Isnt that the fault of some apps which doesn’t show where the file is? Or does android itself doesnt show it when you save it using system app??
This is going off my memory of an explanation I read a while ago, so I could be off on the fine details, but I believe it’s one of those things that devs do indeed have the option to do, the vast majority are just lazy as shit (I’m well aware this is likely a management decision, not he individual devs themselves in most cases) and don’t want to add anything that wouldn’t be useful on both android and ios
That’s a helluva run-on sentence but I’m too lazy to fix it.
Mostly
/storage/emulated/0/Download
or symlink
/sdcard/Download
Android 14 :/
On an unencrypted sd card that is removable.
Would anyone know where wallpapers are stored? I took a picture with an older phone (Oneplus 6) and used it as such. I upgraded to Nothing Phone 1 and I am using it as wallpaper because it copied when migrating but I cannot find anywhere for the life of me!
If it was using a version of android, photos are usually stored in DCIM folders either on your phone’s internal storage or more likely on the SD card.
Not there. At this point I don’t think it is a “camera” picture anymore but rather a system or custom wallpaper.
First android I ever had was a Galaxy S2. Goddammit that phone was so nice. I even bought a 2nd one when the first one died. But android file trees are way easier to navigate than iOS.
There’s a app called files that takes you to your saved storage, it’s not even difficult
And Fossify File Manager if you don’t want to deal with Google.
If you’re using a stock android device, the OS on your phone still has permissions to read and write to storage, by necessity. If what you’re concerned about is privacy, you have very limited ability to set storage scopes if you don’t trust the OS, and this doesn’t really change if you install an app.
If you’re using fossify file manager or any other file manager, you’ve given that app+the default Files app access to your storage. This is not more private. Most of those similar apps are essentially just skins on top of the default manager (which I suppose could be useful). This only really adds attack surface and doesn’t have any meaningful privacy benefits, and potentially some detractors depending on the app you use.
If you don’t trust the operating system and its utilities, the best option is to find an operating system you trust, and not to just install new skins on top of existing apps.
You probably can disable google files on most phones(and similiar google apps, even though not completely)
No I was alluding to the fact that google files layout I find difficult to work with.
Yes
android is actually such a fucking mess, dont even get me started.
WHO THE FUCK THOUGHT .nomedia FILES WERE A GOOD IDEA? WHO, WHICH ONE OF YOU WAS IT?
i would genuinely rather use linux on my phone, and im not even joking, android is just the worst.
What’s so bad about it? I use it to keep my mangá folder out of the gallery app.
Latest example I ran into is on android TV you cannot change your dns settings in wifi config. On regular android you can. I had to spend a couple hours fiddling with my routers networking (I was doing some weird routing for a specific network that android TV is on with a VPN tun only for that network). And if it just had the ability to change the dns settings to a static value I wouldn’t of had to do that. Why would they do that?
for starters. The fact that i had to google it to figure out what it was. Let alone randomly discover that it exists in a tangentially related search. It is an ASTRONOMICALLY inaccessible feature to someone who isn’t readily invested into android.
secondarily, it should be done in the gallery, obviously. That just MAKES sense. The place where you are shown pictures, should also be the place where it lets you ignore more pictures. If you want to use .nomedia as a backend for that? Fine, Document it at atleast.
It’s also just, weird… The gallery app only seems to consider a few folders existing at any state. Some better than others, i have no idea what drives the logic behind it. But you can nest them, super easily, which definitely won’t cause any issues. If you have a single folder you do want to show, but 9 that you don’t, you need 9 no media files, because that’s convenient apparently.
I mean really any other system would’ve been better, a directory list, a file table, a database, literally anything that lets you mark it interactively. Having a single HIDDEN file, determine the state of an entirely independent app is just next level hackery. You really shouldn’t ever do that. It’s just fundamentally bad design philosophy. It’d be like a lightswitch on the opposite side of your home, preventing your garage door from opening.
Doesn’t seem that complex to me. Feels like it’s akin to a .gitignore file to me.
.gitignore would be application specific though? In that case you have a semi reasonable usage case, because it’s obviously going to be documented, and it’s not like it interferes with too much else.
It’s wild to me that everyone here talking about how much Android sucks is just airing greivances about the stock apps from Google/Samsung/etc.
The gallery app is not part of Android. The file manager is not part of Android. pretty much every app that came preinstalled on your phone is not part of the OS.
You don’t hate Android, you hate the bloatware that came on your phone.
yet another big problem with android. Why does every OEM have their own flavor that is equally shit.
Im sure people will tell me to just root it or use different software, my brother in christ i want you to ship me a phone that i can fucking use, not one that i have to sterilize and give amnesia. Linux has been doing this for a million years, why can’t android?
You’re more than welcome to buy one of the many phones that comes with stock android without added bloat
“android is better than ios”
“hey im on android and it sucks”
“you’re using the wrong android you dumbass”
Wow it’s almost as if when there’s a term that actually covers multiple different operating systems, there’s going to be variations in quality between them! Imagine that!
E: sp
.nomedia files are fairly standard across applications on Android and Linux. Nextcloud and other applications will use them to know not to scan that forlder with automation, thumbnail creation, ml, etc. Its a simple and standard signal. It follows the .file convention so it should be hidden when not browsing with hidden files on.
i have never seen a .nomedia file on linux, not once in the 4 years i’ve been daily driving it. Nextcloud might use it? Idk i host my services like a true linux user (fully self hosted) so i don’t have to deal with shitty software.
Regardless it’s still just not a good format. It’s standard in the sense that it’s a .nomedia file, i suppose, that doesn’t mean the implementation is going to be standard, or that it will even adhere to it at all.
It being hidden when browsing itself is a UI concern itself. Can’t wait for that to be confusing.
It just seems highly fragile to have the filesystem itself tell an application maybe what to be doing with those files. I’d much rather have it be based on any other form of data structure.
This is turning a generation of people tech illiterate. The young people I interact with are smart because they’re all employed by a tech company and mentored by us dinosaurs, but I’ve heard some horror stories of the tech literacy of the average young person.
Touchscreen was a mistake.
Touch input isn’t the problem. Hiding the file system is.
Yup. I teach at a university. It used to be adequate for instructions to say something along the lines of
open the file
C://Folder/anotherfolder/subfolder/document.extI encounter more and more students every year that have no idea how to do this.
Your path syntax is wrong tho…
To be fair, Android is absolutely atrocious whenever files are involved.
Removed by mod
Still can’t rename file extensions though
I just tried with the default files app. You can definitely rename file extensions.
Wow you’re right. Just checked again, they must have added that this new major iOS version.
Is there some higher level thing preventing this?
If I open a terminal on my galaxy s23 I don’t see anything special with file extensions:
$ echo foo > shit.txt
$ mv shit.txt shit.mp4
$ cat shit.mp4
foo
I was talking about files on iOS.
Don’t need the terminal for that. I can use Google Files to rename a pdf to .txt and it opens in a text editor
Don’t need the Google Files for that. I can use the terminal to rename a file.
I’m an IT teacher at a community centre, I genuinely never thought I would see the day when a student younger than me enrolled. I wrongly assumed my role as a public educator would just fade out as younger generations required generally less training around computers.
Obviously courses in disability service centres would remain, and accredited training for people to kick off or retarget their careers would still exist.
But the person at the local library who meets twice a week and teaches grandma how to close the tabs on her phone felt like a job that was destined to die.
I’m in my 30s and this year I have a few teenagers in my class. The conversations are hilarious, they don’t know how to read a file location adreess or open a program that isn’t pinned to the taskbar, but at the same time, I don’t know how to access the notifications bar on an iPhone or quickly find the wifi settings without going through general settings…because I went from windows to 98, to a blackberry, to an Android, just like they went from an ipad toddler to an iPhone teen, and only now are they having Windows 11 thrown at them, and of all the computers to try and learn to use, this wouldn’t be my first recommendation (but it’s what our government funds us to teach 🤷♀️)
The skill divide is so hard to explain too. My elderly students just stare blankly at one screen, overwhelmed and confused, unsure how to recognise anything. Nothing stands out as a link, or a click able button, because the entire visual landscape is new to them. There is often a lot of hand holding which can be frustrating especially when you made a huge breakthrough in their confidence and independence only to have come in the next week feeling insecure about their skills because they’ve forgotten a little bit, or had a bad spam caller over the weekend who made them want to never touch a computer again.
Then the teens, who know what links look like and generally what they do will rush ahead, they may not know what it is exactly they’re trying to do, but they think they know what end result is expected and they generally know how to avoid catastrophic issues so they just barrel ahead, I’ll see them make 40 clicks a second for something that usually takes 2, because they’re throwing spaghetti at the wall.
I had a project last week. Dead simple. Save a linked file to a target location, import the file into another program through either drag and drop or browsing for the file, then change 1 thing, and export the final file into another target location, as specified on the activity sheet.
Barely 5 minutes in, I’m still helping Brenda get her mouse dongle plugged in, and one of the teens is finished. And yes, they have every file I asked for, and every edit I asked for, but both are just sitting in the downloads folder. And now we’re at the end looking back, the teen is confused because they have the edited file that is required to "finish*, how is it wrong, and I’m trying to explain why skipping the steps about target locations means they’ll have to start again because this activity is all about target locations and I don’t actually give two shits about this file I just need them to put things in and out of a folder until they can explain to me “a folder is a container” and not just stare into space because a folder is a black hole on their phone things they save go to until they need them again and just download them again.
Nothing stands out as a link, or a click able button, because the entire visual landscape is new to them.
That’s because modern UI designers are all about form over function. UI rules were worked out 40 years ago with the first gui’s. But you don’t get a promotion for maintaining code. So everyone has to do something different to get noticed.
So now we have UI’s where interactive and non interactive elements are mixed without any visual distinction.
I’m a Millenial, and it’s been wild to see how i’m basically near the top of the bell curve when it comes to understanding the basics of using computers. Like you, I thought general computer illiteracy would die with the Boomers… but here we are.
Stuff like that are infuriating. I’m in high school and there’s an animation class.
The teacher has very clearly told the class about a million times to save the files in
OneDrive/2024/Animation/People are still saving it in downloads or documents or somewhere else and then saying they forgot where they saved it and did nothing the whole class.
For better or worse, we’re going the way of “the car guy”. It used to be something everyone needed to know a little bit about, but now fades into the background with a handful of experts.
As long as the non-experts somehow manage to make a living to pay for our expertise. I heard a coworker vent about her son who wants to drop out of school (assuming elementary / middle) to focus on his streaming career…
I’m car guy, IT guy, home maintenance guy, and electronics repair guy.
I learned how to do everything because I’m a cheap ass that won’t replace what can be fixed and won’t pay to have something be fixed when I can manage it myself.
I got 240,000 miles on a car right now and it’s never seen the inside of a shop. Last big screen TV was free because it was broken and then I soldered new LEDS on to fix it. Paid $25 for an $800 dishwasher that just needed disassembling and cleaning. Also $25 for a front load whirlpool washing machine with a broken internal lock mechanism that I repaired. Same for a dryer with bad rollers inside.
People blow way too much money on buying new stuff instead of just learning how to fix and maintain things now. /old man rant
Damn that’s a good way to put it.
Yes, this is much worse than when a bunch of old people were upset when young people didn’t know how to use a telegraph/party line/rotary dial/gramophone/touchtone/turntable/fax/dialup modem/cassette deck/etc. Because now it’s happening now, and back then it was happening then.
The difference is all that stuff went away, traditional desktop computers aren’t going anywhere. Sure, you can probably manage fine at home with just a phone, but not in a lot of jobs.
Your phone is measuring time by counting how many seconds has passed since 1970-01-01 00:00 UTC. Doesn’t matter if you’re on android or apple, the OS is based on ideas of Bell Labs people’s ideas from the 1960’s.
ITT: people who have no working knowledge of file system navigation complain about the lack of such knowledge
honestly it’s not this, is just the fact that android puts so much shit in between you and whatever you’re trying to do.
The concept of downloading a file is simple, it’s courtesy to tell you where it downloads at the very least. Android doesnt exactly have the most sane of defaults.
dont get me wrong, im a linux user, im a certified power user, even i can’t stand android.
It’s easier to just redownload the file at points. I think I got like 6 copies of the same utility bill on my mobile because it was easier.
Dont even try when it comes to torrent downloads. They go into a top secret location only the torrent app knows of.
Just use termux and rtorrent, turning android into a linux terminal is the best
Have you looked into Android/com.torrentapp.name/files?
Just found torrent client “BiglyGT” on f-droid. It can download to random folder on sdcard through SAF (Storage access framework).
Too logical 😠
Don’t forget “This file has already been downloaded, do you want to download it again?”
And the options are to cancel or download again but you can’t open the already existing file from the prompt, so you might as well just download that fucking PDF for the fifth time since it’s not as if you knew where the bloody thing’s been downloaded anyway!
you guys don’t simply have a folder called “Downloads” where everything goes?
Everything does not go there, different file types seem to go to different places. Successful downloads don’t ever appear sometimes.
I don’t know what setting you’ve accidentally turned on, but all my browser downloads go to my Downloads folder by default. I’ll admit in-app downloads can end up in a few different spots, though. Most in-app picture downloads end up either in Downloads or in a subfolder inside the Pictures folder, though.
idk man, sounds like a skill issue
Do I press download differently? There shouldn’t be skill in the default download location.
yes you gotta press it on the right spot…
Each application can have its own default download location. Reddit apps were particularly bad about that and it may have carried over into lemmy as well. But learning the settings for the software you want to use isn’t a terrible ask.
I have a Downloads folder where some things go. :(
Yes, that’s exactly how the two android phones I’ve used have worked, and why this post is getting upvoted is a mystery to me.
There are also folders called “Camera” and “Screenshots”, and I’ll give you three guesses where photos and screenshots go.
DCIM probably. While my stuff is in Media, because pictures and videos are always a mixed bag anyway. OpenCamera allows changing the save path, luckily; Media/Camera
Some apps save to their internal storage; /data/data/funny.app.name or /storage/emulated/0/Android/funny.appp.name. It would be funny if not for wanting to cry.
Btw, why not just mount internal storage to /Internal, user home /storage/emulated/0 to /home/<name> and external to /sdcard1 /sdcard2 /otg, @google?
Yeah, where I’ve got a shit load of files that, the first time, automatically download with their default name which is usually a bunch of random letters.pdf, it’s quicker to just download it again than to find it!
Annoys me every time. But as I remember you could click on the file and open it on older android systems.
Still works for me on current phone
Someone told me what the issue was, settings > downloads > turn off the “ask where to download” option
This made me laugh more than the meme. Thanks.
Click the name. It doesn’t look like an option, because there are buttons for download or cancel, but the file name is also a link to the file.
Yeah if I ever come across this experience, I just click on the name of the file that I already downloaded. Comes up and no need for redownloading.
Nope, not on my Pixel 7 using Chrome
It works on my Pixel 7 using Chrome!
Show me a screenshot of where you’re able to tap to open the file because I certainly can’t find it…
If I tap the file name it opens the keyboard, if I tap the folder it shows how much space is available…
Oh wow, mine presents differently:
Yeah someone told me it’s the only option in the download settings that needed to be deactivated
You’ll need to turn off “ask where to save files” in chrome download settings.
Thanks, it works! Funny how that’s an option considering it downloads files without asking anything the first first time and only ask for your input if you try to download it a second time…
What is that like android 6
14 with Chrome 121.0.6167.164
It links to a file with that name. There have been times where I download a pdf and click the name only for my phone to open a different pdf than the one I was supposed to be downloading. Turns out they both had the same name.
It makes sense. I don’t think it’s possible to detect if the contents in two files are identical before downloading it, so all it can do is to compare the file name.
Anyway, the dialogue could be more helpful in this regard, but I guess that would also annoy or confuse some users.
I know where my saved files go.
It’s not that hard to figure out actually.
I feel like this meme only makes sense for people who don’t know basic file system navigation…
Literally never had this problem, not once, starting at Android 2.3 when I got my first android phone. It’s literally just files and folders, like any other OS.
Even when dealing with apps that don’t have a way to check where a file is, any file manager app worth a damn, will have a way to easily find the most recently saved/modified files.
So I had a problem with this, and I am a cd… cd/ format . person who loves computer file systems.
I think what messed me up is that certain apps have different default save folders, and I wouldn’t know where they were or forget.
This ☝️
And when your storage is full from videos and gifs that friends exchange in WhatsApp or whatever, or Instagram keeping everything you post, and you want to clean up, there’s no easy way to do it.
Oh boy. Do I have a bone to pick with whatsapp. Their message data management is a complete clusterfuck.
Though if you just want to delete media, that’s easy.
Whatsapp has it’s own folder in root that contains a folder for each file type. Edit: Not anymore, it’s in/Android/media/whatsapp/WhatsApp/Medianow. You can safely delete them all, though media files will no longer be accessible in your message history, as WhatsApp has literally no way to keep that stuff around without monolithically saving all of it on your device, locally, forever.Instagram saves content to a couple folders, all in easy to find places like root, Movies, DCIM and Pictures.
As for Instagram app data, you can clear that from app settings.
Most can be cleaned by going into Settings, Apps, Whatsapp, Storage and clicking delete cache. permanently saved ones may be more problematic
No. It’s not deleted with the cache. It’s like everything is saved in a separate folder.
Yeah for that it is launch files app, choose device, android, data, app/com/org folder, then there will be a files subfolder. which is often split into pictures, audio, movies, etc.
it’s a deep dive for sure
A given program having a default save location is true on any platform. The “My Documents” folder on windows is used for anything but. So many applications throw files in there it’s basically useless.
With Android, application files are kept in application specific locations, while user files basically always end up in Download or Pictures, sometimes, rarely, Documents. DCIM for system camera photos.
If you need to clear an applications files, that can be done via that apps page in settings.
The only difference I can see is that on phones, default file system behaviour is designed so that it gets out of most people’s way, while those of us who know how it works can still use a file explorer app just fine.
While normies rely on the default file picker showing a monolithic list of what’s on their phones in chronological order, we don’t have to. When that thing appears, you can find any file management apps installed from the hamburger menu, and find your files using them instead.
Hey did you work with any of the fuchsia people who got laid off? Do you know if the project is planned to be cancelled any time soon?
?
No, and I’ve no clue.
I had a photo on my Galaxy I needed to delete, I had to delete it from three separate folders.
Is that a Samsung problem, not an Android problem?
Almost certainly, I for one don’t remember having to do it that on my Pure, but you can bet I was pretty pissed at everyone involved anyways.
my opinion might be biased as someone who deliberately avoids samsung products because of horrible software and bad quality control (on some devices).
yes, that’s a samsung thing.
Delete it all you like, if you run Google photos, it will still end up stuck in there.
You got me paranoid and I had to check!
No, as it happens, I have a habit of denying all the permissions I can so at least Google pretends it’s not in the cloud.
Don’t use
someone else’s computerany cloud services…easy.
some of them really don’t, but people in my circle (all of them gen z) are familiar to a degree. many of them use android phones and/or windows, which very much require that if you want to do anything useful.
Sorta makes sense.
It’s like my generation not knowing how to fix cars because our fathers all did it.
My next phone will be a linux phone, my current one would be if I didn’t get it for free
Your best bet is to find something that runs droidian.
Runs android first, but you can install Linux.
Nice, be sure to make a post about how it goes!
