CODEWITHSUNDEEP
androidadb
hsz
hsz

Reputation: 152206

adb pull multiple files

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 .

Upvotes: 113

Views: 118855

Answers (17)

Scott Petrack
Scott Petrack

Reputation: 231

With a linux host, and the understanding that the pathological examples mentioned above about not parsing the output of ls are, uh, pathological.... In real life I've always been able to just turn globbing with ls into globbing for adb pull by using dumbshit back quotes:

adb pull `adb shell ls /sdcard/Download/*.txt` .

pulls *.txt in /sdcard/Download from the phone into the current directory (for example). Srinivasu u's, for example, can be accomplished with:

adb pull `adb shell ls /data/media/0/WhatsApp/Media/WhatsApp\ Profile\ Photos/*` .

I find this as close as I can get to what we all really want to type. It doesn't depend on any feature or syntax that depends on any particular shell. (I don't know if Windows supports back-quotes. [Takes out onion...]). It also has the advantage that I can actually remember it....

Upvotes: 0

DroidClicketyClacker
DroidClicketyClacker

Reputation: 2092

I wanted to expand on David Momenso's answer and address the specific part of the question about wildcards. I turned his suggestion into a bash function that will allow for passing in a parameter that will append to the wildcard.

This a bash function that will allow for pulling all videos based on the date, utilizing the passed in parameter and wildcard.

function vids () { adb shell 'ls /sdcard/DCIM/Camera/VID_2022'"$1"'*.mp4' | tr -d '\r' | sed -e 's/^\///' | xargs -n1 adb pull }

  • /sdcard/DCIM/Camera/VID_2022 is pointing to the Camera folder and has the file prefix that accounts for the current year
  • "$1" is take the first parameter that comes after the function call
    • 1027 in the example usage vids 1027

enter image description here

Upvotes: 0

user3347392
user3347392

Reputation: 84

This is possible using adb exec-out. For example to get all of today's screenshots you can do:

adb exec-out "cd /sdcard/Pictures/Screenshots; tar c Screenshot_20210907*" | tar x

This will transfer all of the files inside a temporary tar archive and extract it to your current working directory. Credit is due to https://stackoverflow.com/a/39429196/3347392.

Upvotes: 1

themuddler
themuddler

Reputation: 61

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.

Upvotes: 6

user2195463
user2195463

Reputation: 331

I used this:

adb pull $(adb shell ls /storage/9016-4EF8/DCIM/Camera/wildcard*) ./

Upvotes: 0

WesternGun
WesternGun

Reputation: 12728

I am using Windows adb.exe and gitbash, even syntax is right, adb.exe says it cannot find files if used in xargs.

You have to use cmd for loop:

for /f "delims=" %G in ('adb shell find sdcard/DCIM/Camera/20221111*') do adb pull -a "%G"

This will download all photos and videos matching the criteria(in my case, taken on the day 2022 Nov 11st).

Find more info googling for /f and linux find.

If you don't have find available(Gitbash not installed), a workaround is to move all files you want on phone to another new album and adb pull from there. Not a solution but a workaround.

adb pull -a sdcard/DCIM/new-album . # will pull all photos to a folder called "new-album"

Upvotes: 1

David Momenso
David Momenso

Reputation: 2001

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:

# Using a relative path
adb shell 'ls sdcard/gps*.trace' | tr -d '\r' | xargs -n1 adb pull
# Using an absolute path 
adb shell 'ls /sdcard/*.txt' | tr -d '\r' | sed -e 's/^\///' | xargs -n1 adb pull

Upvotes: 161

samus
samus

Reputation: 6202

PowerShell:

adb shell ls /sdcard/gps*.trace | foreach {adb pull $_}

Upvotes: 4

ishmael
ishmael

Reputation: 1896

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

Upvotes: 20

srinivasu u
srinivasu u

Reputation: 1463

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

Upvotes: 0

Posting as a guesty-guest
Posting as a guesty-guest

Reputation: 351

./adb pull /sdcard <-- fails

./adb pull /sdcard/ <-- works recursively - note the trailing slash

Tested with Nexus 5 and adb downloaded March 2014.

Upvotes: 29

cardeol
cardeol

Reputation: 2238

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*

Upvotes: 7

FuriousGeorge
FuriousGeorge

Reputation: 4681

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

Upvotes: 2

Tim Long
Tim Long

Reputation: 2149

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)

Upvotes: -3

Palani
Palani

Reputation: 9032

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)

Upvotes: 4

Ofir Luzon
Ofir Luzon

Reputation: 10908

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)

Upvotes: 112

qdiesel
qdiesel

Reputation: 411

ADBFS a FUSE Filesystem for Android Debug Bridge if you are using linux or mac

Upvotes: 5

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