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!
Have you checked your “Downloads”-folder?
I’m just checking this meme instead
Not always, though. Some apps save images to /Pictures, and in there, some of them make their own folder. It really is kinda half baked.
Sometimes it’s their own folder in their own sandboxed app directory. A lot of apps do that now to avoid permissions issues. Like the GBA emulator I use no longer puts game saves in the user’s root directory so you can’t even see them without a USB connection to a PC, and even if you do that it’s extreme obfuscated.
If you refer to pizza boy, the dev told me by email that there’s an option to save somewhere else (I sent an email complaining that hiding saves in /android/data/com.app.blabla is stupid (can only be accessed via USB and it gets wiped when you uninstall the app), at least use /android/media/com.app.blabla
where exactly is the downloads folder?
/storage/emulated/0/Download
that’s what total commander told me
So convenient .
For Android, I can recommend CX Filebrowser
I haven’t tried that one but FX filebrowser is awesome
Who is this commander and why is he is fucking around with my downloads?
Total Commander is a godsend. I don’t know how people use Windows or Android without it.
Who the fuck knows.
In your phone. Just like how your computer has things in the C drive.
The files are in the computer?
I just run Files and the Downloads folder is listed there under Categories.
On Android it’s in the root folder. So basically if you just open any file explorer app, it should be on the first screen. The equivalent to the “C” drive or “My Computer” on Windows.
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.
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.
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.
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.
To be fair, Android is absolutely atrocious whenever files are involved.
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.
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.
Android has ways for app devs to specify where files get saved. App devs just usually don’t give a shit, because they want to write a single lowest common codebase for android and iOS.
Developers not bothering with Android features because they don’t exist on iOS is both infuriating and gives me IE6 era vibes.
IE6 era vibes
But… this is a nearly opposite situation, no? Microsoft added a bunch of their own shit with no attempt at standardization, and instead of simply not using those features, a ton of websites started making IE a hard requirement.
It’s either in
/sdcard/Downloadsor/external/emulated/0/android/data/com.google.chrome/Downloads. Couldn’t be easier.chrome instead of anything besides that
🤢🤮
com.microsoft.iemobile
Couldn’t be easier.
Would certainly be easier if there wasn’t an or in your statement.
Best I can do is three more ors.
Except when it is not…
For example Boost saves photo is some photo folder somewhere.
The only way i can find anything is using a photo app and scanning my entire phone to find things.
I was being facetious. Yeah, every app saves into a different location. It’s bonkers.
Boost saves in
/Pictures/Boost.
oh yeah? now list paths for all the other applications
You have other applications?
file - downloads
me: /storage/emulated/0/Android/data/org.mozilla.firefox/files/Download or /storage/3564-3130/Android/data/org.mozilla.firefox/files/Download here I come!
It’s the dumbest setup possible with how android handles saved files, and even worse by all the hoops to put files or look at files from specific folders on your phone due to all the permissions crap.
But the easiest way to find where something was saved is to open up “Files” which is “Files by Google” to be exact. It will whatever file you saved or modified right there in the “recent” section at the top so you can look at whatever goofball place it was actually saved to.
I really don’t understand why the whole finder/explorer/dolphin way of doing things wasn’t carried over to phones.
I’ve only really used Apple phones, but that was something that shocked me right away.
Back when I jailbroke my phones (before I got lazy) I had an awesome file explorer with the finder icon that made me feel at home for a bit.
ITT: people who have no working knowledge of file system navigation complain about the lack of such knowledge
It’s in Recents
Recents isn’t really a location, but a summary.
*It’s often in Recents
It’s never in Recents. Recents is utterly useless unless you’re using one of the Google apps, and even then it’s unreliable.
cx file explorer. u welcome
Isn’t the opposite?
Saving in downloads on Android doesn’t need additional storage permissions, so apps will save in the big “trash can” downloads folder
Instead, who the fuck knows where iOS saved that file, where every app is sandboxed and isolated
The worst is when an android app is clearly an iOS port. E.g Patreon app saves all files under a generic name rather than the one you get when saving the same file from a browser, because I guess on iOS it just goes into your camera reel without a filename anyway. Or how Bluesky app just straight up says “saved to your camera reel” and puts it in your DCIM folder, with no option to specify a different location.
The worst is when an android app is clearly an iOS port.
This always means there are zero settings. If there’s no way of configuring the app, I find an alternative. There are few things more frustrating than software that assumes one size fits all.
True, the folder is pretty easy to find and always the same.
Although the big problem is how quickly that folder can get messy.
Mine is filled with so much pdf files that i never want to sort, sometimes there’s duplicates because i didn’t want to scroll to find the first one so i downloaded it a second time.
IOS has a files app where saved files go
Basically the same as your download directory
Yeah lol I love how this commenter is mad about apps being sandboxed. There’s a downloads folder in the files app, or apps can have their own virtual filesystems, also accessible within the files app. Stupid iOS and ensuring that apps can’t just write to wherever they want on the filesystem
To be fair, you can’t write wherever you want on Android, either. For example, you can’t write to most of the files in
/Androidunless you use one of the many, many exploits to do sosince it’s basically a protected system area.That’s fair, I was more concerned with someone getting mad at increased security like sandboxing is a bad thing
Unfortunately, any save prompt using it often defaults to iCloud shit.
I wouldn’t know because I don’t have that enabled
https://www.f-droid.org/en/packages/name.lmj001.savetodevice/ I just use share option and select this app it just saves where ever u want…
It is so stupid that this app is needed, and so useful.
Most (all?) Iapps save images in /Pictures/[appname]
Photos taken with the camera are stored in a subfolder under/DCIM/ for example /DCMI/camera.
All my downloaded files end up in /Downloads/
The path to downloads is technically /storage/emulated/0/Downloads
But that doesn’t really ever matter because /storage/emulated/0/ is treated as root in at least the two file explorers I have.
If I mount another storage device it will probably be mounted in some weird path, but too don’t matter since file browsers will hide that.
The only time it matters for me is when using termux. The home directory has some weird ass path (/data/data/com.termux/files/home) when using termux which can make it annoying to transfer files. BUT Android storage gets mounted as ~/storage/emulated/0/. So transferring files from downloads to termux home, is as simple as
cp ~/storage/emulated/0/downloads/file.txt ~/Accessing the files from an app is very annoying and complicated, and that’s if not completely restricted.
Accessing the dirs you often need is very easy
whqt does emulated here mean
It’s an emulated FAT SD card for compatibility. Android uses a Linux file system with file permissions and modern features, but exposes it as a fake (emulated) FAT SD card.
My next phone will be a linux phone, my current one would be if I didn’t get it for free
Nice, be sure to make a post about how it goes!
Your best bet is to find something that runs droidian.
Runs android first, but you can install Linux.
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.
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