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

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.

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?

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Sorry-- no one has mentioned Samsung Smart Switch.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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).

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.

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

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

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

And remember: Realtime syncing is not a backup!