Where Does Waydroid Store Images and User Data?
Where Waydroid keeps Android system images versus your apps and files, and which folders survive a reinstall.
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Waydroid splits its data by privilege. System images and the container root live in /var/lib/waydroid, owned by root and re downloadable at any time. Your installed apps and their files live in ~/.local/share/waydroid/data under your own user.
That split decides what a backup must include. Copying the user data tree preserves everything personal, while the system tree can be rebuilt with one init command. Most failed restores come from backing up the wrong half. The log command traces init failures to a missing binder module.
Where Waydroid stores this, by platform
/var/lib/waydroid
images/ holds the system and vendor downloads, rootfs/ the container overlay. Needs root to browse. waydroid init refetches these, so this tree is disposable as long as you remember which image channel you chose.
~/.local/share/waydroid/data
Per user Android data: installed APKs, app storage, and shared media. This is the tree to back up before reinstalling the distro. Stop the session before copying it to avoid half written databases.
Frequently asked questions
where are waydroid apps and files stored
User apps and their files sit under ~/.local/share/waydroid/data, while system images sit in /var/lib/waydroid. Back up the first path for your stuff; the second can be re downloaded with waydroid init.
how do i restore waydroid after reinstalling linux
Reinstall the waydroid package and run waydroid init again to refetch the images. Your apps survive only if ~/.local/share/waydroid/data was preserved. Without that backup the container starts empty.
can i copy files in and out of waydroid
Stop the container with waydroid session stop first. Files under the data tree are plain ext4 contents, so normal file tools work. Media push and pull is easier through the documented shared folders than raw copying.
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