sqlite - Android Device Monitor "data" folder is empty

Question

I have tested creating, inserting and retrieving data into my apps db, and know it works through usage of Log statements.

However, I wish to expedite testing and use the Android Device Monitor. However, though the db exists and data is stored, when accessing below, the data folder is empty:

Why would this be the case? How can this be configured to show the db file and contents?

Answer 1

Solving the issue using an emulator

The folder /data can be empty because you are missing the proper permissions. To solve it, I had to execute the following commands.

adb shell
su

Those commands starts a shell in the emulator and grant you root rights. The command adb is located in the folder platform-tools of the Android SDK, typically installed in ~/Library/Android/sdk/ on MacOS.

chmod -R 777 /data

Modify the permissions of the folder (and subfolders recursively) /data in order to make them appear in the tool Android Device Monitor.

adb root

Finally, this command restarts adb as root. Be careful, it only works on development builds (typically emulators builds).

Afterwards, you can see the content of the folder /data and transfer the data located in. You can do it in console as well, using adb pull <remote> <locale>, such as:

adb pull /data/data/<app name>/databases/<database> .