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

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

#41
post #35
post #19

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?

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

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!

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

#42
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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…

I agree. At least we have the third-party Veeam Agent to do it right.

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

#44
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.

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

#46

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.

Seconded. Syncthing is really useful for this scenario

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

#47
post #18
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 :/

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

Still on android 7. What's wrong with android 10 that breaks syncthing?

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

#48

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.

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

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

#50
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Still on android 7. What's wrong with android 10 that breaks syncthing?

Apparently android 11 permissions could break syncthing but seems like it can still work fine there?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Syncthing/comments/pxgsj7/does_andr...

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