I'm genuinely surprised there hasn't been any significant effort made to make it more readable.

Quite the opposite. They've tried to make it better, and in turn, they've made it worse.

They used to have a pretty straightforward Linux file structure, and you were expected to put things in the external Pictures folder. And downloads went to the external Downloads folder. Back then, internal storage was small and SDs were large, so apps couldn't really afford to store these things locally and the SD structure was well enough defined that it was pretty clear where pictures would go.

Now, Google has pushed against SD cards. They also started requiring more permissions for external storage. They've added some "documents" APIs that were supposed to make it easier to tag/find files, but it's a tangled mess and most apps don't touch it. And they've rewritten their storage model multiple times at this point. If you're writing a new app, it's unclear which model to even follow anymore because Google has created a giant cluster fuck of options and paradigms.

Google is actively making this problem worse and worse. I wish they had never tried to "fix" this in the first place.

Open source developer and Linux enthusiast here. Although cluttered, Android's home directory is fairly simple to understand

The nightmare begins when you take a look at the root filesystem.

One time I was trying to port an OS to my phone and I had to figure out the Android init system. Went to source.android.com and what. the. fuck. Just as a side-by-side comparison:

Linux boot sequence: Android boot sequence (unmodded, SIMPLE):

There are so many wrong things about it like why are there 11, 12 places to put programs (/system/bin, /bin, /usr/bin /system/usr/bin, /sbin, /system/usr/share/bin...)

Why the fuck drivers are scattered around folders instead of just /lib/modules

Why is the home directory /storage/emulated/0/ instead of just /home/0/ (also why the user is named "0")

Where the fuck is everything???

God (Linus Torvalds) forgive me but even Windows is better than that shit

I feel like if anything they made effort to not have people touch the file manager ever

we had a ducking sane file structure on symbian. Before apple knew what smartphone means. We had sane file structure on siemens phones.

There's no excuse for the unholy abomination of what manufacturers call an "operating system" on a smartphone these days.

It does have a files app now and it's so good compared to Android file apps right now

Ah see, the problem is you were looking in /sdcard0/ which of course, refers to your internal storage and not your SD card which is probably called /0xgg0gdjdsjgg/ or something.

My problem with it is how inconsistently things get placed.

App downloaded an image: it could be in the apps main data folder, DCIM, Pictures, Documents, or even a new folder at the base of the tree. Add an sd card and that list doubles as all those same locations exist separately on the sd card as well. (I've had images land in all 10 of these locations before)

/edit missed the 'download' folder. 12 possible locations.

Found the Ubuntu user

Not sure if it's a Samsung thing, but I can easily rename and search the files...

I have spent weeks setting up LineageOs for my unsupported phone and I think I understood it.

• So /storage/emulated/0 is practically your home directory, all folders you can easily change are there.
• I don’t understand these memes, everything gets saved to /Downloads. The default file explorer is just crap. I use amaze
• the only really weird directory is the camera, it is saved in DCIM
• If you care about app specific app data go to /Android/data (for me its like the .config directory)

And if you can save it to Files, only like two apps can open it and it's random which ones

As someone used to windows and android, I can't find anything on an iPad lol

Finder…finds things. Just sayin

The iOS Files app only lets you access a tiny part of the OS so you don't accidentally install a non-Apple approved app or god forbid, modify something on a device you own 🥴

can't plug an iphone into a windows pc and access hardly anything