Ask HN: How do you back up your Android phone?

56 points by Djrhfbfnsks 4 years ago | 56 comments

I am primarily concerned with app data. I have many apps like messaging apps that have important private data such as contacts and message history that is difficult or impossible to export. A big concern is if I lose my phone, there are some accounts that can only be recovered using the same phone number, which may be impossible if the phone company refuses to issue another SIM card with the same number (a problem when traveling abroad).

So what do you guys do to get full (preferably offline) backups now that Android 12 has removed backup functionality from adb? Is the only option to use a phone that can be rooted? (unfortunately not possible with my Samsung Fold 3 without disabling the camera).

yjftsjthsd-h 4 years ago |

For those who haven't encountered it yet, titanium backup (per-app) and TWRP (full partitions) are the gold standard... Assuming you control your phone. I'm not aware of any solution if you don't have root or an unlocked bootloader; AFAIK Google's official solution is sync to Drive (or ... Google One, now? If that's different?), but last I checked support was spotty, and of course that requires internet.

skateboardCat 4 years ago | |

I have found a combination of TWRP + OAndBackupX to be perfect, stores absolutely everything, and it allows you to atomically restore individual apps+data id you need to.

Rooted of course. AFAIK there isn't any way to consistently and fully backup anything more than userdata and some google stuff if you are stock.

GOATS- 4 years ago | |

Titanium Backup alongside versioned backups to my computer via Syncthing has worked well for me.

sumthinprofound 4 years ago | |

I have found titanium backup to work well however in my experience it does not restore device accounts with passwords, while TWRP does.

iszomer 4 years ago | | |

The catch with Titanium Backup is that it requires root access.

immnn 4 years ago |

Is it really necessary to have a proprietary backup solution on Android OS?

Don’t get me wrong, this shall not be a buy-iPhone-be-happy-posting. But it really shocks me (well it’s also kind of amusing) to hear, that you are really talking about rooting your devices, to have a backup solution.

So, back to topic: I’m really curious, doesn’t Android really ship with a working backup/restore-solution out of the box?

jobe_br 4 years ago | |

Related: I don’t think Windows has a built-in equivalent to Time Machine yet, either.

jiggawatts 4 years ago | | |

What kills me about Windows Backup is that they introduced a good "disk image" backup solution in Windows 7 and they're deprecating it!

The current backup is basically just user data, and is not guaranteed to capture all of it.

The old backup protects 100% of the disk, even including recovery partitions and other special volumes.

Oh, and it produces a VHDX file that is directly bootable, either on bare metal or as a virtual machine.

I've used the disk image to recover entire machines in minutes and get back to work. I back up to an external SSD and if the main work machine dies, I just plug the SSD into another machine and use Hyper-V to boot it. I can be back up and running 100x faster than it would have taken to copy the files back.

Oh, and of course, you can take a snapshot before you start up the backup image so that you won't accidentally corrupt a known-good backup!

oblio 4 years ago | |

Does iOS support offline backups?

immnn 4 years ago | | |

Yes. You can use iTunes to create (optionally encrypted) offline backups. Following you can disable automatically created cloud-backups.

millzlane 4 years ago | |

Nope. Especially when switching from a phone with a SD card to one without.

deckard1 4 years ago |

Syncthing! I have selected folders (pictures, video, notes) that sync to a NAS, which I then backup elsewhere. My current phone also has an app that is one button backup (for apps + system settings). I press the button and it creates a single timestamped file, which also is placed in a folder that syncthing watches. It's truly effortless.

LinAGKar 4 years ago | |

That's useful for some things, but it doesn't work for app data.

electricant 4 years ago | |

Seconded. Syncthing is really useful for this scenario

necovek 4 years ago |

I backup files (images and videos, mostly) to Nextcloud using the Nextcloud app, and sync my contacts and calendars to Nextcloud as well using DAVdroid. For 2FA tokens, it depends on whether I root the phone or not (Aegis authenticator app with backups for when I don't root it).

Basically, the only thing I lose is usually SMS messages since all the other messengers seem to keep message history server side (like Telegram).

okso 4 years ago | |

Nextcloud can watch directories and automatically upload new files created in these.

I use this to sync every photo and video I take immediately, as well as to back up the backups generated daily by Signal.

cam_l 4 years ago |

It is a shame Adb backup is being deprecated. Even twrp now only works on some devices. Titanium backup has not been updated in so long, it still requires root and doesn't backup full data for all apps anyway.

I have been trying out seedvault which is like google backup but you can back up to cloud or locally (although i see even that is am issue on your samsung as it won't load usb keys). And for full app data backup oandbackupx, which is excellent but still requires root for full backup.

Ultimately, the only solution here is to never buy samsung android devices.

acjohnson55 4 years ago |

I only buy phones with SD cards, and most of my apps with significant data can save to SD. Almost everything else keeps its data in the cloud, except SMS, and I use SMS Backup and Restore for that.

Svperstar 4 years ago |

I just use the built in Google backup stuff. I save my NovaLauncher layout before I get a new phone.

I have 200 gigs of music and I don't bother to back it up because I have multiple copies of it backed up.

smoldesu 4 years ago |

I'm lazy, I set up Syncthing folders for everything and it procedurally backs up those folders as I add stuff to it.

k_ 4 years ago | |

Came here to mention syncthing, it's really easy and useful and I set it up after loosing 6 months of pictures/videos... roughly 6 months after my daughter was born :/

iszomer 4 years ago | | |

I do this as well and it is the main reason that's keeping me from upgrading beyond Android 10.

hagbard_c 4 years ago |

Nextcloud to backup user-produced data - media, edited material, user-downloaded data. I use mostly self-hosted services so I do not need to backup related data on mobile devices since that is handled elsewhere. For every device I keep a complete TWRP backup which is not exactly up to date but can be used to re-create a working device which can be updated afterwards. As others have already replied I do not store anything on mobile devices - which includes laptops - that I can not afford to lose, such data is stored on my server which is backed up several times a day.

stevenicr 4 years ago |

I really like my backup pro - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rerware.an...

It's been around a long time, and the price is right to buy and own, although I think you can get most stuff backed-up without paying for it.

It's been a while for me using it, but recently suggested it to a friend, they used the free version, got a backup... and then when the phone co tried and failed multiple times to transfer / restore his stuff to a new phone (while having the old and new in hand) - he dug deeper into the restore options with this and got it all.

Not sure about the messaging apps you are describing and how that would work - I have been mainly concerned about sms/text and photos / videos - and having them offline / non cloud saved.

masteruvpuppetz 4 years ago |

How to backup SMS messages? Googling gives 100s of options and I'm not sure which ones are trustworthy

sschueller 4 years ago |

I stopped keeping things on my phone but I don't play any games or use apps that would loose something if they get deleted.

However I would too be interested what options are recommended nowadays if you can't root the phone.

throwawayboise 4 years ago |

I don't. There is nothing on my phone I could not tolerate losing.

reayn 4 years ago | |

Although I respect your determination, is there any actual reason to comment this on an Ask HN?

OP is looking for answers after all, not complete dismissals

yjftsjthsd-h 4 years ago | | |

There could be value in asking "can you change your workflow to make it a non-issue", I think. Most people will probably say no, but it's worth considering.

throw_m239339 4 years ago |

You'd think Google drive would allow to easily back up the entire hard drive of an Android phone, but it can't. Photo can back up photos and that's it. Normally contacts and messages can be synced if they are saved as gmail contacts, and messages as whatever google messaging app "du jour". But frankly the backup situation on Android sucks compared to the iPhone.

No full backup solution AFAIK without rooting the phone or using a paid solution that needs an app on the phone itself.

trog 4 years ago |

I sync my photos via Dropbox and Google Photos, and I have a second phone which has a backup of my Google Authenticator (as well keeping separate backups of every QR code I add so I can re-add later).

Manually backup Signal messages.

I assume everything else is temporary. I've had too many Android phone fails where I assumed Google had some backup, but their 'backup' is basically just app installs and very little data seems to come through.

Mindwipe 4 years ago |

Slowly, and with great difficulty and unreliability.

Cheers for this, whomever at Google thought it was a good idea to block this without providing equivalent functionality.

stolenmerch 4 years ago |

I only backup unique data. Upload all files I want to keep to Google Drive via the app. I have a home Synology NAS with RAID 1 that automatically pulls these files down using CloudSync. Photos are auto synced with Google Photos and I periodically run Takeout to preserve these as well. If I think of it and care, I'll pull SMS messages with SMS Backup and throw those on the Synology.

hungryforcodes 4 years ago |

Sorry-- no one has mentioned Samsung Smart Switch.

prirai 4 years ago |

For contacts, you can export them as vcf using simple contacts or the likes and back them up in backups folder.

Setup a sync between your pc and phone using syncthing and select folders like backup, photos, videos and whatever else you want.

I use this and find it pretty convenient after setting up. Also, there is no server involved as the sharing is peer to peer.

lwerdna 4 years ago |

I use a python script that shells out to adb for what I want. Photos for example starts with a an "adb shell find /sdcard/DCIM/Camera -name .jpg -o -name .mp4" to collect a list, then iterates over that list with "adb pull -a <remote_path> <file>". It's primitive but works.

kornhole 4 years ago |

What about Seedvault that does not require rooting your phone. It is recommended for those using GrapheneOS and Calyx, but should work for other degoogled Android phones. https://github.com/seedvault-app/seedvault

sillystuff 4 years ago | |

Does seedvault work for you? If yes, how did you get it to backup apps that tell Android not to allow backups (e.g., web browsers)?

I found that seedvault could/would only backup less than 40% of the applications on my phone (running rooted calyxos). That 40% is what it claims to have backed up. I haven't tried restoring using seedvault yet. But, since it uses official backup apis, like adb backup, I expect a good percentage of failed restores; I had a pretty terrible restore success rate using adb backup.

Titanium backup is not 100%, but it successfully backs up and restores the majority of my (non-system) applications. It fails on apps with lots of data like here maps offline maps, and antennapod podcasts. There are settings that get it to back up the data (the backups are massive), but the restores always fail to be usable.

guilhas 4 years ago |

Termux with rsync installed. Then sync needed folders. For app data you need to be rooted. But you can basically rsync your entire phone to a lan ssh server. You can even schedule it with cron or other

Without root, most recent lineageos, which you can use not rooted, comes with a backup option to a Nextcloud of your choice

kyriakos 4 years ago |

Why would a phone company refuse to issue another sim? Maybe this is not universal but in all countries I lived phone numbers are not owned by the phone companies which allows portability between providers.

sumthinprofound 4 years ago |

I root then use TWRP to backup the data partition to memory card.

I'vr also used Titanium Backup (paid version) in the past (non-root phone) with good results, but not w/in past 3 years so ymmv.

S3raph 4 years ago |

TWRP and TitaniumBackup (phone needs to be rooted). SMBSync2 (open-source android app, one of the few/only(?) that supports samba 2/3) to samba share (TrueNAS).

normaler 4 years ago |

I usw the backupfunction in graphenos and then sync that via syncthing. Same for pictures etc.

I havent tried to restore from that so it might not work.

otachack 4 years ago |

Resilio Sync or SyncThing works wonders. For photos I use Google Photos though I've been meaning to move that off somewhere else.

madjam002 4 years ago |

Still waiting for a good backup solution for iPhones which isn’t iCloud

peruvian 4 years ago | |

Backup to a Macbook/iMac. It's what I do when I get a new iPhone — much faster to restore than over iCloud or wireless transfer. Only issue is that, of course, it isn't automatic.

madjam002 4 years ago | | |

Yeah that's what I'm doing at the moment but it would be good to automate it!

pomian 4 years ago | | |

Is there some special settings to enable iphone sync with Mac computer instead of cloud?

stanmancan 4 years ago | |

You can complete full backups of your iOS device in MacOS (not sure about other operating systems)

laurent123456 4 years ago |

I use sshelper and I rsync everything that's accessible.

28304283409234 4 years ago |

And remember: Realtime syncing is not a backup!