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Ask HN: How do you backup your Android?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you backup your Android?

#131

Post by Semaphor »

ur-whale wrote: post #74
seszett wrote: post #8

My device is rooted and I use NeoBackup to backup apps with all their data (including what the app developer marked as "should not be backed up", often data that they would like you to backup on their own cloud instead). Syncthing synchronises these backups to my home server automatically, as well as the phone's user data (photos, mainly). The photos are additionally sent to Photoprism. I avoid Google's cloud as much…

> My device is rooted A problem in and of itself: brittle when upgrading, won't work with you banking app, etc...

I'm not rooted anymore, but my banking app worked fine when I was. Only the health insurance app (TK) had issues

Re: Ask HN: How do you backup your Android?

#132

Post by xuki »

fragmede wrote: post #86
dismalaf wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I would have figured. My actual question is how is Google's backup lacking?

to be clear Apple's "full" icloud backup is full in name only. if you get a new iphone and do a backup and restore, expect to spend several more hours setting up various apps and details on your new device. you'll have to log in to your apps on the new device and setup things there if the app doesn't work with iCloud's backup mechanism. it might be better than android's backup system, but it still leaves a lot to be…

It's a feature, not a bug. Apps like banks or Signal don't want to get backed up as it's a security risk if someone could just duplicate the authentication.

Re: Ask HN: How do you backup your Android?

#133

Post by choobacker »

troyvit wrote: post #105
fullstick wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you share resources on how to backup through termux? I hadn't thought of that.

I wrote a how-to! https://troyvit.net/2023/01/backing-up-android-to-rsync-net/ It has one error. termux-job-scheduler isn't a separate install.

One extra tip is to use rrsync to restrict which folders your rsync client can read/write to: https://b.tuxes.uk/termux-rsync-photos.html

This helps mitigate ransomware, and escalation (e.g. reading previously backed up files) attacks.

Re: Ask HN: How do you backup your Android?

#134

Post by GoblinSlayer »

troyvit wrote: post #30

I don't have root on my android and I try to avoid using any FAANG's infrastructure. A few weeks ago I bricked my phone and lost a bunch of data because I only backed up my photos. More on that in a sec, but the big thing I learned is how much stuff on my phone I didn't miss once it was gone and how much I did miss. App backup? who cares? This was a chance for me to see what's new on F-Droid and it's been great (look…

I just did tar / | netcat

Re: Ask HN: How do you backup your Android?

#135

Post by josephcsible »

xuki wrote: post #132
fragmede wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

to be clear Apple's "full" icloud backup is full in name only. if you get a new iphone and do a backup and restore, expect to spend several more hours setting up various apps and details on your new device. you'll have to log in to your apps on the new device and setup things there if the app doesn't work with iCloud's backup mechanism. it might be better than android's backup system, but it still leaves a lot to be…

It's a feature, not a bug. Apps like banks or Signal don't want to get backed up as it's a security risk if someone could just duplicate the authentication.

The owner of a phone should be able to back up all of the data on it, regardless of the wishes of anyone who doesn't own said phone.

Re: Ask HN: How do you backup your Android?

#137

Post by modelorona »

Aegis for 2fa. Can backup to a file which can then be imported on the new phone.

Google's own backup service for normal backups. When I was rooted I used titanium backup but that was ages ago.

And then a lot of apps that have data that I care about have an export/import functionality, so I can just copy those over without much hassle.

Re: Ask HN: How do you backup your Android?

#138

Post by hadlock »

I back up my photos to a Synology NAS via USB cable a little more frequently than quarterly. The NAS does off site backups to aws glacier (low price s3).

Anything interesting I download, pdfs etc periodically I'll backup to the NAS before I retire a phone. Anything that's not photos I just assume are destroyed when I upgrade and that's fine I don't keep anything else on my phone.

The NAS for backing up my desktop has been very freeing, dumping my Documents folder to the network and installing a fresh copy of Linux or whatever is very freeing.

Re: Ask HN: How do you backup your Android?

#139

Post by MrDresden »

2FA is Authy which backs up everything automatically.

Google photos for images, and a periodic download to my computer of original sized images (then backed up to other locations).

Any other data worth storing is placed in my persona Nextcloud instance (backed up via BorgBackup to an offsite location multiple times a day).

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