- cross-posted to:
- androidmemes@lemdro.id
- cross-posted to:
- androidmemes@lemdro.id
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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.
xkcd “standards” comes to mind
We don’t even have to link the relevant xkcds anymore
there was that joke where every joke is already known so instead of telling the joke they just say the number of it.
wonder if we ever get there, someone will just reply, xkcd 375
deleted by creator
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
i wonder if that graphic is up to date with system as root and A/B dynamic partitioning and whatever crazy new bullshit google invents with every release
I raise you all of these monstrosities:
- Phones launching with Android 13 without a dedicated partition for recovery mode
- Phones launching with Android 13 with two dedicated partitions for recovery mode (two because of A/B partitioning scheme)
- Phones launching with Android 13 with one dedicated partition for recovery mode (only one because A/B partitioning scheme is not used)
- Phones that launch with or upgrade to Android 12, that use a generic kernel image, without a dedicated partition for recovery mode
- Phones that launch with or upgrade to Android 12, that use a generic kernel image, with two dedicated partitions for recovery mode (A/B partitioning scheme)
- Phones that launch with or upgrade to Android 12, that use a generic kernel image, with one dedicated partition for recovery mode (non-A/B partitioning scheme)
- Phones that upgrade to Android 12, that does not use a generic kernel image, with no dedicated partition for recovery mode
- Phones that upgrade to Android 12, that does not use a generic kernel image, with dedicated partition(s) for recovery mode
In Android’s defense however, a phone would likely use only one of these layouts at a time. The question of which of these layouts does a said phone uses though, that’s a more complicated question.
The Linux boot sequence link doesn’t work for me
Init
^
|
Linux Kernel
It’s a graph, showing a red oval with the text “Linux Kernel”, an arrow points from the red oval to a light-green oval titled “Init”.
“Linux Kernel” --→ “Init”
Thanks
That’s not correct though. The GNU+Linux version is missing the bootloader and initramfs.
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.
Peak symbian was the sony ericsson p1i.
Had a gf throw that thing against a cinder block wall, off a concrete floor, and basically explode everywhere. i picked upthe parts, snapped it back together, turned it back on and left.
sir, this is Wendy’s :D
I would like a double jbc, please
Ericsson phones were second only to Nokia phones for their durability.
The Son of Eric must have been really good phonesmith.
It does have a files app now and it’s so good compared to Android file apps right now
android has no official “files” app though?
google files is a technically a 3rd party app and the AOSP files app is usually hidden and used only as a file picker.the AOSP file picker is so ass, everytime I get a new android i have to install Mixplorer (not affiliated with the Xiaomi brand) just to have a sane experience picking my files
Isn’t that because Android is system agnostic?
Been a while since I used a true bare stock Android device. G1 must have had a file explorer though right?
yeah vendors usually ship their own file explorer apps
The Samsung ones rudimentary, but it does the job
There isn’t an equivalent on iOS
iOS has had a file explorer for years at this point
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
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…
Yeah…I don’t have any issues with file management on Android. There’s a folder structure and that’s all I really need. 🤷🏼♂️
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.)
and where exactly is it saved?
On your phone, silly.
Also applies to the Snap version of Firefox.
Found the Ubuntu user
not quite pertinent but you can have a gif as your avatar?
apparently yes
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…
Yeah this whole post has made me really appreciate Samsung’s “my files” app.
Ok wow, I had no idea!
Some forced Google bloat ware snatched it and ran
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!
Matter of getting used to how it works I suppose? My iPad Pro is my main work machine right now. I have no issues handling files.
Could be, also this is officially my wife’s so I haven’t used it all that much… She’s also an android user so still getting used to it too…
I see, well if you have any questions I can answer them
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.
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
I have no issues on Linux 🤷
That being said, the most reliable method of getting arbitrary file off the iPhone onto the machine is to store it in VLC’s (or some other app that has folder access enabled) app folder.
thanks i’ll look into that
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.
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