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How to create a backup for Android phone

Planning ahead is the simple way to ensure your data is not lost to the ether, even if your phone is destroyed. Google automatically syncs your contacts, docs, calendar appointments, and even app purchases as long as you give it permission for doing so. While Google will preserve many of your data, there are other methods as well as backup programs that you can consider using. Read on to determine how to back up your Android phone’s content to your computer.

Let Google back up your settings

Android provides the ability to save settings like wireless network preferences, bookmarks, and custom dictionary words to their servers with Google account. To enable it:
• Go to Settings, then search for Personal, Backup & reset, and select both Back-ups my data and Automatic restore.
• Go to Settings, Personal, Accounts, and Sync, and choose your Google account.
• Choose all of the option boxes listed, to make sure that all available data is synced.
• Though the specific process can slightly vary between Android devices, the procedure is the same.

Back up more settings

android phone backup

For data that Google does not directly back up (like SMS or MMS messages, alarms, playlists), you can use 3rd-party software. One famous choice is MyBackup Pro, which lets secure backups to remote servers or your own memory card, and automated scheduling. The software is not free, but you can try it free for a trial period to see whether it meets your needs. To start backing up, easily download the MyBackup Pro app from the Google Play store, and then launch the app from your phone.

Back up pictures and videos manually

For your other essential data, you can back up your smartphone to your computer manually.

• Connect your phone to your computer through a USB cable, and it’ll show up as an external hard drive. For Macs, you can need to first download a tool known as Android File Transfer.
• Choose the disk and navigate to the DCIM folder. This folder contains your video as well as picture data.
• Choose the data files that you want to back up and drag them to an area on your computer like your desktop. The selected files will be copied to your computer.

android pictures and videos backup
Back up pictures, music, and videos automatically

• If the manual procedure above is too cumbersome, you can use 3rd-party software to automate copying your smartphone data to your computer.

One method is to use Air Sync from Double Twist, which will sync your data between the computer and your smartphone, similarly to the way iTunes works for iOS users. Air Sync can sync wirelessly over your network. Another notable piece of software is The Missing Sync for Android an all-in-one sync as well as a backup program that’s easy to use but has a higher price tag than other options. If these choices do not appeal to you, consider signing up for free services such as Google Music and Picasa, which make backing up your music, photos, and videos to their Internet services simple.

android data backup
How to back up contacts on Android

The above-mentioned Google backups include your contacts so do not worry. Unless, some manufacturers or carriers offer their own interfaces to organize your contacts, and these do not necessarily sync with Google’s Contacts system by default. Until you are completely dedicated to one manufacturer and carrier, this is not a better situation. If your data is set to sync to the database of Verizon, and your SIM card, rather than Google, for instance, it will be bad if you switch to a non-Verizon phone or if you lose the SIM card. To avoid this situation, check your contact application settings and ensure it isn’t set to back up to anywhere else, and to go Settings > Backup as described above and be sure it is toggled on.

How to back up Android phone files

So, you have got your photos backed up, but what about all of your other files? That is where Google Drive as well as Dropbox come into play. Both of these are cloud storage apps, allowing you to keep all of your word documents, PDFs, presentations, and other file kinds safe and secure off of your phone’s local storage.
Getting started with either application is quite easy. For Google Drive:
• Open Google Drive on your phone.
• Tap the + icon in the bottom-right corner.
• Tap Upload.
• select the files you are wanting to upload.
All Google Drive users will get free storage of 15 GB to use right out of the gate. If you do not want to use Google Drive for whatever reason, we recommend using Dropbox. After downloading Dropbox from the Play Store, getting set up is easy.
• Open the app of Dropbox on the phone.
• Sign up for an account or sign in with Google.
• Once logged in, tap the + icon.
You can use Dropbox for free, but you get 2GB of storage for free compared to Drive’s 15GB of free space.

How to backup Apps?

The next step is to back up as well as restore the installed application. You can re-download apps simply if you are using a similar Google account on the new device. Open Google Play, tap the hamburger icon on the top-left > My apps. You can install previously obtained apps from there. On the other hand, a local backup can be faster to restore, and won’t waste bandwidth either. And it is pretty simple to do.
• Download ES File Explorer.
• Swipe your screen to the right for showing the Homepage of ES File Explorer.
• select APP which is under a blue Android robot icon present on the top-right.
• Tap and hold any app unless you see a checkmark on its icon.
• Now click the tick-mark icon present on the top-right, that one inside a box with a dotted frame. This will select all application.
• Tap Backup that is on the bottom row. This will save a copy of the apk files of all your applications.
• To view which apk files are saved, tap User apps at the top. From the pop-up, choose Backed-up Apps.
• Tap any apk file of the application here to install that app without the Internet.
• To save a copy of these files to your computer, connect your Android phone to a PC through USB.
• The phone will appear in My Computer such as a pen drive. Open it.
• Go to Internal Storage > backups > apps.
• Copy all the apk files here. In case you format your device and change handsets, you can copy these apk files to it and install the applications again by placing them in the same folder on your phone, and then following steps 7 and 8.
By following these steps, you are able to save a copy of all your contacts, media, text messages, applications, Wi-Fi passwords, and your application data.

If you need any help with this or any other phone repair related issue, contact one of our iFix team members and we’ll be happy to help.

how to backup android apps

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