Seednaut

Inspect, verify and extract files from Seedvault backups.

Quick Start • CLI Examples • Installation • Development notes

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Various Android distributions like CalyxOS, GrapheneOS, iodéOS, LineageOS and /e/OS integrate Seedvault as their main backup mechanism. There are currently no official tools for inspecting such backups off-device. To help fill that gap:

Seednaut is a desktop command-line and terminal UI utility that lets you

• Verify that backups are intact
• Explore backup contents before relying on them
• Recover specific files without a full device restore
• Unpack app backup data (.tar, .db) into accessible formats

It runs purely offline and supports current Seedvault backup formats (v2 app backup and v0 file backup formats). For older backups you can try some of the other 3rd party tools.

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Quick start

Prerequisites:

Seedvault backups are usually stored in a directory named .SeedVaultAndroidBackup. Depending on your backup configuration you can copy it

• from a phone
• from a USB drive
• from Nextcloud/WebDAV storage

Note: some file managers hide directories beginning with . by default.

You will also need the 12-word mnemonic phrase that was used to create the backup.

1. Get Seednaut

You can build from source, use cargo install seednaut, or install via pkgsrc or Nix.

Alternatively, download a prebuilt binary matching your operating system:

Platform	File match
Linux (Intel/AMD)	x86_64-unknown-linux-musl
Windows (64-bit)	x86_64-pc-windows-msvc
macOS Apple Silicon	aarch64-apple-darwin
macOS Intel	x86_64-apple-darwin

2. Run Seednaut

Running Seednaut without arguments starts the interactive TUI mode. It guides you through the steps of locating the backup, entering your mnemonic and performing the inspection/verification/extraction. Depending on your installation method, enter seednaut or ./seednaut in a shell.

On Windows, you can simply double click seednaut.exe or drag&drop your backup onto it.

CLI Examples

Seednaut can also be used directly via the following commands.

List snapshots:

seednaut list /path/to/.SeedVaultAndroidBackup

Inspect snapshot contents:

# All snapshots
seednaut inspect /path/to/.SeedVaultAndroidBackup

# Only specific snapshots (e.g. indices 1 and 3 from the output of the list command)
seednaut inspect /path/to/.SeedVaultAndroidBackup 1 3

Verify cryptographic integrity of snapshots:

seednaut verify /path/to/.SeedVaultAndroidBackup

Extract files:

# Basic extraction
seednaut extract /path/to/backup --out ./recovered

# Also unpack app backup data or, in case of K/V app backup, convert to JSON
seednaut extract /path/to/backup --export --out ./recovered

# Use regex to selectively extract matching package names and file paths
seednaut extract /path/to/backup --match "IMG_2026.*\.jpg$" --out ./recovered

Pipe mnemonic via stdin:

echo "$MY_MNEMONIC" | seednaut verify /path/to/backup

Run seednaut help or seednaut help <command> for full CLI documentation.

Installation

For prebuilt binaries, see Quick start.

Cargo

Install from crates.io with Rust >=1.88:

cargo install seednaut

pkgsrc

Available on NetBSD, SmartOS, Linux, and other platforms.

If you use pkgin:

pkgin install seednaut

Or via pkg_add:

pkg_add seednaut

Build from source using pkgsrc:

cd /usr/pkgsrc/sysutils/seednaut  # Adjust pkgsrc path as needed
make install

Nix

With Nix installed, add Seednaut to your user profile:

nix profile install nixpkgs#seednaut

Or try it in a temporary shell:

nix shell nixpkgs#seednaut

Run seednaut inside that shell; exit returns to your previous shell.

Depending on your Nix configuration, you may need to enable the nix-command and flakes features. Your Nixpkgs revision must include Seednaut.

Build from source

Requires Rust >=1.88:

git clone https://github.com/Baltram/seednaut && cd seednaut
cargo build --release

The executable is placed in target/release/seednaut (target/release/seednaut.exe on Windows).

Development notes

Generated man pages are available under man/ and can be regenerated with cargo run -p xtask -- man. Similarly, protobuf bindings can be regenerated with cargo run -p xtask -- proto.

AI coding tools were used during development. Generated code, architecture, crate selection were manually reviewed and iterated on extensively before release.

Please note that, while developed with security in mind, Seednaut has not undergone professional security auditing and is provided on a best-effort basis.

License

Licensed under either of

• Apache License, Version 2.0
• MIT license

at your option.