Most of the time the data you have on your devices is very important. And you will be heartbroken if you lose your data in your device. Especially when you use your phone for business. As people depend on their smartphone everyday and losing the data on devices can be a kind of disaster, it is important to backup your Android phone regularly.
Unfortunately, Android doesn’t include a one-tap backup for protecting everything on the device. Therefore, we are going to tell you the ways you can backup your device properly, so you won’t lose anything precious.
How to Backup Your Android Device
Most major smartphone platforms can backup their data to a computer or to the internet. Here are a couple of resources you can us with your Android smartphone to ensure that your data is properly backed up.
1. Backup Android Settings to Google Drive
Android does offer a simple toggle to backup some of your preferences. This is a quick way to do so, therefore we will start with it. For doing this, you need to navigate to Settings >> System >> Backup. Now you can see a Back up to Google Drive button. You need to make sure you have enabled it. Now you can tap the Back up now to run a backup if you would like.
In the below list, you can see the categories of data this backup includes. It will protect data from certain apps, like your contacts, call history, and various device settings like your wallpaper and display options. On pixel devices, backups will also include SMS and photos/videos.
To view the devices linked to your account, you can slide out the left menu and tap Backups inside Google Drive. Tap one to get details on what’s backed up and when it was last run. This is also where you can delete backups, if needed.
Like with other back up apps, you can’t restore this data individually. When you sign into your Google account during the setup process of a new Android device, you can choose to restore it. Any of your apps will be reinstalled in this way and your saved data will be restored.
2. Backup Your Android Photos
losing photos is like losing your old priceless memories, therefore it would stings more than losing other types of data. Now we will offer you Google Photos for this. And Google offers free unlimited photo storage at high quality, or full-quality backup that counts against your Google account storage. Install the Google Photos app and sign in with your Google account.
For enabling backup features, slide out the left menu and go to Settings >> Back up & sync. Make sure you have Back up & sync enabled; you can choose your quality level below this. Take a look in the Back up device folders section to back up non-camera photos like screenshots, social media images, and similar.
Once everything is protected, you’ll see a Backup complete message on the home screen. After this, you can use the Free up space option from the left sidebar to remove the images from your device. They’re safely backed up in Google Photos, so you can view them anytime you’re online.
3. Backup Your Android Contacts
For not losing your contacts, you should save them to your Google account instead of only on your phone. By doing this, your contacts will be available on any devices where you sign in with your Google account.
It depends on your phone manufacturer where your contacts save by default. In order to do this, you should open the Contacts apps and look for a Default account or New contacts save to option, and make sure you have it saved to your Google account.
We offer you to use the Google Contacts app if you don’t already have it installed. In this way you can easily move everything over. When you installed it, you should open the left menu and head to Settings >> Import and choose the SIM card option to copy any contacts saved on your device over to your Google account.
To make a local backup of your contacts, choose Export in this menu, then you need to select the Google account you want to use and then hit Export to .vcf file. This is a small file that contains all your contact information. So if needed, you can import it into other services.
4. Backup Your Messages
It would be some how good to have a backup of your old text messages to have a backup of them in some situations, though you probably don’t need to reference them.
One of the best and easiest ways to do so is using the free SMS Backup & Restore app. Install it and then it will walk you through the process of setting up a backup. You’ll choose what to back up, where to save the backups too, and how often to run it on a schedule. You might consider using Pulse SMS. By subscribing a small fee, you will be allowed to send text messages from your PC and other devices. In fact, it backs up your messages to the cloud and that’s why you can access them on any device you sign into.
5. Backup Other Local Files
Till here, we have covered the most important types of Android data. But there might be other files on your phone which you want to backup. Some files such as music, documents you want to protect or some certain apps from which you want to backup data.
For backing up a few files here and there, you can use a cloud storage service like Google Drive. Open the app and tap the Plus icon, hit Upload, then locate the file you want to back up to cloud storage. If you have many files to back up, see the below methods for more efficient ways of doing so.
It is noteworthy that you don’t need to worry about backing up anything that is cloud-based. That will all be in place when you sign in on a new device. However, if you use apps that save locally, you should transfer them to a service like Google Keep or Simplenote so they are backed up to the cloud.
Some apps offer their own backup options in the menu. WhatsApp is a notable example of this. Head to Settings >> Chats >> Chat backup to back up your WhatsApp messages to Google Drive, and set up an automatic backup.
Voicemail would be a final type of data that not included in most backups. It depends on your phone manufacturer and service provider whether you be able to export voice messages from the voicemail app. If it is not possible for you to do so, you should play the messages through your device’s speaker and recording them on your PC by using Audacity app.
How to Backup Android Using Dedicated Apps
There are many Android apps that backs up your device for you. This part is for ones who find the above solutions too scattered.
One of the best dedicated apps to use is G Cloud. When creating an account on it, you will be allowed to backup photos, call log, documents, messages, and the like. It’s a great all-in-one solution if you are worried about missing something manually.
G Cloud offers a limited amount of storage, but you can get more by completing simple tasks or signing up for a subscription. It feels like the missing backup solution for Android. If you don’t like this one, have a look at Super Backup & Restore for a similar utility.
Backup Contents to a PC
A quick and dirty way to back up the rest of your phone’s data is copying everything on your internal storage to your computer. This is useful if you have lots of files scattered around and don’t want to miss any of them, or if you’re hitting cloud storage size limitations.
First, connect your Android device to your computer with a USB cable. You may need to open the notification titled USB file transfer turned on and change it to File transfer before it shows up in This PC on your computer. After this, simply open your phone from This PC and copy the entire folder to a safe place.
Because Android doesn’t let you access everything on your phone without root access, this won’t back up everything. Thus, we recommend pairing it with the backup methods we have described above.
Rooted Device Backups
Those with a rooted Android device have access to much more powerful backup tools with no restrictions. While we don’t advise rooting your device just for backup purposes, it’s worth knowing about this functionality if you are already rooted.
Take a look at Titanium Backup if you have a rooted device. While the base app is free, you need to purchase the Titanium Pro key for $6 to unlock everything. The app suffers from extremely outdated visuals, but it’s still a trusted name in power user backup.
Endnote
Now you know how to back up the various types of data on your Android device. Thinking ahead and protecting this information will prove vital if you ever lose or break your phone. If you are looking for more protection, have a look at the best Android anti-theft apps.
