[sad_old_man]

As noted, they are symbolic links that help Android apps (for better or worse, they do exist and must be accommodated) find files and write files to the pb.

The real hassle is that viewing those folders (I still tend to use the older DOS terms of directories) from Windows (don't know Macs), they appear quite real and if you try manually copying files from a 64gb pb to your computer, you might find the Windows wants to copy about twice the pb's capacity - not quite 128gb but whatever. And further frustrating manual backup/copy, while many files are shadow duplicates, there are also unique files created by Android apps. I have not found a way to easily copy those unique files. Of course, those firmly opposed to installing any Android apps, whether sideloaded or sold in the BBWorld (aka appworld), may not run into this issue but, the shadow dupes do exist on their pb's anyway.

Also, the names of those shadow/symbolic folders are not the same in both pb jargon and Android jargon. So for instance, the photos folder is called DCIM (I think - too lazy to look right now).

Have a good day in Jolly Ol' England (or Chandler)

edited to add and fix: photos folder is the "pictures" folder in the Android system. The DCIM folder contains the camera folder in the Android nomenclature. Movies in Android is Videos in the pb naming system. And to make it even more interesting, there seem to be both Uppercase and lowercase versions of some of these folders: pictures and Pictures, Movies and movies.

Have fun..............

Hey F2, esteemed polar bear wrestler and guru of the pb file system? Since my last tentative exploration of the pb file structure, I've come to the conclusion that there is absolutely no structure to the file system on the pb and this makes me very very nervous??????

Using a mix of ghost commander and files and folders I discover my pb file structure is what I can only describe as 'organised chaos'. How many Android, download, pictures, music and video folders does the pb need?????? I must admit that the last time I looked at something as bad as that was the last bb balance sheet!!!!!! Any ideas why?

[FF22]

Hey F2, esteemed polar bear wrestler and guru of the pb file system? Since my last tentative exploration of the pb file structure, I've come to the conclusion that there is absolutely no structure to the file system on the pb and this makes me very very nervous??????

Using a mix of ghost commander and files and folders I discover my pb file structure is what I can only describe as 'organised chaos'. How many Android, download, pictures, music and video folders does the pb need?????? I must admit that the last time I looked at something as bad as that was the last bb balance sheet!!!!!! Any ideas why?

Other than the PB's Android experience, I have handled an Android phone once - trying to help a friend get a gps program running on his phone. So I don't know anything about the in's and out's of Android. Obviously, Rim thought it necessary to provide the appropriate FOLDERS so that whatever Android apps do run on the pb, can find what they need to either read or write files. Also, while I know little about unix, I know that some aspects of it are CASE sensitive. So that "pictures" and "Pictures" would be different Folders even if they store the same stuff. I would gather from this that some apps want the (sheesh, just interrupted by an Amber Alert on my phone - missing kid from Montana (if was on the news earlier) - SHEESH (upper case for emphasis) hard to ignore the SIREN like sound) "Pictures" folder and others want the "pictures" folder - could be that Google never enforced any reasonable standards.

Again, my real issue is that there is no easy way to find the REALLY unique files that some Android app I'm using has created so that I can back them up - and only back them up ONCE.

Harkening back to an earlier computer, Dell secreted an entire hidden partition on my c: drive to help restore the darn computer but would not let me at it to regain the space since I had no intention of ever wanting to restore to Day 1.

That's just the way things are - and, no, it may be your pb, but you only have so much control.

[sad_old_man]

Other than the PB's Android experience, I have handled an Android phone once - trying to help a friend get a gps program running on his phone. So I don't know anything about the in's and out's of Android. Obviously, Rim thought it necessary to provide the appropriate FOLDERS so that whatever Android apps do run on the pb, can find what they need to either read or write files. Also, while I know little about unix, I know that some aspects of it are CASE sensitive. So that "pictures" and "Pictures" would be different Folders even if they store the same stuff. I would gather from this that some apps want the (sheesh, just interrupted by an Amber Alert on my phone - missing kid from Montana (if was on the news earlier) - SHEESH (upper case for emphasis) hard to ignore the SIREN like sound) "Pictures" folder and others want the "pictures" folder - could be that Google never enforced any reasonable standards.

Again, my real issue is that there is no easy way to find the REALLY unique files that some Android app I'm using has created so that I can back them up - and only back them up ONCE.

Harkening back to an earlier computer, Dell secreted an entire hidden partition on my c: drive to help restore the darn computer but would not let me at it to regain the space since I had no intention of ever wanting to restore to Day 1.

That's just the way things are - and, no, it may be your pb, but you only have so much control.

With you all the way there F2 and thank you. I don't want to distract you from your amber alert but in that case if I have no intentions of running android apps on my...... Forget that question because I've already guessed that your going to say no you can't delete them because the OS will just recreate them when I boot again! What a crap file structure???????