Hi all, is a long time that I was determined to make this guide, which talks a little bit of memory and a backup, but not in the traditional way, there are many guides who speak backup and restore on the forum, this guide aims to clarity on what is davero save and restore on Android, and quite often emerging from years of windows, to many it is not clear the system, which is both simple and ingenious.
In fact few people know that if a system Android is configured correctly, we could bring the system exactly as we had no need for any backup, or rather save only minimal data.
In fact, Android is designed precisely so that in case of hard reset is possible to recover most of our data assolutament without saving anything.
How can you say? A little cloud, and thanks to google, thanks to some extraordinary system that we have at hand.
It is to make an introduction, some phones like the nexus s, the dual optimus, the galaxy's have a partition of internal memory which is viewed a bit like the SD of the other external phones, as a general rule that says of this guide is also valid for them, but keep in mind that the external removable SD, where present (in no nexus) is used only for photo papers and films, while the rest is used for internal storage.
We must first begin to understand WHAT and WHERE you install to get through to understand OCSA we can restore and what may be unnecessary or less important to be clear I AM NOT SAYING THAT I DO NOT GO BACK FACTS, a spare copy of every thing is fine it, but is often used even when not needed and when and how best to act otherwise.
We begin to see what and where you save files on Android:
THE SYSTEM
And 'the directory / system of our phone and also has a dedicated partition in the internal memory that contains all the firmware "base" includes all pre-installed applications, widgets, etc. keyboards.
We can find it in / system / app
\
THE APK
They are the real applications, we download and install an application in the market is. Apk
These are saved in order to function in a precise post system and is usually the directory / data / app on your phone
THE DATA AND THE CACHE OF APK
It 's the hardest thing to understand, an application, and is used when the install saves a certain amount of data that can be variable depending on the application itself (from a few kb to a few megs), many applications do not even have to save data, but others do and are represented by such preferences that we ourselves, as if spuntiamo an option rather than another, or choosing a layout type rather than another if the applicazionelo allows, or if the level of bailouts it is a game, in short everything you need to find an application as we have decided to appear and then leave the options configured to our liking so.
These data are stored by the applications to be found in / data / data is saved for every apk a special folder with the data reported in the application itself.
The caches are special types of files used temporarily or often (usually a few kb), which serve to ensure that the application can draw from in order to make things faster, or temporary files that are dynamically replaced.
We can easily delete data and cache any application, they will be recreated as soon as we open the application itself, of course, the application will restart with the default options, and if it is a play off-line again from the first level and so on.
ADDITIONAL DATA (also called extra cache)
Some applications, especially games or navigation systems require a lot of data to work and would occupy much memory required for this and once opened the same applicazzione to download them from the network and in some cases is asked whether to save them on SD or reminiscent internal, usually because the internal memory is precious, they end up on SD if there is no choice in the application.
These data are usually very full-bodied and are also represented by hundreds of MB and then creates a folder easily recognizable on our external SD card (in the case of phones with internal SD is also used for internal storage SD).
For example, games of GLU create a folder named our Glu SD, and a subfolder with the name of the game and so on.
Other lighter applications such as applications that have widgets that give the possibility to download wallpaper or weather, etc., going to save this data in the default folder Sd / Android / data / nomedell 'application, including maps of maps end up here , and all additional data from applications that do not create specific folders on the SD
Some system folders on the SD are dedicated or created by applications to files that we download on the network, or via bluetooth etc..
For example, the browser downloads its files usually in the / downloads available on the SD filoe we download via tapatalk go tapatalk download folder etc..
It's pretty easy to understand and see if an application has created a folder on our SD (internal phones that have internal storage) and figure out what application it is.
PHOTO AND VIDEO DOCUMENTS
These vendgono all usually stored on external SD (on all phones that have), and then will abbastqnz easy to find a manager with the folder where files are usually saved We take the pictures with the camera is the DCIM folder where classical inside will also find all the photos and video that we made.
The documents that we save where we can save more than we like and we should
CONTACTS AND CALENDAR
We have different sections of an Android phone, at least 3 as we have different agendas and calendars (also install applications via the market)
See you in detail what is best to use and how best to handle this very important aspect
the manufacturer of the phone book
The book google
the rubric of sim
calendar and google calendar
Any calendars or calendar entries installed by the market
we can use them all at once or one by one or only one of them depending on how we organize ourselves, usually the rubrics of the managers are not synchronized on a bilateral basis, but only through software provided by the manager himself, so for the calendar, then a Android phone is very practical and comfortable to use google's address book and calendar to google, it also allows us to merge contacts with our friends on facebook twitter etc..
In any case, when we save a contact address book on gmail, it will immediately be synchronized via internet and then we could do with a PC to organize as best we believe our contact, just go into google contacts with our account and do all the goole changes we want.
We can synchronize a directory with security provided by the program manager, who usually also allows synchronization of photos and documents.
Thanks to the synchronization, we can safely delete contacts of SIM if we are double, so as to make it easier to visulizzazione of contacts and that will not recur in the book as a text message or MMS cinviamo
Even the calendar is the same thing, we can synchronize the calendar with a google account and any other event that we mark will be synchronized on the network.
For photos and documents google video offers everything there is to offer as our movies youtube, picasa for photos and
documents for documents.
WHAT HAPPENS IF IT IS A HARD RESET OR IF YOU CHANGE ROM
Sometimes we have to do a hard reset, or simply want to change ROM, when we do this we delete EVERYTHING THAT'S 'ON THE PHONE.
In the case of hard reset will erase all data downloaded applications and cache LESS DATA ON SD that is not touched and is not necessary to do so (in the folder Android patre secure).
When cambaimo ROM is also overwritten the system.
WHAT 'WHAT AND NO NEED TO RESTORE
We finally got to the point, but without these explanations is impossible to understand what really, it's time to save, restore, when and how.
So we come to the point.
all we have synchronized the phone with google we find in our account as soon forgive and sincronizziamo google account
So our contacts are safe and reappear as soon forgive our google account.
So even if we happen synchronized photos or documents, our photos are on picasa web albums and we can see them on goole + documents of our documents and just put the application or any application that we use to synchronize documents.
The apk should almost always always put them back from the shop, just have AppBrain to get a list of applications that you had.
E 'be noted that on some phones, notably HTC phones and those with CyanogenMod also held official record of applications that we had on the phone, so if you own a HTC, when we finish the wizard and put the google account PROCEDURE TO TOUR the market automatically restores all applications that we had.
This only works if you configure automatic rièristino phones and our account teamite start the wizard, is the sense of HTC, both on cm7 Rom.
If you do not have an HTC phone call or not cm7 may be easier to track the applications you were using AppBrain is using the web market puts everything back in 5 minutes.
If you do not format the SD it has all the data we had previously, and then also our photos of the documents and additional applications, if you must format it just a copy paste to put everything easily.
WHAT REALLY NEED TO RESTORE WITH BACKUP?
Contacts: no use because they are synchronized by many
Photos and video documents: safe on the SD but you can also synchronize them with special programs or directly with google
The APK: all are small and wireless, with the web market is fast putting them back
Additional data: they are safely stored on SD and on some phones are restored by themselves (HTC, Cm7)
Application data: for maggtior part not because it is unimportant configurations, the limit if you play a game off line as angry birds to not lose any past levels
Email: do not serve because they are safe on our account
MMS or SMS: If yes but only if they are important, and if you still saved on the sim are safe, however if you want you can use tiuanium
As you can see Android is structured so that even if we lose everything, a huge part of what is lost can be recovered facilemte and therefore no need to do regular backups or restore colossal, just restore the minimum for the system EXACTLY as before.
Android gives each type of data a precise place to stay in your system if you just want to save only the data of insertions apply only to save the corresponding folder that is located in / data / data and overwrite it with root permissions or replace it.
The same is true for all other things.
Related
Can someone tell me, or point me to a tutorial that explains how to:
1. Backup contacts to PC
2. Backup paid apps to PC(don't want to have to buy it twice...)
3. Backup app data/settings to PC.
Using appbrain will sync your apps with your account on appbrain.com
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
So, there is no way to backup to your SD card, or PC? For windows mobile, I use Sprite, which works great. I was looking for something like that.
Thanks
Never used WinMo, but Titanium Backup might be what you're looking for. You need root to use it though.
I don't mind rooting if that is what it takes, but I can't belive that there is not an easy way to at least backup your contacts.
Backing up Contacts, several ways:
Samsung Kies -- follow the sticky at the top of this forum, it will back them up to your PC.
Export to SD Card, then copy to your PC -- Enter the Contacts app, hit Menu, More, Import/Export, Export to SD Card.
Copy them to your SIM -- Enter the Contacts app, hit Menu, More, SIM Management.
Sync them to AT&T's servers, which will do it in real-time when you add/delete them, similar to if you synced to your Gmail contacts .. the other benefit here is that you can log on to your AT&T account via the web to manage your phone contacts and it will sync your changes. Useful if you're mass-adding and want to use a full keyboard for speed. -- Enter the Contacts app, hit Menu, More, Settings, AT&T Address Book, click Auto Sync contact with online Address Book.
Backing up paid apps: I have not used it, myself, but Titanium Backup might do what you need, as the previous poster said. You can find it in the Market and read up on it.
Backing up app/data settings to a PC. I'm guessing this would be more app-specific than anything, no? I don't think Google imposes or enforces any standards on data/setting storage for apps, so any single backup tool would have to support individual apps one-by-one. Please update this thread if you find anything, because it would be pretty convenient ....
UserNamer said:
Backing up Contacts, several ways:
Samsung Kies -- follow the sticky at the top of this forum, it will back them up to your PC.
Export to SD Card, then copy to your PC -- Enter the Contacts app, hit Menu, More, Import/Export, Export to SD Card.
Copy them to your SIM -- Enter the Contacts app, hit Menu, More, SIM Management.
Sync them to AT&T's servers, which will do it in real-time when you add/delete them, similar to if you synced to your Gmail contacts .. the other benefit here is that you can log on to your AT&T account via the web to manage your phone contacts and it will sync your changes. Useful if you're mass-adding and want to use a full keyboard for speed. -- Enter the Contacts app, hit Menu, More, Settings, AT&T Address Book, click Auto Sync contact with online Address Book.
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Awesome. Sounds like backing up the contacts won't be a problem.
Backing up paid apps: I have not used it, myself, but Titanium Backup might do what you need, as the previous poster said. You can find it in the Market and read up on it.
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Will look into it. What would really be nice would be if google would do this for us. Seems like it would be pretty easy for google to remember which apps I have purchased, and not charge me next time I try to download it. Perhaps the marketplace already does this? I just don't want to buy an app and then remove it to find out....actually I will not pay for any apps until I can figure out how to back them up. I don't mind spending $5 on an app, but I do mind spending $5 for each app every time the phone gets reset...
Backing up app/data settings to a PC. I'm guessing this would be more app-specific than anything, no? I don't think Google imposes or enforces any standards on data/setting storage for apps, so any single backup tool would have to support individual apps one-by-one. Please update this thread if you find anything, because it would be pretty convenient ....
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Click to collapse
Again, I don't know, this is my first android phone. But with Ubuntu Linux, pretty much all apps store their settings in a hidden folder in /home/{your-username}/ (i.e. firefox would store it's data in /home/{your-username}/.firefox/ ) All you have to do to backup all of your settings is to backup the /home/{your-username}/ folder. It is common for people to place /home/ on a different disk/partition, so that you can reinstall the OS and not loose any of your data/settings...
Android is also linux so I would think it would be similar...
cypho said:
Seems like it would be pretty easy for google to remember which apps I have purchased, and not charge me next time I try to download it. Perhaps the marketplace already does this?
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Click to collapse
I am not sure how most app developers currently handle this, but I think Google made it easier a few weeks ago with the announcement of their new "licensing service for android applications". Plug that into your favorite search site (minus the quotation marks) and a post from Eric Chu explaining it on the Android Developers Blog should be up top.
But with Ubuntu Linux, pretty much all apps store their settings in a hidden folder in /home/{your-username}/
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Click to collapse
Home directories are great. =) I haven't used Ubuntu in a long time, so I'm not sure if you're saying that the system enforces it or if it's still just up to the individual developers to follow convention and store their settings in /home/ ... but I'm looking through my internal SD card and it seems like most of the apps I have installed (including the Google ones) each created their own data directory at the root level. :\
Titanium also backs up your contacts, paid apps, and free apps. The pros of rooting outway the cons. You can always un root if you need to send your phone in. I am also a newb and I've been wondering if I had to return my phone and get a new one will my paid apps carry over to a new device. I have the my license key for Titanium so I am thinking that I will be good in the event of such emergency. All of my paid apps are backed up there and I wiped my phone to factory settings the other night, I didn't un root, I was trouble shooting an issue caused by AT&. I did a reinstall of Titanium and it recognized my device because it installed donated version and I restored everything with ease.
UserNamer said:
I haven't used Ubuntu in a long time, so I'm not sure if you're saying that the system enforces it or if it's still just up to the individual developers to follow convention and store their settings in /home/ ...
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I don't know, as I'm not a developer. But I would think that it would cause problems if a program tried to save data outside of /home/ The user would probably be prompted for their password every time the app tried to write a file...since sudo is required to gain write access to anything outside of home.
Hi,
Just as the title says, I am a very long time (since 2002) WM user. My current phone is also a WM device. I will keep it for another year, and I want to be prepared once my phone is due for an upgrade.
I use the phone both for personal stuff and for work - mainly scheduling, working with project related info, task lists, excel spreadsheets etc. Ability to share PIM data and files across multiple computers at work and at home is essential, as well as syncing to online calendar (I use Google).
Most of my work and some personal info was in ListPro database files and Excel spreadsheets. However, ListPro doesn't really work well when one has to joggle info between different computers all running different OS, plus AFAIK there's no Androind app yet. Anyway, to make life simple, and to be able to bring my data with me on a USB stick to any computer, I recently migrated most of it out of ListPro files into DOC files (can be easily converted to RTF) and Excel spreadsheets. So far, I had no problems using it on any Windows or Linux system. I also sync much of this data to my phone where I can quickly access it via Pocket Office. I prefer to use formatted text as it makes it easy to work with information, and applying formatting in Pocket Word is fast.
Finally the next big thing is information backup, especially PIM data. Don't know if this problem is specific to ActiveSync on WM, but every now and then the calendar gets completely out of whack and needs to be restored from backup which I run daily on the phone.
Anyway, sorry for the long winged intro. Here are some questions:
How easy is it to sync files on an Android phone to a computer via a direct connection (USB / BT / WiFi, i.e. not via cloud) ?
I was looking online for a good free Android editor capable of working with either RTF or Word Doc files, and couldn't find any - all I found was some paid soft. It has to be one of these formats so that I could send files to other people. Can you recommend an app ?
Can you work with PIM data on Android phone offline ? (I assume yes). Does it have to be connected to the internet at all time ? (I assume not)
Is there a free Excel compatible application other than Google Docs ? I.e. an app that can work with native Excel files and would output a file that Excel users can open on the computer.
How does backup work on Android - is there a way to automatically backup Google Calendar, Contacts, ToDos ? (I know I can download ICS files manually).
Any other things I may have overlooked ?
Thanks !
1. It is quite easy to sync files between an android phone and pc. It depends on your phone brand.e.g. - If you have an HTC Android phone, you could simply download and install HTC Sync on your pc and easily sync anything.
2. For document editing and excel format dealings, you could download and install quickoffice pro to easily deal with word, excel, powerpoint, and pdf documents.
3. Accounts and syncs (online) can easily be set to run in the background and you can download backup applications.
Good luck.
Your PIM data is backed up to Google contacts and calendar automatically. Any change made on your phone or PC syncs to the other next time you connect. As far as backups go, you can use things like Titanium Backup to back up individual/all system apps, installed apps, and their data to either the local SD card, online to DropBox, or both. And, if you root, you can take backup snapshots of your entire system and restore your entire OS and all the configuration of installed apps and widgets in just a couple of minutes. I do the full app backup nightly and the full OS backup about once a week.
Syncing is easy as your computer mounts the SD card as a drive letter on your device. There are lots of sync options out there that can be used to automatically sync files or entire folders to removable drives when they are connected. You can use them to sync documents to and from as well as things like syncing your phone backups to the computer. Both HTC and Motorola have sync software as well that acts somewhat like iTunes or Windows Media Player in syncing things like music libraries to your device. Personally, I prefer the old file explorer method.
As far as your RTF and Excel files go, there are a couple of different apps out there that work with Google Docs. If you don't want to sync with Google Docs at all or use their editors, your best bet is one of the office suite packages. I know of three or four of them that are available. Some offer free readers, but you need to purchase the pro version to edit. There is an Excel editor that I saw that was only $2 though, so there ARE cheap options out there if you don't want to go the free Google Docs route. Personally, I just sync my docs folder on my laptop with Google Docs and do any small edits I need on the Android using Google Docs. If I want to do a lot of heavy editing, I use the big screen of the laptop anyway.
If you have any other questions, I'll be following this thread and will respond with whatever I know. I know the stress of deciding to move to another platform. I've been on Palm, Blackberry, WM, iOS, and now Android. And, I have to tell you, I like the Android best of all and can't think of a single thing that I used to do on those other devices that I cannot do on this one.
Thanks, guys !
The reason I don't like using Google Docs is twofold. First, and foremost, the access to GD service via our corporate internet is blocked. I work for a major corporation, and as far as I know, at least two of our biggest competiors block GD as well. (We at least can access gmail and calendar). They see it as a potential security issue. Actually for me it's a security issue as well - if anyone ever got hold of my Google password, I definitely don't want them browsing through some of my personal spreadsheets, or any of my work-related stuff. It may be ok for them to see the list of invites to my kids' party, but definitely not my 401K rebalancing sheet . I do use Docs as dropbox, but I upload excel files saved inside AES encrypted zip archive.
Second, I need Doc and Excel since many of my work docs get shared with other people, and I like to be able to email them right away in a useful format.
Thanks ! I will keep reading up on the subject. My wife does have an Android phone but I don't have time to play with it at home.
Added: another thing that bugs me about Android, is that whomever steals your phone has full access to all of your Google services. The way it works on WM, they would only be able to see a few days' worth of emails (I do not save passwords to sensitive sites in browser cookies). The way Android phone is fully integrated into online Google, however, makes it a perfect key to all your Google data. I password protected her phone but I don't put too much trust into a 4-digit PIN.
I need a program that will save (encript) to sdcard (as text file in a format) when i send or receive SMS
Hi Shoae
I m very interested about this topic and want to give some suggestion. You can download app SMS Backup & Restore. That will saves them to the SD card which can then be restored to ur phone. So I prefer SMS Backup that saves them to Gmail because having large message threads is a big source of lag and takes up internal phone memory.
Example:
Contacts: Go to people > menu > import/export > export to sd
Media: It is stored on your SD card so you can copy it to your computer
I hope it will be helpful 4 u...........
hi monikasaini,
i want to save any received or sent message immediately in xml format with encryption to sdcard
thanks
So the inbox / outbox will always be clean with 0 messages as they are all stored encrypted somewhere else? What kind of encryption is required ? And how would you want to read them (with app, pc...)? And why don't you add steganography as an added layer of protection (What if you were forced to give the pass when they see your xml + encrypted data) ?
That could be an interesting project to develop...
If you want to discuss about it, I'm here.
Demo, sans encryption and xml
Hey there shoae,
I've put together a demo and uploaded to the market here:
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.puzzleduck.StalinSMS
You can also check out the source code on SourceForge:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/stalinsms/
It still needs some work, it only stores in text, there is no encryption and it is storing duplicates some times. But I wanted to get it out there and see what people think. Oh, it probably asks for a million permissions it never uses (this is an adaptation of StalinPhone).
Should I store more/less data (gps & nearby wifis maybe... I do this in StalinPhone).
Are there formats other than xml people want? sqlite db? csv?
Should the logs be stored per day (as it is) or per conversation/contact/thread?
Enjoy, I've got a party I'm late for
1) Is it possible to instantly save to cloud storage like dropbox without saving to the phone first? For example if I take an image or video, it is instantly saved inside dropbox instead of my phone memory.
2) Is it possible to set cloud storage to sync files immediately when I save a file in my phone memory/sd card? For example when I take a picture, it is save to my phone, I also want a copy of the picture in my cloud storage (e.g. dropbox) immediately automatically.
3) What cloud storage is the best?
4) How to do backup using cloud storage?
Thanks
#1 may be possible, but it's not straightforward. You'd have to map the remote location as a local partition, maybe through Samba or FTP, then change the phone's settings to save to that mapped "folder." It's not so straightforward, and is prone to error, like what would happen if the network connection was down (or went down while you were recording video)?
The easiest solution is #2. There are a bunch of apps which do that (Dropsync and FolderSync Lite are 2 examples).
As far as comparing, it's best to do your own research, as everyone's preferences will differ, slightly. Here is a ZDNet article comparing different cloud services. Pogoplug and UbuntuOne both have apps which will automatically upload any pictures you take, making them single app solutions, if all you want is to back up pictures.
I need a software which can provide the following services:
1. Store backup data of at least past 1 year of whatsapp.
2. Formatting of entire whatapp in a couple of minutes on my phone Samsung Galaxy Note 4
3. Better usage of sending messages without any freezing issue.
If any 1 can provide me these 3 options in a software I would be really grateful and I am even ready to make the payment if some 1 has already made any software as such and I can purchase it after seeing. Note: I don't want to root my phone. I want to use this software without rooting my phone. So suggest me only if it doesn't need rooting
WhatsApp users on Android will soon be able to backup their messages, images and videos on Google Drive. This feature was in testing for months and was only available on certain WhatsApp versions. Just yesterday, Google announced the integration of WhatsApp with its cloud storage service on Google Drive Blog.
I had a moment of doubt whether I'm on the wrong page of the forum when reading OP and the above reply. Not sure if it differs from country to country, but Google Drive backup for Whatsapp has been available for over a year, and as far as I've noticed, it does not occupy your default Google Drive storage capacities and does not have a said limit for media files. For messages, Whatsapp backups always contain the entirety of your message history, no matter since how many years ago. They exist both on your local backup (/sdcard/WhatsApp/Databases) and Google Drive backup, if enabled.
As suggested by @damponting44, there was a Google Drive Blog post about it, but instead of yesterday, it was posted on October 7 2015.
To "format" Whatsapp, I assume you mean clearing of data completely. You can already accomplish this on Android and an app is unnecessary.
To reset the app's data, go to the Settings app of your phone -> Apps menu -> Find Whatsapp -> Press Clear Data and confirm.
To clear other data such as voice, media and local backups, use a File Manager and delete the entire /Whatsapp/ folder.
Lag or freezing issues rely on the app itself and the capabilities of your phone. Using one app over another usually only results in increased resource usage and would not solve the mentioned problem. That usage scenario is often only selected for feature / customisation enhancements, such as bots or themes. It's best to check if you have issues in your system, if there are too many background apps occupying RAM, etc. to make your foreground app, i.e. Whatsapp run smoother.
An app is unnecessary for all 3 requests you brought up, and it is unlikely one would be developed for those purposes.