GUI Usage
BoobaRecovery.exe (or python3 gui.py from source) provides a point-and-click interface for batch recovery of .booba files.
Interface overview
The window is divided into six zones:
| Zone | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Header | Title and one-line description |
| Folder inputs | Source (encrypted) and destination (output) folder paths |
| Action bar | Start / Cancel / Open Output Folder buttons |
| Progress panel | Status message, progress bar, and live counters |
| Results table | Per-file outcome with All / OK / Failed tabs |
| Log panel | Expandable debug output (click ▼ Log at the bottom) |
Step 1 — Select folders
Click Browse… next to Encrypted files folder and navigate to the directory containing .booba files.
After selecting the input folder, the tool automatically:
- Pre-fills the output folder as a
recovered/sibling - Scans and shows how many
.boobafiles were found
You can override the output folder to any writable location.
Step 2 — Start recovery
Click ▶ Start Recovery.
While running, the results table fills in real time. Each row shows:
| Column | Description |
|---|---|
| ✓ / ✗ | Success or failure |
| File | Filename without the .booba extension |
| Type | Format handler used (text, docx, xlsx, pdf, dwg, vsd, vsdx, image, …) |
| Recovered | Size of the output file |
| Lost | Percentage of content that was in the encrypted header (typically 0.5–5%) |
| Companion files | Extra files written alongside (.txt, .strings.txt, .csv, .recovered.vsd, .dxf, …) |
Click ■ Cancel at any time — files already processed are kept.
Step 3 — Review results
When finished:
- The status bar shows the final count and whether all files succeeded
- The footer bar shows a per-type breakdown (e.g.
text:12 docx:5 xlsx:3 image:8) - Click 📂 Open Output Folder to open the destination in your file manager
- Double-click any row to open that recovered file directly
- Right-click any row for: Open file, Open containing folder, Copy path
Use the OK / Failed tabs to filter. Failed entries are files the tool could produce no output for — typically zero-byte or severely corrupted inputs.
Log panel
Click ▼ Log at the bottom to expand the debug output.
- INFO lines — every file processed with its size and method
- WARNING lines — partial reconstructions (e.g. image header guessed, audio sync found at offset N)
- ERROR lines — failures with reason
Tips
- The tool never modifies original
.boobafiles — it only reads them - For DOCX/XLSX/Visio/DWG, companion files (
.txt,.csv,.dxf, etc.) are often just as useful as the primary recovered file - After a DWG recovery run, use
reconstruct_dwg.pyon the output directory to merge all.dxfcompanions into a single clean DXF - If a recovered file still will not open, try LibreOffice with the Repair option, or pass PDFs through
reconstruct_pdf.py