-
After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.
Mods Why is my Android/data/ folder empty [Root only]
- Thread starter eortiz123
- Start date
Hi eortiz123, and welcome to Android Forums 
It's important to remember that the Android OS has several different places that an application might store data, and not every app will use every location.
• /data/data/<package.name>/ is the default internal storage location used by every app (that I know of, at least). The contents of this storage location are private; no application can read the data created by another application. You would need to use root access to get around those permissions.
• /sdcard/Android/data/<package.name> is the default external storage location, and isn't used by every app. This storage location is world-readable - any app can read anything that another app stores here, and the location can also be modified by the user without requiring root.
• /sdcard/<app name> is where some apps store shared preferences or configuration files. Tasker, Titanium Backup, and many others use this location for data that a user may want to manually copy elsewhere.
It's important to remember that the Android OS has several different places that an application might store data, and not every app will use every location.
• /data/data/<package.name>/ is the default internal storage location used by every app (that I know of, at least). The contents of this storage location are private; no application can read the data created by another application. You would need to use root access to get around those permissions.
• /sdcard/Android/data/<package.name> is the default external storage location, and isn't used by every app. This storage location is world-readable - any app can read anything that another app stores here, and the location can also be modified by the user without requiring root.
• /sdcard/<app name> is where some apps store shared preferences or configuration files. Tasker, Titanium Backup, and many others use this location for data that a user may want to manually copy elsewhere.
I've seen that too for some apps. It seems like some create the folders without populating any data in there for some reason.
I do have data stored in the following folders under /sdcard/Android/data, so I know that everything is as it should be:
• com.google.android.apps.translate (offline translation files)
• com.ideashower.readitlater.pro (offline articles for Pocket)
• com.google.android.GoogleCamera (looks like metadata for panorama/blur/photosphere modes)
