ADB backup and restore is a handy tool that allows you to do more than some built-in backup options. You can save private data and installed applications without needing root, depending on whether or not the app allows it. Unfortunately, it looks like ADB backup and restore may be going away in a future Android release. A commit in AOSP is titled “Add deprecation warning to adb backup/restore.” A warning will be shown whenever the user runs the tool in the latest ADB tools release telling them that the feature might not stick around.
A useful tool, and I’m sad to see it go.
Another chip away at android as an open platform. This is part of the essential toolset for using and installing custom ROMs.
Google have slowly but surely removed options to root and customise the OS of a phone to the point that Android feels just as enclosed as iOS
If you really feel that Android is just as enclosed as iOS you should take some OS-therapy because your feelings and reality are not in sync 😉
It isn’t today… but it is heading that way.
And as someone pointed out below… the feature is completely removed for future releases already commited to git.
So in other words, Google doesn’t want you backing up your own data because they can’t get in on the action.
It’s not just deprecated, it’s been removed:
https://android.googlesource.com/platform/frameworks/base/+/7323eecba36991e161d621c001d35e8cccb258ab
I always had trouble with it; in particular, it wasn’t able to backup or restore data belonging to secondary users, which made it useless when trying to backup/restore our Pixel C tablet. 🙁
Still, sad to see it harder to get at your own stuff on your own phone (for those for whom it did work).