i know the way android stores application config and so on makes it almost imposible to keep a real functioning dotfiles. but what is the closest you can get? is there a way to at least get a declarative list of apps to install or something? maybe some f-droid config at least or something?
The closest you could actually get is to set up your own MDM system that provisioned your device from a configuration upstream
I remember a local infosec website selling people on a MDM for the entire family, advertised as being able to do parental control and block scam apps
dotfiles are just text files with a . as the first character there isn’t anything inherently magic about them other than many file browsers hiding them by default.
What functionality are you looking for with them? Configuration and secure tokens?
when i said dotfiles i meant a dotfiles repo, i think this is hugely obvious. not sure what part you don’t understand. and also, no, dotfiles are not necessarily text files.
so i’m essentially asking if it’s posible to keep track of my android configs in some similar way.
Use the export/backup functionality of the app and sync that.
It might be hugely obvious to you, but in a generic sense “dotfiles” are just files preceded by a dot… I wouldn’t have guessed you meant a git repo but after searching it seems it’s a bit of a unixporn trend? Never heard of it until now.
I’ve personally only ever heard the term “dotfiles” used in the context of a collection of customized config files. To be honest I can’t remember ever hearing a term used for
.*files/folders in general, outside of maybe “hidden directories”? Granted, it could also just be that we’re existing in different bubbles.
Hugely obvious is very relative dear, good luck!
There’s Termux on Android, which you could have ‘dotfiles’ for. There’s individual apps which sometimes have automated backups. And there’s applications that don’t have backups, or system-level settings. Being clear in your question goes a longer way than being sassy :3
As to your actual question, that’s still rather vague, because the easy answer is “backing up your entire phone”, and the longer answer is “what are you backing up with regards to Android?” Android’s system settings, within the ‘Settings’ app, is broken out even over the ADB CLI over multiple different commands, so there’s no straightforward clear question or answer here.
Your best bet is just picking apps to use that have an ‘export’ feature, and maybe using Syncthing to sync a folder with a server/computer and export the settings into that folder. I basically do that but with Nextcloud, exporting directly to a ‘Backups’ folder in my Nextcloud, sometimes with nested subfolders for grouping things. As long as Nextcloud is installed and signed in, it’s usually trivial to import them then into those apps.
But again, that’s app choice, and per-app. I can export my settings for Material File Manager, but I can’t really export them for Tempus, nor, irritatingly, HeliBoard.
If you’re rooted you might be able to set up some kind of per-app backup of their individual /data directories with something like Titanium.
