Files

The Files tab is a file browser for the session’s device. Use it to grab a file the app wrote (a database, a log, an export), to put a file on the device for the app to pick, or to look at what an app keeps in its private data. It works over ADB in the browser, so you need nothing installed on your computer.

When the tab appears

The tab sits next to Logcat and Terminal, after the DevTools tabs. It is there when the portal lets you use ADB on this session:

• the server allows ADB in the browser (adb.browser, on by default);
• with adb.ownerOnly (the default), the session is yours or you are an admin; other users see only the screen and DevTools;
• the device supports ADB (every emulator and phone does).

There is nothing to click or allow: the page connects to the device’s ADB once the device is first ready, and keeps that one connection for Logcat, Files and Terminal. The browser keeps an ADB key in its storage, and the device doesn’t ask to authorize it. While the connection is being set up the tab shows Connecting to ADB…. If it fails or drops, the tab shows Could not reach the device over ADB with the reason and a Reconnect button.

What you see

A toolbar, then the list of the current folder. The tab opens in the device’s Downloads folder, /sdcard/Download.

• Go to… jumps to one of five places:

  Entry	Path
  Downloads	/sdcard/Download
  Shared storage	/sdcard
  App data	/data/data/<package>, the session’s app’s private data
  /data/local/tmp	/data/local/tmp, a folder ADB may always write to
  Root	/, the whole file system

• Up goes to the parent folder.

• The path field shows where you are; type another path and press Enter to go there.

• Refresh lists the folder again. The list doesn’t update by itself when the app writes a file.

• New folder and Upload files, described below. New folder is only there where ADB runs any shell command (see Limits).

Each row has the name, the size (files only) and the time it was last modified, in your browser’s time zone. Folders come first, then files, both in alphabetical order. Click a folder’s name to open it. Download and, where ADB runs any shell command, Delete show up when you hover a row.

App data holds what the app keeps for itself: shared_prefs, databases, files, and the WebView’s cookies and storage under app_webview. The App data feature saves and restores this folder between sessions.

Common tasks

Download a file. Hover the row and click Download; the browser saves it under its own name. Folders and symbolic links have no download button: download the files in them one by one.

Upload files. Click Upload files and pick one or more files, or drop them anywhere on the list. They go into the folder you are looking at, one after another, with a progress line (photo.jpg: 1.2 MB of 3.4 MB). A file with the same name is replaced. Dropping a picture into Downloads is the quickest way to test an app’s file picker or share sheet.

Create a folder. Click New folder, type a name and press Create. Missing parent folders in the name (a/b/c) are created too.

Delete. Hover the row and click Delete. The page asks first; for a folder it asks to delete it and everything in it, and removes the whole tree.

Look inside the app’s data. Pick App data in Go to…, open databases or shared_prefs and download the file. Open a SQLite database with any SQLite viewer on your computer. The file is a snapshot of that moment: an app that keeps the database open may still have changes in its -wal file next to it, so download that too.

Recordings

Recordings don’t keep anything of this tab: the player has no Files tab, and browsing, uploads and deletions are not recorded. What you do in the app with an uploaded file shows up on the recorded screen like anything else.

Limits

• Delete and New folder run shell commands (rm and mkdir), so they are only shown where the provider lets ADB run any command, which is also when the Terminal tab shows up (redroid.shell: full on emulators, adb.shell: full on phones, see Emulator provider and ADB on phones). By default both run only an allowlist of read-only commands and package operations, and the tab browses, downloads and uploads. Those are file transfer and work under every setting, even off.
• On emulators ADB runs as root, so every folder can be read and written. Uploaded files belong to root with mode 644: an app can read a file you put into its private data, but may not be able to change it.
• On phones ADB runs as Android’s shell user, also on rooted phones. The app’s private data and most of the system can’t be listed (the tab shows Could not list with the reason); shared storage and /data/local/tmp work.
• There is no preview, editing, renaming, moving or copying of files. To change a file, download it, edit it on your computer and upload it again.
• A download is read into the browser’s memory before it is saved, so very large files take a while and a lot of memory.
• Symbolic links are listed like folders. A link to a file can’t be opened or downloaded from the tab.
• Everything is gone when the session ends, except what App data saves.