Help Getting lost chrome android data back

[adventurer]

Guys, this is driving me crazy.

My mom uses my android phone sometimes, and I guess yesterday or the day before she had reset one or more of my apps, including chrome, since all my open tabs and history is gone. I was not syncing my data and I'm desperately trying to get that data back (open tabs, history etc.). Is there anyway I can recover that data? I would be forever indebted if you can help me out! It feels like a hopeless situation, but I had about 80 tabs open that I lost, and I'd like to get them back!

She also used chrome yesterday and today, and all that shows up in history is that data.

Edit: I now actually think she hasn't reset chrome, after checking in settings chrome is latest version and it also shows a lot of data there, as well as cache. I'm not sure what happened to my tabs and history, but if it could be recovered somehow (maybe by adb), can you help me out?

 

[Hadron]

Firstly, it really depends on what you mean by "resetting" Chrome. If she cleared the app's data that would not change the app version (you'd need to "uninstall updates" to do that), and a browser will rapidly cache a lot of data if used so I'd be wary of reading too much into that. If she simply closed all tabs and erased history, which I assume you can do easily from within Chrome itself, that would produce what you are describing. I assume that she's unable to tell you what she actually did?

If the data do still exist they should be accessible from within Chrome, e.g. if it has a list of recently closed tabs (I say "if" because I don't use Chrome on any platform, and uninstall or disable it on my Android devices). It sounds like you've already established that the history has been wiped, so I'd just look to see if it offers any way of re-opening closed tabs. Unless you are rooted no other app will be able to access these data even if they do still exist. Since none of my desktop browsers offer to reopen anything beyond the last 25 tabs (or all windows from the last session) it's not so likely that you'll be able to recover all 80, but if the browser has an option to reopen old tabs it's worth a try.

But to be honest if the data have been erased I don't think there is anything you can do. These data are private to the app, i.e. stored in /data/data/<whatever_chrome's_package_name_is>, an area you won't be able to access using anything other than Chrome itself unless the phone is rooted. Continuing to use the phone means that there is a high risk of overwriting any erased data, but since I can't think of any way you could recover them I wouldn't worry too much about that - I'm afraid that if they've been deleted that's the end of it.

 

[puppykickr]

First, let me say that I despise Chrome, Google, and their lot.

Now that that is out of the way, do you have another device (tablet, PC, etc.) that you could log into your Google account and then open up Google in the browser?

It's just a guess, because I have noticed that when I used Google search for anything, it would sometimes show up in my history on other devices.

Although I found this to be incredibly annoying, you may have some use of it.

Anyway, why so many open tabs?
Most likely, she closed them because each open tab slows the browser a bit.

80 tabs is a large amout of tabs just to go through, let alone maintain open.

You would be much better off bookmarking the pages and sites that you have been leaving open.

This allows you to return to them whenever you choose, without having them open all the time.

I don't know how bookmarks work in Chrome, because I don't use it at all, but in Lightning Browser they are unlimited, always accessible, and very simple.

I have over 500 bookmarks saved.

Although this won't solve your immediate issue, it will prevent it from happening again in the future.

Also, tell her that an Android device can be had for pretty cheap these days, or better yet- get her one yourself for her birthday or some other holiday, lol.

https://f-droid.org/en/packages/acr.browser.lightning/

 

[adventurer]

Firstly, it really depends on what you mean by "resetting" Chrome. If she cleared the app's data that would not change the app version (you'd need to "uninstall updates" to do that), and a browser will rapidly cache a lot of data if used so I'd be wary of reading too much into that. If she simply closed all tabs and erased history, which I assume you can do easily from within Chrome itself, that would produce what you are describing. I assume that she's unable to tell you what she actually did?

If the data do still exist they should be accessible from within Chrome, e.g. if I has a list of recently closed tabs (I say "if" because I don't use Chrome on any platform, and uninstall or disable it on my Android devices). It sounds like you've already established that the history has been wiped, so I'd just look to see if it offers any way of re-opening closed tabs. Unless you are rooted no other app will be able to access these data even if they do still exist. Since none of my desktop browsers offer to reopen anything beyond the last 25 tabs (or all windows from the last session) it's not so likely that you'll be able to recover all 80, but if the browser has an option to reopen old tabs it's worth a try.

But to be honest if the data have been erased I don't think there is anything you can do. These data are private to the app, i.e. stored in /data/data/<whatever_chrome's_package_name_is>, an area you won't be able to access using anything other than Chrome itself unless the phone is rooted. Continuing to use the phone means that there is a high risk of overwriting any erased data, but since I can't think of any way you could recover them I wouldn't worry too much about that - I'm afraid that if they've been deleted that's the end of it.

In Chrome desktop I think we can recover the last session and the session before that. I've found some softwares online like PhoneRescue and Wondershare DrFone that says they can recover data (I don't know if I need root for that.) Should I use these softwares? Can adb do that too? There's also a tutorial in XDA forum where a complicated process (with root) describes how to recover app data. If it hasn't been overwritten, or at least not all of it, can you help me out?

First, let me say that I despise Chrome, Google, and their lot.

Now that that is out of the way, do you have another device (tablet, PC, etc.) that you could log into your Google account and then open up Google in the browser?

It's just a guess, because I have noticed that when I used Google search for anything, it would sometimes show up in my history on other devices.

Although I found this to be incredibly annoying, you may have some use of it.

Anyway, why so many open tabs?
Most likely, she closed them because each open tab slows the browser a bit.

80 tabs is a large amout of tabs just to go through, let alone maintain open.

You would be much better off bookmarking the pages and sites that you have been leaving open.

This allows you to return to them whenever you choose, without having them open all the time.

I don't know how bookmarks work in Chrome, because I don't use it at all, but in Lightning Browser they are unlimited, always accessible, and very simple.

I have over 500 bookmarks saved.

Although this won't solve your immediate issue, it will prevent it from happening again in the future.

Also, tell her that an Android device can be had for pretty cheap these days, or better yet- get her one yourself for her birthday or some other holiday, lol.

https://f-droid.org/en/packages/acr.browser.lightning/

I was not syncing with my google account (I mean syncing from inside Chrome), so I can't get my tabs (or history) in that way...

 

[puppykickr]

Well, at any rate, open tabs when not using a browser is not the way to go.

Bookmarking is.

I would consider this to be a lesson learned, and move on.

 

[adventurer]

So, my phone's Chrome app tabs and history was lost, after I presumed my mom accidentally deleted it. Or it might be for some other reason (I suspect some sort of data corruption, if it's needed I would elaborate!)
But in any case, today I discovered that my Samsung device automatically backs up my app data in my google drive. It can also restore app data, but I don't know yet how far back this data is synced or if it's continuously synced with multiple timestamped versions... I thought it would be kept as files on google drive but I'm unable to locate it.

Guys, exactly how does this recovery work? Can I revert Chrome to the state of the day before yesterday? Could I perhaps try this on bluestacks and see if this works? In my last post the replies were helpful regarding this issue, but then I didn't know that a backup was made.

Edit: I've located the backup data... Can I access deleted Chrome data there like other apps' data? Or does not enabling Sync inside Chrome mean I cannot do that?

 

[Dannydet]

https://www.samsung.com/us/support/answer/ANS00060518/
And this...
How to use Google Drive

1. Step 1: Open the app. On your Android device, find and open the Google Drive app. . ...
2. Step 2: Upload or create files. You can upload files from your phone or tablet, or create files in Google Drive. ...
3. Step 3: Share and organize files. You can share files or folders, so other people can view, edit, or comment on them.

 

[adventurer]

I didn't mean Samsung Cloud... Even if I don't enable Samsung Cloud sync, by default my app data is synced on google drive by my device (at least for my phone model that option is enabled, which is great). And app data is stored as a whole for backup (so theoretically you get the exact same state of Chrome that it was at at the time of backup, except for cache). This is unlike google account tab sync from within Chrome (which is done by google if I'm logged in Chrome) which has an upper limit on the number of tabs synced. Backup entails that you backup the entire list of tabs (in fact, for each tab a stack of pages is stored in a file by Chrome - if you have 50 tabs then you have 50 individual files in a dedicated folder).
(So my Chrome data is also backed up this way, right? As all other apps are - firefox, for example.)
With that elucidated, can you help me out?

This backup service is by google, and I'm supposed to be able to restore apps to previous states with it, right? And restoring chrome too?
Would I find my Chrome data if I download this backup from my google account? This is an article discussing the backup process, but I still don't know the answer to my question: https://www.howtogeek.com/140376/htg-explains-what-android-data-is-backed-up-automatically/

 

[Dannydet]

Chrome Browser Data: If you use the Chrome browser, your bookmarks synchronize with your Chrome sync account.

Thats copied directly from your link.

 

[adventurer]

Chrome Browser Data: If you use the Chrome browser, your bookmarks synchronize with your Chrome sync account.

Thats copied directly from your link.
Open tabs don't count, I'm afraid.

The link doesn't really say whether Chrome tabs and history are part of that data (and I thought the backup is supposed to restore the state of apps completely - for example, if you ever did a factory reset then the backup would allow you to restore any app to what it was before). Even it it wasn't, is there any way I could inspect the google drive backup to see what data that contains? There isn't an option to download the backup from drive... Could I restore whatever data it contains in Bluestacks?

 

[ocnbrze]

google drive is a cloud based backup service. it does not automatically backs up data from chrome. you would have to save the data and then move it to google drive. so unless you did back them up there, there is no need to look into google drive. as far as inspecting google drive, just either open the app or go to it on your computer.

and on my phone if i launch chrome and go to its settings i can see under recent tabs, what tabs i had opened recently. so yes tabs are backed up in data as well.