What is the best way to pull multiple files using
adb pull
I have on my /sdcard/
25 files with following name:
gps1.trace
gps2.trace
...
gps25.trace
Wildcard does not work:
adb pull /sdcard/gps*.trace .
What is the best way to pull multiple files using
adb pull
I have on my /sdcard/
25 files with following name:
gps1.trace
gps2.trace
...
gps25.trace
Wildcard does not work:
adb pull /sdcard/gps*.trace .
You can use xargs
and the result of the adb shell ls
command which accepts wildcards. This allows you to copy multiple files. Annoyingly the output of the adb shell ls
command includes line-feed control characters that you can remove using tr -d '\r'
.
Examples:
adb shell 'ls sdcard/gps*.trace' | tr -d '\r' | xargs -n1 adb pull
adb shell 'ls /sdcard/*.txt' | tr -d '\r' | sed -e 's/^\///' | xargs -n1 adb pull
adb pull
can receive a directory name instead of at file and it will pull the directory with all files in it.
Pull all your gps traces in /sdcard/gpsTraces
adb pull /sdcard/gpsTraces/ .
Example of adb pull
and adb push
of recursive directories:
C:\Test>adb pull /data/misc/test/ .
pull: building file list...
pull: /data/misc/test/test1/test2/test.3 -> ./test1/test2/test.3
pull: /data/misc/test/test1/test2/test.2 -> ./test1/test2/test.2
pull: /data/misc/test/test1/test2/test.1 -> ./test1/test2/test.1
pull: /data/misc/test/test1/test.3 -> ./test1/test.3
pull: /data/misc/test/test1/test.2 -> ./test1/test.2
pull: /data/misc/test/test1/test.1 -> ./test1/test.1
pull: /data/misc/test/test.3 -> ./test.3
pull: /data/misc/test/test.2 -> ./test.2
pull: /data/misc/test/test.1 -> ./test.1
9 files pulled. 0 files skipped.
0 KB/s (45 bytes in 0.093s)
C:\Test>adb push . /data/misc/test/
push: ./test1/test2/test.3 -> /data/misc/test/test1/test2/test.3
push: ./test1/test2/test.2 -> /data/misc/test/test1/test2/test.2
push: ./test1/test2/test.1 -> /data/misc/test/test1/test2/test.1
push: ./test1/test.3 -> /data/misc/test/test1/test.3
push: ./test1/test.2 -> /data/misc/test/test1/test.2
push: ./test1/test.1 -> /data/misc/test/test1/test.1
push: ./test.3 -> /data/misc/test/test.3
push: ./test.2 -> /data/misc/test/test.2
push: ./test.1 -> /data/misc/test/test.1
9 files pushed. 0 files skipped.
0 KB/s (45 bytes in 0.062s)
./adb pull /sdcard
<-- fails
./adb pull /sdcard/
<-- works recursively - note the trailing slash
Tested with Nexus 5 and adb downloaded March 2014.
I have created this for Windows boxes, It is very useful to transfer files using wildcards without mounting the filesystem. You can include this script somewhere in your path env.
adbpull.bat
@echo off
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion
if %1.==. (
echo Wilcard parameter is required.
goto end
)
for /F "tokens=* USEBACKQ" %%F in (`adb shell ls %1`) do (
set text=%%F
set mfile=!text:~0,-1!
adb pull "!mfile!"
)
:end
endlocal
Example:
adbpull /sdcard/DCIM/Camera/IMG_2016*
ADBFS a FUSE Filesystem for Android Debug Bridge if you are using linux or mac
Directory pull is available on new android tools. ( I don't know from which version it was added, but its working on latest ADT 21.1 )
adb pull /sdcard/Robotium-Screenshots
pull: building file list...
pull: /sdcard/Robotium-Screenshots/090313-110415.jpg -> ./090313-110415.jpg
pull: /sdcard/Robotium-Screenshots/090313-110412.jpg -> ./090313-110412.jpg
pull: /sdcard/Robotium-Screenshots/090313-110408.jpg -> ./090313-110408.jpg
pull: /sdcard/Robotium-Screenshots/090313-110406.jpg -> ./090313-110406.jpg
pull: /sdcard/Robotium-Screenshots/090313-110404.jpg -> ./090313-110404.jpg
5 files pulled. 0 files skipped.
61 KB/s (338736 bytes in 5.409s)
Even though adb pull
command started accepting folder name for the remote parameter, I still prefer to use tar
command. It provides more flexibility - allows for file name patterns (both include and exclude), symlink control, preserves file permissions. Since Android 6.0 you can use a built-in. Before that you had to use 3rd-party tools like busybox
:
adb exec-out tar c sdcard/amazonmp3 > amazon.tar
Make sure to omit the leading /
in your path.
Parsing the output from 'ls' is generally a bad idea. Instead, use 'find'.
adb shell 'find /sdcard/ -name "gps*.trace" -print0' | xargs -0 -n 1 adb pull
Why you shouldn't parse the output of ls
building on David's answer, I find this to be slightly better:
adb shell ls /foo | tr -d '\r' | xargs -n1 adb pull
In addition to it being one character less to type (big deal) it doesn't convert the -r
into a space. This is a significant difference, as if you try to do
adb shell ls /foo/myFile* | tr '\r' ' ' | xargs -i -n1 adb pull {} someDir
you'll get error saying
remote object '/foo/myFile1 ' does not exist
Instead you can do this, which will work:
adb shell ls /foo/myFile* | tr -d '\r' | xargs -i -n1 adb pull {} someDir
Wild cards work in my case, I have been using following simple script to import Whatsapp Images of my virtual device in to my desktop
#! /bin/bash
mkdir -p ~/Pictures/Pictures_adb
rm -f ~/Pictures/Pictures_adb/*
cd ~/Pictures/Pictures_adb
adb root
adb shell 'cp /data/media/0/WhatsApp/Media/WhatsApp\ Profile\ Photos/* /sdcard/Pictures/;exit'
adb pull /sdcard/Pictures
mv ~/Pictures/Pictures_adb/Pictures/* ~/Pictures/Pictures_adb/
rmdir ~/Pictures/Pictures_adb/Pictures
cd
In Android, there are some folder with associated permissions! Some folder belong to root- or system user.
You guys should change the permissions of those files, folders before doing "adb pull".
The following commands could help:
adb shell
su
chmod -R 777 target_folder
exit
...
adb pull /.../target_folder/ . (current local folder)