As I said earlier, most users do not
create Android backup files.
It is so rare that you're going to stumble upon a computer that
has backup.ab and shared.ab.
This is most often created for forensic examination.
Now, something to consider-- if you are an Android user,
and you're like, yeah, I don't do backups.
Do you truly know what Google collects on you?
Have you ever done a security check of your Google settings?
Have you ever tried to pull your own Google Takeout
to see what it knows about you?
I want you to look at your Google Takeout,
and then compare it to some of the other tools
that we're going to use to create these backups
and see what is really there.
I'm going to show you mine.
I recently just did another Google Takeout
I think a few days ago I'm going to compare
to what ElcomSoft extracts for me,
what Cellebrite extracts for me.
It may differ in what Google releases
for you to see versus what some of the commercial tools
can get for you behind the scenes.
These backups could contain legacy information.
So if I go on a mass deleting spree right now on my Android,
it does not mean that all of those files
are going to be removed from cloud.
It could be a period of time.
It may require an additional sync.
But what happens if the syncing just creates a new backup?
What's going to happen there?
So there are many things that you can do if you create .ab
file standing for Android Backup.
It is simply a tar format that you can look in and extract.