copy db file with adb pull results in 'permission denied' error

Question

I just rooted my Nexus 5 using this method: http://www.phonearena.com/news/How-to-root-Google-Nexus-5_id49014

I also enabled USB debugging in the developer options.<

Answer 1

This generic solution should work on all rooted devices:

 adb shell "su -c cat /data/data/com.android.providers.contacts/databases/contacts2.db" > contacts2.d

The command connects as shell, then executes cat as root and collects the output into a local file.

In opposite to @guest-418 s solution, one does not have to dig for the user in question.

Plus If you get greedy and want all the db's at once (eg. for backup)

for i in `adb shell "su -c find /data -name '*.db'"`; do
    mkdir -p ".`dirname $i`"
    adb shell "su -c cat $i" > ".$i" 
done

This adds a mysteryous question mark to the end of the filename, but it is still readable.