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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?

#21

Post by analog31 »

I use my Android tablet for sheet music. The music often gets annotated during rehearsals, and so it needs to be backed up. I find that SyncThing works great for this, and my backups go to another PC in my house. Since it doesn't require the cloud, I can access it in performance spaces where I can't get WiFi.

Everything else is backed up through their respective services, such as Gmail, and I just don't have an interesting enough digital life to have much else to backup.

Git works fine with Termux.

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

#24

Post by dspillett »

Contacts and such I currently "trust" the default behaviours for, though I've got some noted down the old fashioned way for emergencies or if I somehow get looked out of the account. I keep meaning to use Takeout as an extra measure. Photos I sync to my own backup system via rsync+SSH via Termux. Everything else is easy enough to replace or came from other sources (my local media library, etc) anyway. I used to backup more (podcasts & such) via rsync but recent versions of Android have made that more difficult without rooting.

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

#25

Post by seszett »

beagle3 wrote: post #16
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…

Would you trust a restore of those “do not back up” data you have a copy of? Or is this for inspection only?

I just restored my backups a few weeks ago when I bought a new phone. It doesn't work for all apps (I knew it, it's far from the first time I do that) but I am satisfied with the results.

It does help sometimes for retrieving some data manually by digging through the backup files (used it recently for retrieving all invoices from a service that were otherwise only available one by one through a painfully complicated process).

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

#26

Post by m-p-3 »

All the stuff I care about is all backed up in some form (photos to Google Photos, emulator game saves through Syncthing between my decices, contacts in Google Contacts, emails are in Gmail, credentials through Bitwarden, etc).

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

#27

Post by stevesimmons »

dspillett wrote: post #24

Contacts and such I currently "trust" the default behaviours for, though I've got some noted down the old fashioned way for emergencies or if I somehow get looked out of the account. I keep meaning to use Takeout as an extra measure. Photos I sync to my own backup system via rsync+SSH via Termux. Everything else is easy enough to replace or came from other sources (my local media library, etc) anyway. I used to backu…

For backing up Android contacts, go to https://contacts.google.com/ on your phone or laptop. You can export everything as csv.

Takes less than a minute It's well worth doing from time to time.

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

#28

Post by m463 »

wow, hacker news and all these people just "phoning it in"

We really need more folks to hack on their phones and set/spread a good example.

Otherwise "general computing" will be replaced by landlords.

The concept of a landlord may be traced back to the feudal system of manoralism (seignorialism), where a landed estate is owned by a Lord of the Manor...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landlord#History

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

#29

Post by hollow-moe »

Using the LineageOS built-in backup tool : Seedvault and upload it to my nextcloud server. Didn't have to use it to restore yet so no real idea how good the restoration is. I also have automatic pictures/video upload to nextcloud and contact/agenda sync with DAVx5.

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

#30

Post by troyvit »

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 (lookin' at you keyboard.futo.org).

I back up my photos using termux, rsync, and rsync.net. This model seems pretty solid. I should extend it to app data, but I don't have an automated way to back up app data yet. It's just a thing I have to do when I think of it, which is a recipe for disaster.

I'm taking syncthing out of the picture. I was using it to share markdown, html and some graphics between devices and my phone, but I regularly end up diffing .conflict files. I hope to get better behavior from Nextcloud.

Still, I'm the same happy guy I was before December 30 so I think a few manual app data back-ups, back-ups for non-photo content to Nextcloud so I can share it between devices more easily, and the same old rsync stuff for photos should work great.

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