I have paid for the full versions of both Titanium Backup and Helium and both leave a lot to be desired.
Helium doesn't work half the time--restores fail, and it can't back up certain apps. Plus, I keep my backups on Google Drive, and it puts them in an annoyingly-named folder in the root directory of Drive, and it doesn't appear to do diffs (e.g. backup up only changed information and not re-backing up anything if nothing has changed).
Everyone tells me that Titanium Backup is better, but it's so littered with odd options and so poorly-designed UI-wise that I'm never even sure if I have it working right.
The ideal would be a Mac or Linux desktop app where I just hook up my phone (a Note 3 running CM11) and it does a complete, bit-for-bit backup so that if a nightly hoses my system I can just flawlessly roll it back. Something akin to SuperDuper! on the Mac.
what about nandroid backups? isn't that exactly what you are looking for?
Related
Yes! I've just gotten off the oncall rotation stint so I can mess with my phone again without getting worried but not receiving calls. I'm on Infused 1.6, bigtime disappointed about no GB love from ATT so I'm going to try S7.
However, I have a ton of paid and free apps and setups installed that I really don't want to lose. I've gotten through a ton of threads but there weren't any hard mention that the apps would stick around. I have religiously backed up using Titanium and even copied the files to my PC for safe keeping.
Q1. I presume I would have to reinstall all apps on S7 as my Froyo-based backups will be useless then?
Q1. If I need to fallback to Infused 1.6, can I just use GTG Ultimate Unbrick, get back to stock rooted and use the Ti backup files to get me back to the previous state? Like Ghost? And I'll get my widgets, unlocker, folder organizer, themes e.g. back ?
Thanks a bunch.
If u like the set up you have already , just go into Recovery. Back/Nandroid and your safe at any point to just return to the set up that you had. with your apps and contacts and what not.
you CAN use Titanium to restore to your New GB Rom just do not Restore System Data. Only restore missing apps and data.
other that you should be good bruh, Good luck.
Thanks. I've done my nandroid backup and have verified I can go into red CWM. I didn't realize but glad to know I can use my Tibu to restore my apps. I presume I will still need to manually re-setup any customization, unlocker, folder apps e.g. I was all set to do it this morning at work except I forgot my outlook-synced contacts and calendar will need to be re-entered so I'll hold off until I backed them up at home.
Just to be doubly sure, are my paid and free apps in the form that I can manually just copy to my PC as a backup and be able to copy back and install them? Much like the setup or install exes and folders on Windows? Some of my apps I've purchased from Amz, some from Mkt and others from brainapp.
Titanium will Bring over all your apps. Again, just DO NO restore SYSTEM data.
and as far as your pad apps, they should ALL be linked to your google account. so at any point just go into market, hit settings, My Apps and u can find them all in there.
on my 4th ROM now, comfortable with the process...but i'm still not super clear on the best way to backup.
i use titanium backup, and i have it set to batch twice a week, i go in and manually nandroid backup once a week or so, and i figured out that if i do a backup in LauncherPro (my favorite launcher) that i don't have to re-do all my screens again, just the clock widget. i also backup my bookmarks in Dolphin.
something tells me i have a bunch of unnecessary steps. can you guys streamline my process? or am i failing to understand how to use titanium (i suspect this is the case)?
appreciate any advice.
Sounds pretty good. Are you also copying off your backups to a PC or network share? That's important in case you lose your phone. Set Titanium to backup to Dropbox and do that periodically.
hmmm no i have not been backing up to PC. should i just copy the entire SD card to PC periodically? i did figure out the trick to get TIBU to synch with my dropbox without having to pay for it, though.
Nandroid backups are useless if you are swapping between ROMs, as they are pretty much a snapshot of your entire phone at the time that you create it. If you just want a complete backup of everything exactly the way it is, then this is all you need to do.
For most other purposes, Titanium Backup is all that you will need to use, it WILL backup the layout of your screen when it creates the backup for LauncherPro, so that's a wasted step. It also gives you quite granular control over how your applications are restored (and which ones). One thing to take note of is that things like SMSs and call logs may not be compatible when swapping between certain ROMs and restoring with titanium backup. To get around this, use a dedicated SMS backup utility from the market (there are plenty of free ones) since it saves the SMS and call log in a different format.
When swapping from something like gingerbread to ICS (for example), you may find that some applications WILL NOT work if you try to restore them. There really isn't any way that you can get around this, and it isn't the fault of any of your backup methods.
Also, its probably worth the five or so dollars to buy Titanium Backup, assuming you want to get the most out of your phone. There are a lot of pro only features that are quite powerful.
innocencio said:
hmmm no i have not been backing up to PC. should i just copy the entire SD card to PC periodically? i did figure out the trick to get TIBU to synch with my dropbox without having to pay for it, though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'd just copy the nandroid backup directory to your PC periodically. The only downside is that the file is pretty big. No need to copy anything else to your PC as long as your syncing Titanium to Dropbox.
Hi there,
Short story, 2 q's:
1) Anyone know where BMA stores it's serial (or whatever you want to call the code it uses to generate it's time based passwords)
2) Anyone know where stock samsung firmware (SGS / Gingerbread) stores the SMS database?
============= Longer story =================
I've upgraded my SGS (Gingerbread) to the ICS ROM. This caused me to loose a lot. Made a nandroid backup (cwm) before proceeding and figured I would be able to get stuff back from it. Well... that's partially correct, could get some apps + settings back, some apps w/o settings and some things not at all.
There's only 2 major things left I really need. My SMS database and battle.net mobile authenticator. The authenticator was restored using appextractor or titanium backup pro. Restoration of the app went fine, but it lost it's key and is thus quite useless as I can't use it to log on.
Is there some hidden place it might store it's serial? If I can't restore it I'll have to go through a procedure to have it removed by Blizzard, which is somewhat cumbersome.
Don't want to restore an entire back-up (ie go back to gingerbread) as several apps have already been re-setup (amongst which my banking app which wasn't restored with it's data either causing me to have to re-subscribe/authenticate it and google authenticator (which btw came by out of backup fine, including it's accounts thus)).
Also am unable to find the SMS database. I have extracted the data.img with unyaffs, but there is no database under the usual com.android.providers.telephony. Samsung probably uses a custom app/location for the database, but haven't been able to find it. Neither titanium backup pro nor appextractor are able to restore the SMS's. Then again, they don't restore wireless either, but since I can just read the wifi/bcm_supp.conf file I don't really care . Just find it strange it doesn't restore whilst the file is that accessible, might be a non-default location as well however...
In case it matters, I run linux >90% of the time. Quite familiar with it, quite new to phones tho' . I do have windows so whatever tools might be required, both OS's are accessible to me.
TIA
Just got an N5. My first smartphone although I have an N7. I'm trying to move my user apps and app data from the N7 to the N5 but the process is failing. I can't find good instructions that don't assume you are restoring to the same device or assume you have an SD card you can move between devices. I've checked threads here and can't find anything.
N7 3G (2012), Android 4.2.1 Unlocked, rooted, stock ROM
N5 Android 4.4.2 Unlocked, rooted, stock ROM
Titanium backup is installed on both. N7 does TB backups and syncs to Google drive.
I created a filter on the n7 of just the apps to transfer and did another backup of those and sync'd to Google Drive. I copied the files for the ones I wanted (based on files having a just change date/time) from Google Drive to the N5 and put them in a new directory. I set the new folder as the backup folder in titanium backup. Now when I go to TB on the N5 I can see the apps but they all have a line through them. When I try to batch restore, I get a message that ### elements failed. I turned on allow unknown sources and that didn't make a difference. If I select an app in the list, I have options to uninstall or delete.
I have a feeling it would be easier to use one of the newer apps designed just for apps but I've got this far. I don't know why I can't restore them via TB.
Im not a fan of titanium backup I think its a good app but it has no place anymore in kit kat and it just kills battery and resources... Just my opinion
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
I did something similar with TB and this worked for me.
I strongly suggest you do it in steps. First step is go to Play Store, My Apps, All. Manually install each app fresh. (Don't panic...keep reading). If you didn't get the app from the Play Store, then copy the apk from your N7.
Once you have them all installed (fresh new versions, yay!) now open Titanium and press the middle tab (Backup/Restore). Go down the list and just tap the individual app name...a box pops up..press Restore...box pops up...Press Data Only. Done! Move on down the list, one by one. As you discovered, you can't batch restore this. It takes time, but they'll all work.
Whatever you do...DO NOT restore data to ANY SYSTEM APPS!. We don't need seeing another thread where you rushed and borked something
In fact, before you start, back up your N5..just in case.
Have fun.
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Thanks. I ended up using the migrate feature on MyBackup Pro. It was kind of slow but less hassle than looking up 150 apps on the play store and installing them. (I'm an app addict). Some of them failed though so I'll have to do those manually and then I'll try the restore in Titanium. Not touching system apps except I wanted to move my wifi hot spots over with passwords which Titanium can supposedly do.
Wondering if I could have use OTG to back them up and then restore to the new device. Found some threads on it but not sure if it would have worked.
What's the best way to backup a Pixel 3a?
I do NOT want to use google drive, google already has enough information about my device, they don't need my backups too.
I tried the adb backup way however it failed to restore correctly and was a mess. What's my other options?
Device is rooted fyi.
I always use Titanium Backup for apps. Worked well for me every time, even with different phones and android versions. Titanum is also able to sync the backups with google drive after encrypting them.
For full backup: TWRP
For Pictures and other folders: FolderSync Pro with private NAS
There is pretty much only Titanium as viable option when it comes to backing up apps. Other apps aren't as complete and don't come with compression.
If you just want to back up files just use any cloud storage or copy to your own server/computer