Clone(backup) an Android App with all its data on a real device for better debugging

Question

I've created an android app which tracks user experiences(for example mood) through days( So it uses databases) and I've installed it on my (real) phone. To truly assess my application I work with the application on my real phoine for some days to see how it works.

The problem is about upgrades : when I make changes to my app and then update the app in my phone respectively there is a great chance everything would be ruined. for example suppose that I mistakenly add a line to delete the database! So I want to clone(backup) the app on my real device before updates. Is it possible?

More clarification: I want to make clone of the app installed on my real device with "all it's data". As I've mentioned, app's data will be the user's experience which may contain a week or month of data. Changing app id will install a fresh copy which I'm not interested in.

Answer 1

The only defining thing about an app in a device is the appId. So you can have two instances of the same app as long as they have different applicationId . You can simply change the applicationId property in build.gradle file to achieve this:

android {
    ...
    defaultConfig {
        applicationId "any.new.name"
    }
    ...
}

Keep changing the appId for different versions