• gerbler@lemmy.world
    144·
    1 year ago

    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???.

    • Metallibus@lemmy.world
      97·
      1 year ago

      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.

    • yogurtwrong@lemmy.world
      60·
      1 year ago

      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

        • IverCoder@lemmy.world
          23·
          1 year ago

          I raise you all of these monstrosities:

          • Phones launching with Android 13 without a dedicated partition for recovery mode

          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 a two dedicated partitions for recovery mode

          • Phones launching with Android 13 with one dedicated partition for recovery mode (only one because A/B partitioning scheme is not used)

          Phones launching with Android 13 with one dedicated partition for recovery mode

          • 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, 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 two dedicated partitions for recovery mode

          • 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 launch with or upgrade to Android 12, that use a generic kernel image, with one dedicated partition for recovery mode

          • Phones that upgrade to Android 12, that does not use a generic kernel image, with no dedicated partition for recovery mode

          Phones that launch with or 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

          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.

    • stebo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      34·
      1 year ago

      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…

  • Quacksalber@sh.itjust.works
    98·
    1 year ago

    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.

    • where_am_i@sh.itjust.works
      44·
      1 year ago

      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.

    • anewbeginning@lemmy.world
      6·
      1 year ago

      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.

          • itsJoelle@lemmy.world
            4·
            1 year ago

            I think it’s fine for the handsets, but if they’re trying to push the iPad as a “semi computer” for the general consumer it really needs to be revamped. You can do many of the same things file managers do on other operating systems, but it’s extremely non-intuitive at times — so many users think the functionality is missing. Because if they don’t know it’s there it might as well be!

  • deikoepfiges_dreirad@lemmy.zip
    87·
    1 year ago

    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…

    • SixTrickyBiscuits@lemmy.world
      52·
      1 year ago

      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.

  • noneya@lemmy.world
    391·
    1 year ago

    Yeah…I don’t have any issues with file management on Android. There’s a folder structure and that’s all I really need. 🤷🏼‍♂️

    • Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca
      12·
      1 year ago

      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.

      • Robaque@feddit.it
        6·
        1 year ago

        Downloads have always gone to the downloads folder for me

        But yes any app that takes/edits pictures can save them who the fuck knows where lol

        • CoderKat@lemm.ee
          3·
          1 year ago

          Browsers put em in the downloads folder, but every other app is a wild west for me. Most Reddit and messaging apps I had downloaded to their own little folder.

          • Robaque@feddit.it
            1·
            1 year ago

            Oh true! Tbh that never particularly bothered me because I end up organising stuff into my own folders anyways which all automatically go into DCIM.

    • I_Miss_Daniel@kbin.social
      4·
      1 year ago

      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.)

      • Metallibus@lemmy.world
        1·
        1 year ago

        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.

  • redhydride
    20·
    1 year ago

    And you can’t rename it and search for it afterwords. It makes that much frustrating to find

  • astral_avocado@programming.dev
    18·
    1 year ago

    Please someone tell me why androids filesystem structure is so damn confusing, I’ve wondered this forever but have never looked it up

    • heimchen@discuss.tchncs.de
      13·
      1 year ago

      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)
      • karstin@lemmy.world
        3·
        1 year ago

        I’m just guessing here, but if I recall correctly, android was started as an OS for digital cameras. So saving camera files to DCIM (Digital Camera Images) makes sense as that is standard to most other cameras

  • biddy@feddit.nl
    16·
    1 year ago

    IOS is worse. You can’t even be sure that it’s saved, let alone where.

    • odbol@lemmy.world
      8·
      1 year ago

      And if you can save it to Files, only like two apps can open it and it’s random which ones

  • SamXavia@kbin.social
    15·
    1 year ago

    Still can’t find 90% of the images i’ve downloaded, probably will factory reset my phone and them to still take up space.