Back up important stuff from an android phone via adb.

backup

#!/usr/bin/env sh
# USAGE: ./backup [texts] [pictures] [downloads]
# You can put other files you'd like to back up in $FILES

# Things to remember.
TEXTS="/data/data/com.android.providers.telephony/databases/mmssms.db"
PICTURES="/mnt/sdcard/DCIM/ /mnt/sdcard/Pictures/"
DOWNLOADS="/mnt/sdcard/Download/"

# Parse args.
for arg; do
   case $arg in
     "texts")     FILES="$FILES $TEXTS";;
     "pictures")  FILES="$FILES $PICTURES";;
     "downloads") FILES="$FILES $DOWNLOADS";;
     *)           echo "Unknown argument: $arg" && exit 1;;
   esac
done

# More things to remember.
TIME=`date "+%Y-%m-%d-%H:%M:%S"`
NAME=/mnt/sdcard/backup-$TIME

# Copy everything to a directory we can adb pull.
adb shell su -c "
mkdir $NAME && \
for f in $FILES; do
  # Make the directory that holds that file.
  mkdir -p '$NAME'\\\`dirname \\\$f\\\` || exit 1;
  # Copy the file to that directory.
  cp -r \\\$f '$NAME'\\\$f              || exit 1;
done
"

# Pull it.
mkdir -p backups
adb pull $NAME backups/$TIME

# Delete the temporary directory.
adb shell "rm -R $NAME"