Open Camera status

Apps & Core Settings
1

I’ve continued to use Open Camera on my FP3 since it was replaced as default app by the Aperture-based ‘Camera’. The iodé update from April 2024 mentions this change but I don’t know what the reasoning was - too complex? not recently updated?

I’ve used ‘Camera’ but, whilst I’m not a photographer and don’t want an app that’s too complicated, it’s way too simplistic and lacks a number of options. So I’m still stuck with the last installed Open Camera v1.52-iode.12. It has a bug with Panorama mode, whereby it never saves the image and/or crashes. I see in F-Droid that the non-iodé version has continued to receive updates and is now at v1.55 from September 2025. I could save the settings and change to that version, but I’m curious whether the app was dropped for some other reason I should be aware of?

2

Hi Pierre,

there is an answer to your technical question: [REQUEST] update opencamera in fdroid to latest

As for why iodé chose Aperture, I don’t know. But if you like Open Camera better then just go for it!

3

As I understand we deferred to the upstream decision from LineageOS to include Aperture now as the default.

PS: Ooof my wording wasn’t that good on the linked post. I fixed it a bit to make it at least 30% more understandable :slight_smile:

1 Like
4

I had to put this to one side for a while, but I just installed the standard Open Camera from F-Droid and now have a desire to smash my phone into a million tiny fragments.

I’d already saved the backup of the (extensive) app settings from the iodé version, which goes by default in
Android/data/com.iode.opencamera/files/backups

I also made a copy of it in my Downloads folder.

Then I opened the stock Open Camera from F-Droid and went to Restore settings. It presents a basic file chooser dialog which by default looks in
Android/data/net.sourceforge.opencamera/files/backups

and presents one option of Parent Folder, but if I tap that the only option is the subfolder backups/ - there’s no way to navigate anywhere else.

Thinking I’d be clever and find a way around this snag, I selected the backup file in my Downloads folder, and tried to Copy to… but within the Android folder it only shows the media and USB subfolders and data/ is completely hidden and inaccessible. Trying to outsmart it, I tried browsing the phone’s system from my linux PC using KDE Connect, but whilst I can get to Android/data/ everything beyond that is completely invisible. I tried copying and pasting the exact path of the backups subfolder into the PC file browser but the option to paste inside there is greyed out.

So, short of tediously analysing every sub-sub-parameter of both versions of Open Camera’s settings, going back and forth endlessly and redoing every one again, there’s no way to copy those settings from one version to the other.

Any way around this?