CHANGELOG

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Changelog

All notable changes to VDBackup are documented here. English only.

v1.03.2

Fixes:

• The on-device cloud sign-in page always showed "Sign-in failed", even when the sign-in had actually succeeded. It now shows the real result.
• Saved backups can now be opened with a file manager: the per-app backup folders were left owner-only, so even a root file manager could not enter them; they are now accessible like the rest of /sdcard/VDBackup.

Cloud destinations:

• The optional Google Drive companion app is now built and bundled, so Google Drive works through the on-device companion (your device account, no manual token paste) in addition to rclone.

Interface:

• The backup dialog has a destination picker, so a backup can go to a chosen cloud or remote destination without changing the default destination in Settings first.
• The app checks for a newer version when it opens (at most once an hour) and shows the update banner only when one is available; it stays silent when up to date or offline.

v1.03.1

New backup scope:

• New special-backup categories: calendar (the calendar provider, plus a portable calendar.json export), wallpaper (home and lock wallpaper), private DNS (mode and specifier), and system settings (the full system/global/secure settings dump). System settings is opt-in and overwrites device-wide settings on restore, so it is gated like SSAID with explicit consent and a full audit entry.
• Standalone folder and file backup: back up any absolute path (shared storage or app data) as a compressed, manifest-sealed archive, and restore it to the same path. Restore needs an explicit confirmation.

Safer restore:

• Every archive is checked before anything is written: a backup whose contents point outside their target (an absolute path or a .. component) is refused, so a restore running as root cannot be tricked into writing outside the destination.

Progress and scheduling:

• Live progress now shows transfer speed, ETA and an item counter during backups, plus a checksum-verified step for cloud uploads and a "not enough space" pre-check.
• Scheduled jobs can be gated: run only on Wi-Fi, only while charging, only above a battery level, or only on chosen weekdays; a scheduled job is also skipped while the device is critically hot. A skipped job retries on the next tick.

Cloud destinations:

• Connect any rclone backend from the UI: the cloud-remote dropdown offers the popular providers (Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, Box, pCloud, Mega, Backblaze B2, S3, SFTP, WebDAV, FTP, SMB) plus a "Custom (advanced)" option where you type any other rclone backend name and its key=value parameters, so all of rclone's backends are reachable.
• On-device sign-in (no PC): providers that need a browser sign-in (Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, Box, pCloud) have an "Authorize in browser" button that opens the phone's own browser to the provider's consent page; after you approve, you return to the app and the remote is saved automatically, with the token captured on the device. A manual token paste stays available as a fallback.

Interface:

• An adjustable interface scale (a draggable slider) rescales the whole interface, so it fits screens of different pixel densities; 100% is the default and is unchanged.
• The interface now renders right-to-left for Arabic and Persian.
• A home overview with backup counts and a storage bar, status badges, copy-to-clipboard for hashes and paths, Android-style toggle switches, and a "Check for updates" action.
• The activity log is a full screen that opens instantly, with an "Export logs" action that saves a log file you can attach to a report.

Fixes:

• Restore and import no longer fail on devices whose bundled tar does not accept the --no-absolute-names option; the archive safety check is independent of that option.
• "Check for updates" works even where no HTTP client is bundled, by falling back to the bundled rclone; and the activity log no longer takes a long time to open.

v1.01

First public release. A KernelSU/APatch/Magisk WebUI module that backs up and restores apps and their data entirely as root, no grant prompt.

Engine and formats:

• Backup/restore engine run as a detached root process (setsid): it survives closing the WebUI or the root manager, and the UI reattaches to live progress by opid.
• Three backup modes: Full (tar.zst, local or remote), Snapshot (restic repo, encrypted and de-duplicated), and Mirror (rclone/rsync 1:1 sync). APKs are always compressed, even in a mirror.
• Items per app: APK (base + splits), data, data_de, obb, external and media. SELinux context, uid/gid, modes and xattr/caps are preserved; restore uses a pm install session and remaps ownership/context to the live uid.
• Per-user (multi-user) aware throughout. Backups are stored under /sdcard/VDBackup (per user), out of /data/adb, so they are not readable before first unlock; every destination is namespaced under <path>/vdbackup.
• Compression: none, lz4, zstd (levels), or gzip ("compatibility mode"). A JSON manifest records the device, package (including the app label), items and permissions.
• Portable encryption with age (keygen), plus a PC RECOVERY guide shipped inside every encrypted backup so it can be decrypted and extracted anywhere, without the module.

Destinations and cloud:

• Destinations: add/list/test/delete (local, rclone remote, restic repo, and an opt-in Google Drive companion); credentials are stored obscured, never in the clear.
• Create rclone remotes from the UI/API (remote-add/remote-list/remote-del), so any cloud backend (SFTP, SMB, WebDAV, FTP, S3, Google Drive, and more) is reachable without editing rclone.conf by hand.
• Google Drive two ways: via rclone (no Google Cloud account) or the opt-in headless companion app (ru.vd171.vdbackup), which carries a mandatory HMA-OSS hide notice.
• Network policy: choose whether cloud transfers may use any connection, Wi-Fi only, or mobile data only; enforced for manual and scheduled jobs. Local destinations are exempt.

Migration in:

• Import from Neo-Backup, including password-encrypted backups (AES-256-GCM decrypted by the dex helper; the WebUI prompts for the password).
• Import from Android-DataBackup (install APKs, extract user/user_de/data archives, remap).
• Both validated against real backups across devices.

Integrity and safety:

• Faithful wipe-then-extract restore; per-archive sha256 verify (default on for Full, and a repo integrity check for Snapshot), dry-run, and restore-test. Archives are read back for completeness; a corrupt archive or an invalid package name can never trigger a destructive restore, and remote-transfer failures are reported, never silent.
• Selective restore: restore any subset of the items a backup holds (APK, data, protected data, OBB, external, media), all selected by default.
• Delete backups from the UI/API (delete-backup) and keep-last-N retention for manual backups (prune); every delete, restore, prune and scheduled run is written to a local JSON audit log you can view in the app.
• Runtime permissions and AppOps captured into the manifest and reapplied on restore. The install source (installerPackageName) and the enabled/disabled state are captured too and reapplied on restore.
• Install-source spoofing: by default a restored app reports the Play Store as its install source (set at install time via the install session, since a restored app otherwise looks sideloaded); switchable globally and per restore, and when off the captured source is kept. An advanced, opt-in "deep" mode additionally forges the initiating package and package source by editing the system package database (byte-exact backup first, applies after a reboot) so the app looks fully store-installed.
• SSAID (device ANDROID_ID): strictly opt-in and prominently flagged; ABX-aware; the live file is always backed up byte-exact before any overwrite for rollback; applies after a reboot.
• Restore and import require an explicit "this overwrites the current app data" acknowledgment before proceeding.

Scheduling and automation:

• Scheduled backups with keep-N retention, managed from a Schedule tab (per app, daily/ hourly/weekly with an optional time, mode and destination).
• Automatic backup on install or update: an opt-in observer rides the scheduler heartbeat, backs up new or updated apps in the background, and only seeds on first run so enabling it never backs up everything at once. Honors the excluded-apps (blocklist) setting.

Special (system-wide) backups:

• Back up messages (SMS/MMS), contacts and call log, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth as raw, faithfully-archived system data (same SELinux/xattr preservation and optional age encryption as app backups). Restore is same-device/same-ROM faithful, reboot-required, and gated behind a prominent overwrite-and-reboot acknowledgment.
• Optional portable export alongside the raw archive: messages, call log and contacts are also written as openable JSON (read with the bundled sqlite3 straight from the provider databases, so message bodies with commas or newlines survive intact), giving a cross-device, no-module-needed copy. The portable copy is encrypted too when the backup is encrypted, so it never leaks what the archive protects.

System integration:

• Mount an installed app as a system app without touching the real /system partition: VDBackup stages the app's APK(s) into its own overlay sub-module, which the root manager mounts. With NoMount on KernelSU it is injected live (no reboot); otherwise it applies at the next boot, so it never depends on NoMount being installed. Choose regular or privileged placement.

WebUI:

• App list shows the real localized app name (resolved from the APK, so it survives an uninstall) alongside the package, with lazy-loaded, cached icons rendered as rounded, adaptive-aware tiles.
• Tap an app to open its backup history and restore any previous backup; the Backups tab shows name and package on separate lines and opens a details sheet per backup (version, install source, state, date, size, items, permission counts, device).
• Filter the app list by user/system/all and sort by name or package; select several apps and back them up in one batch; exclude apps from automatic and scheduled backups.
• Choose what to include and toggle verify or dry-run per backup; choose a test-only restore that extracts to staging without touching the live app.
• Light/dark theme, an accent-colour picker, language selector, an About tab (with the sibling projects and the bundled-binary audit manifest), a folder picker for the local destination, localized operation progress with instant feedback, and modern in-app dialogs (no system alert/confirm pop-ups).
• Back-button navigation returns to the previous tab and closes dialogs first; dialogs are floating and the app survives reopening by reattaching to live operations.

AI-friendly and i18n:

• A documented JSON control surface so agents can administer every action headlessly (docs/AI-AGENTS.md); the WebUI is just one client of that API.
• The README and all project documentation are translated into the 21 standard languages (docs/<lang>/), with docs mirrored to the wiki.
• Rich app listing and Neo decryption run through a dex helper driven as root (IPackageManager via ServiceManager), so they work where ActivityThread hangs.

This documentation was generated with Claude (Anthropic) and is maintained by VD171. Corrections and improvements are welcome - see CONTRIBUTING.md.