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I have chosen to backup everything and all extra partitions on my twrp backup. When browsing the twrp backup folder, I renamed the .win extentions to .tar and unziped them using linux but I cannot find where twrp keep the internal storage contents. eg. emulated/0/

answerSeeker
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  • Related https://android.stackexchange.com/q/123558/131553 – beeshyams Jun 10 '17 at 00:40
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    TWRP doesn't backup "internal storage" – acejavelin Jun 10 '17 at 00:42
  • Well, the 2 first comments are completely useless as they don't answer the question at all. I've been downvoted for no reason. However I thank @acejavelin for his answer as it answers the question. – answerSeeker Jun 10 '17 at 01:17
  • I assume you got downvoted for "common sense"? Backing up internal storage and saving it to internal storage is a contradiction in itself. Not that I downvoted though... Also, since TWRP 3.1.0, there's a big fat yellow warning that explicitly warns people that it won't back up internal storage. – Andy Yan Jun 10 '17 at 01:28
  • @Andy Yan Common sense would mean I expect a full system back up which includes personal files if the data partition was backed up just like the windows system image backup and thats what most people would expect so your argument make no sense saying I have no common sense. Also I'm using twrp 2.8.7 and 3.0.0 not the latest. – answerSeeker Jun 10 '17 at 01:37
  • We're still talking about different senses... I mean, did you expect a full backup of internal storage to be stored in internal storage itself (that's the default)? Anyways, not backing up internal storage was the norm ever since custom recoveries existed on Android, and with external SD cards quitting the scene and OTG not really catching up, I don't see this changing in the near future... Sucks for people who want to play it safe. – Andy Yan Jun 10 '17 at 01:53
  • I misread the question and marked as duplicate.. Sorry, retracted close vote – beeshyams Jun 10 '17 at 01:59
  • I didn't expect a full backup on the internal storage. I actually used a 64GB flash drive for the backup so no. Twrp does let you use flash drives for backups. – answerSeeker Jun 10 '17 at 02:00
  • @beeshyams as long as you understand. Thanks. – answerSeeker Jun 10 '17 at 02:01
  • in fact, this behaviour is not common sense.. common sense would be, not allowing to store backup files at the device itself. however, excluding media does allow backup for devices with no external sd / usb otg support. after backup just adb pull -a -p /sdcard advanced users who can't live with it, feel free to tweak your twrp with a shell script – alecxs Dec 21 '19 at 14:03
  • @alecxs ok boomer – answerSeeker Dec 31 '19 at 20:42

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TWRP does not backup internal storage, like your photos, videos, music, ebooks, etc. (things in /data/media), that is why you can't find it.

As noted in the TWRP's FAQ from their official website:

Creating a backup of the user data partition will NOT include /data/media (your internal storage)! That means if you save photos or data on the internal storage (e.g. some apps will save data there as well) those will be NOT included in a TWRP backup! There are many people thinking that this is the case but due to a decision taken by the dev team this is the current way of how it works.

To be absolutely clear when you do something like this:

  1. Creating a full backup in TWRP (including /data partition)
  2. Factory resetting your phone
  3. Restoring your previously taken full backup
  4. Result: all your saved data will be there but your data on the internal storage gets LOST!
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acejavelin
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  • Are you sure about that? As the backup created by TWRP should be complete, where is it gone then? In fact, what OP is looking for is partly in data.ext3.win.gz and partly in the boot image. The emulated/* stuff AFAIR is setup at boot (with a lot of mounting and cross-symlinking which I never got into my head completely). If I'm wrong, please back your claim by a source: where does it say what TWRP does not backup? – Izzy Jun 10 '17 at 08:43
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    @Izzy Yes, I am positive it doesn't backup internal storage, or "internal sd card" as some call it. It never has. I will update my answer with a verifiable source. – acejavelin Jun 10 '17 at 14:19
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    Thanks! That explains something I was wondering about a while ago. On an older device of mine it did backup everything, but on a newer one I wondered why that part was missing. Thought it was specific to the device (and TWRP implementation for that), but it's rather specific to the ROM structure it seems. Note the intruductional phrasing: "When you have a device with a /data/media storage as internal storage". So it seems there are such and others ;) Thanks for pointing out and mentioning the source, +1 now from me :) – Izzy Jun 10 '17 at 19:51
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    @answerSeeker and acejavelin FYI https://android.stackexchange.com/q/200713/131553 – beeshyams Aug 23 '18 at 06:40