data. The app isn't available in the play store any longer, so I can't just install with Google Play.

I've used 'adb restore' to restore this app, with data, to every tablet I've owned since the Nexus Tab 7. I'm open to other ideas, but I need to get the app, with data, onto the Pixel Tablet/GOS. If GOS doesn't allow adb to restore apps with data I'm okay with using another app, I just need to know what it is.

Grapi

IDtheTarget

Actually, you can copy all data from the folder "Android" to your PC over the standard USB file transfer, so you can copy specified app data folder to the PC. I am currently not sure, whether you can copy back from PC to the app folder inside of "Android" folder. Just try, also try to copy with adb if it does not work via standard USB transfer.

And as said above, you can get the original apk from your Samsung and install it on Pixel. Then try with the step above (copy via PC over USB) and see if it can work.

To be more specific this is the steps again:

Take original apk from Samsung
Install apk on Pixel with standard way
Run the app (so the app can create default app data). Maybe you can skip this step.
Copy app data folder from Samsung to Pixel as desribed above.

Hopefully it can work for you.

IDtheTarget

Grapi Thank you very much for your help. unfortunately I don't think this is going to work.

I used adb pull like you suggested to get the apk. But when I tried to use adb install, I got the following error:

[INSTALL_FAILED_NO_MATCHING_ABIS: INSTALL_FAILED_NO_MATCHING_ABIS: Failed to extract native libraries, res=-113]

Some quick googling suggests that the issue is that the apk is compiled for a different processor and won't install on the pixel. I'm guessing that's also why the restore fails, though it would be nice to have had an error code to reference.

So I guess I'll have to decide if I can live without that app.

Thank you again for your help!

de0u

IDtheTarget If it's a 10-year-old app with native libraries, it's probably 32-bit ARM code, which is generally on the way out (though maybe in a year or two people will start supporting it in emulation?).