Read/write application data on android I want to view data of a specific application and ideally modify the data and upload it back. I know the application data files are implicitly protected to prevent malicious application stealing passwords/accounts and other information.

However isn't there any API to back-up the data and load the back-up back? I would find this quite handy before doing un-revertible changes in applications as well.

Can I somehow read/write the entry without rooting the phone?
Reading and writing application data requires at least system permissions (user id 1000 or less) or explicit permissions (user id of the application itself). Some applications share user ids (like free and pro versions of an application) to share the same data but as a normal, not system user, you are unable to even list the files inside the /data partition where all the application data is stored.

The backup procedure from android/google itself is done with system permissions as the system user (id 1000) and does only work on applications which explicitly set the allowBackup tag to true.