ANDROID COMMAND-LINE RESCUE

Backup first.
Repair with confidence.

A focused Android toolkit for fast local backup, disaster-recovery preparation, diagnostic capture, and failure triage before a reset, reflash, or replacement.

Install in one line → View source

Local-first · USB debugging required · No cloud upload

+RECOVERY READY

$ adrescue data /mnt/rescue --recovery-profile

✓ backup destination selected

✓ encrypted archive created

$ _

01 Fast local backup
02 Disaster recovery prep
03 Diagnostic triage
Free, and staying that way

No account, no upload, no paid tier. If this got your photos off a dying phone, a coffee helps keep it maintained.

Buy me a coffee

ONE LINE, NO SUDO

Install it, then use one command.

Linux or macOS, or a WSL terminal on Windows. It installs into your home directory and gives you a single command called adrescue.

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nikolareljin/android-device-rescue-kit/main/install.sh | bash

It puts adrescue in ~/.local/bin and adds that directory to your PATH. Open a new terminal afterwards. Windows and WSL, USB passthrough, choosing where rescued data is written, and running from a git clone instead are in the installation guide.

1

Install

adrescue --help

Run it once in a new terminal. If it prints the command list, you are ready.

2

Connect

adrescue probe

Enable USB debugging, plug the phone in, run this. It answers immediately and changes nothing on the phone.

3

Choose a path

Rescue the photos, back up shared data before a destructive repair, or capture diagnostics for analysis.

ONE COMMAND, SIX JOBS

Keep the workflow simple under pressure.

FIRST

Check the connection

adrescue probe

Answers immediately: has the attached phone authorised this computer? It never waits and never changes a phone setting.

PHOTOS

Rescue every picture

adrescue photos /mnt/rescue/photos

Finds every photo and video twice over, through MediaStore and a filesystem sweep, copies them, then re-measures each copy against the phone. Exits non-zero if one is missing.

Full usage guide →
BACKUP

Preserve shared data

adrescue data /mnt/rescue/backup

An interactive checklist for downloads, media, screenshots, music, app inventory, and the opt-in recovery profile.

Backup and restore guide →
DIAGNOSTICS

Capture evidence

adrescue log

Bugreport, logcat buffers, dropbox entries, dumpsys and a local triage report for reboot loops, storage faults and radio failures.

Diagnostic details →
ANALYSIS

Build a prompt

adrescue prompt captures/<timestamp>

Turns a capture into a focused analysis_prompt.md. Read and redact it before sending it anywhere.

Full usage guide →
UPGRADE

Move to the latest release

adrescue update

Upgrades your installed copy to the newest release in place. Already current, it says so and stops.

WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE

A terminal you can read under pressure.

What you see while it works: whether the phone is reachable, how far a long copy has got and which file it is on, and what it reports when it finishes.

Is the phone reachable?
Is the phone reachable? adrescue probe answers immediately and changes nothing on the phone.
Copying, with a progress bar
Copying, with a progress bar One gauge for the whole run, naming the file in flight. Several thousand photos take an hour, and a bar is the difference between slow and stuck.
Shared storage, same bar
Shared storage, same bar adb prints its own progress; it is read back out and drawn here rather than scrolling past.
What it says at the end
What it says at the end Every copy is re-measured against the phone. The count is the contract: nothing is reported verified that was not.
Where everything is written
Where everything is written adrescue config resolves the data and work directories, and says where each value came from.
The whole command surface
The whole command surface One command, and adrescue <command> --help for any of them.

OPTIONAL RECOVERY PROFILE

Bring sign-in recovery into the plan.

Select Recovery profile in the backup checklist, or use the additional parameter below. It collects available settings, network information, app recovery guidance, and an owner-selected password-manager export.

adrescue data /mnt/rescue/backup --recovery-profile

An encrypted archive is created with a passphrase. A readable credentials TXT copy is retained only after explicit confirmation.

WHEN YOU CANNOT TAP ANYTHING

The screen is broken and USB debugging is off.

Every command here needs USB debugging, and that switch lives behind the phone's own screen. ADB cannot turn ADB on — if it could, a stolen phone would be an open book. The way through is to give the phone a monitor and a mouse over USB-C, unlock it there, and flip the switch by hand.

Recover a phone with a broken screen →

Covers external display over USB-C, the mouse-only route, what to buy and where, and the approaches that look promising but cannot work.

BEFORE YOU WIPE

Review the manifest. Keep backups private.

Backups can contain personal media, account-related metadata, Wi-Fi identifiers, and exported credentials. Keep them on controlled storage, retain the archive passphrase separately, and use official in-app transfers for authenticators, banking apps, and encrypted private data.