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I'm attempting to backup my Signal chats totalling almost 15GB, which presents a challenge in my 32GB phone. I simply have no space to do it, and even stripping the system of pretty much all apps except Signal is not quite enough, and naturally would be quite a lot of work. So, I was trying to create some sort of symlink between my external SD card and the Signal backup directory. I managed to do it via a su -M session (via adb shell but Termux also works) by using mount -o bind /storage/<sdcardID>/Signal /storage/emulated/0/Signal (having previously created that Signal dir on main storage). Files I create are perfectly mirrored and actually live on the external storage, however, the temporary file Signal creates for the backup is nowhere to be found. It doesn't even appear when I ls either path, yet it does appear when I navigate to it using any file explorer app.

How come? Is there a way to correctly link that?

Thanks in advance!

PS: Backups have been improved for Android 10, but I am on 9, so that's a no go.

Tmpod
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  • Have you read https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/203951/how-can-i-make-a-symlink-or-equivalent-inside-storage-emulated-0 (even if it is about an pretty old Android version)? – Robert Aug 16 '22 at 14:59
  • Yes, that was what lead me to su -M (equivalent to su -mm), correctly setting the Mount Namespace Mode in Magisk and using mount binds. It works well except it seems to not "track" temporary files. – Tmpod Aug 16 '22 at 15:46

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