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[Q] How to backup contacts, apps and settings?

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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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 ....
Click to expand...
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?
Click to expand...
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}/
Click to expand...
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/ ...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.

[GUIDE] Guide to the understanding of internal memory

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.

Possible to get the Pixel sms backup on other phones? (Google Drive app data)

On Pixel phones, there's a new backup and restore option which includes sms.
Even though I have Android 7.1 on my Nexus 5X, I don't have this feature. It seems to be a Pixel exclusive for now. However, it should be possible to replicate it somehow I think. Could this be part of Google Play services - or Google Drive, where we lately saw some new backup options in the hamburger menu and settings menu? I'm not rooted, but I still have my hopes up this piece of functionality could be activated on other phones. Did someone look into this?
As an example, we have a backup solution for call history and blocked numbers. It's been there for a few Android versions. The sms functionality seems to be very similar to those. Can't someone find out if it's done through Drive, Play services or some system component, and then begin experimenting?
Otherwise, if we can't replicate the Pixel functionality, then could something similar be built using the Google Drive app data backup? Sms backup apps typically have a solution of their own, such as file export, Gmail import or creating a folder in Google Drive. But what if my sms messages could be backed up as app data instead (from a homemade app, released to the play store for this purpose), using the Google Drive app data backup tool? Could someone write an app for that? Or are there limitations, perhaps the sms container on the phone can't be reached in that way?
I'm curious about what you have to say about this!
EDIT:
To clarify, I know there are many good backup solutions out there. What I'm asking for, is to have that task done as natively as possible in the OS. That's why I'm curious about the things above! Cheers

Transfer WhatsApp Chat from Android to ios?

There is no way I've found that works without spending 20$ for a software. Please tell me there's a free and easy way to do this

all i can tell you from my recent experience is this seems impossible. The stupid ios doe not allow you to pull from any other place then android cloud, and the stupid android version can only pull from google cloud
the special softwares seem unable to this properly either, i tried and only got partial contacts and conversations
at the end i got tired of wasting time and money and went ahead with clean slate, as this seems to be done on purpose just to make the users slaves to the chosen system
what you can do on android at least is to export the chats to text, so it does not get totally lost

I think you could backup your chats. Go to Whatsapp>Settings>Chats>Chat Backup. Then when you sign in whatsapp on your iphone, you’ll get the option to restore backup.This might be worth a try. Hope this helps.

This is so stupid from WhatsApp. Apps like Telegram and Messenger have a way to store the chat in their servers and you can add whatever device you like. However, WhatsApp only works through iCloud storage or Google drive!! So its basically separated from Android to IOS or the opposite

You can try WhatsApp Backup to help you transfer whatsapp chat from Android to iOS like below:
Step 1: On your Android phone, go to: Settings > Chats > Chat backup > Backup to Google Drive > Backup.
Step 2: Once the backup is complete, you can back to: Settings > Chat settings > Backup conversations to check last backup. Then, Uninstall WhatsApp application from your Android phone.
Step 3: Download and install WhatsApp on your iPhone, and sign in with the same WhatsApp account on your iPhone.
Step 4: Choose Restore when a pop-up window reads "Message Backup Found".
Step 5: Wait until all backup messages of WhatsApp move from Android to iPhone.
Hope this will be your help.

nazhai said:
You can try WhatsApp Backup to help you transfer whatsapp chat from Android to iOS like below:
Step 1: On your Android phone, go to: Settings > Chats > Chat backup > Backup to Google Drive > Backup.
Step 2: Once the backup is complete, you can back to: Settings > Chat settings > Backup conversations to check last backup. Then, Uninstall WhatsApp application from your Android phone.
Step 3: Download and install WhatsApp on your iPhone, and sign in with the same WhatsApp account on your iPhone.
Step 4: Choose Restore when a pop-up window reads "Message Backup Found".
Step 5: Wait until all backup messages of WhatsApp move from Android to iPhone.
Hope this will be your help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This only works between android phones. It does not work between android and IPhone
It is still frustrating as hell. I wish there was a way to just manually replace the folder on IPhone storage

ItsYeBoi2016 said:
There is no way I've found that works without spending 20$ for a software. Please tell me there's a free and easy way to do this
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can directly download WhatsApp on your iOS device and signing with your old Whatsapp number. It's simple.

kellystams said:
You can directly download WhatsApp on your iOS device and signing with your old Whatsapp number. It's simple.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unfortunately, you are correct. People posting here are promoting paid software

{Mod edit: Quoted post has been deleted}
So you are saying you can't transfer from IOS to Android but you CAN transfer from Android to IOS? - how (without paid app)?

Why do you comment if you don't have any clue about the topic? It takes a really time to read all tose bs. FYI:
1. WhatsApp Android backs up data ONLY to -> Google Drive (and restores backup ONLY from Google Drive)
2. WhatsApp iOS backs up data ONLY to -> iCloud (and restores backup ONLY from iCloud)
3. There are no other options to do this unnecessary/excessive Backup-Restore in WhatsApp other than points above.
4. There is no connection between iCloud and Google Drive in regards to switching backups..
5. Some crooks in WhatsApp are connected to paid software companies (corruption) and more than 6 years they delay this development, it stuck somewhere.
6. All those paid software have the same business process and similar prices.
7. There is only free way until now (except paid software) - it is a small app "Move to iOS:, which is introduced just recently. But it requires to factory reset iPhone before transferring data.

Anar4 said:
Why do you comment if you don't have any clue about the topic? It takes a really time to read all tose bs. FYI dummies:
1. WhatsApp Android backs up data ONLY to -> Google Drive (and restores backup ONLY from Google Drive)
2. WhatsApp iOS backs up data ONLY to -> iCloud (and restores backup ONLY from iCloud)
3. There are no other options to do this Backup-Restore in WhatsApp other than points above.
4. There is no connection between iCloud and Google Drive in regards to switching backups..
5. Some crooks in WhatsApp are connected to paid software companies (corruption) and more than 6 years they delay this development, it stuck somewhere.
6. All those paid software have the same business process and similar prices.
7. There is only free way until now (except paid software) - it is a small app "Move to iOS:, which is introduced just recently. But it requires to factory reset iPhone before transferring data.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are wrong.
WhatsApp now officially supports cross-platform chat transfers between iOS and Android
You no longer have to leave WhatsApp chats behind when switching ecosystems. WhatsApp had been testing transferring chat history between Android and iOS...
www.gsmarena.com
How to migrate your WhatsApp data from Android to iPhone | WhatsApp Help Center
faq.whatsapp.com

Dayuser said:
You are wrong.
WhatsApp now officially supports cross-platform chat transfers between iOS and Android
You no longer have to leave WhatsApp chats behind when switching ecosystems. WhatsApp had been testing transferring chat history between Android and iOS...
www.gsmarena.com
How to migrate your WhatsApp data from Android to iPhone | WhatsApp Help Center
faq.whatsapp.com
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you read those articles? Just please read and be sure before writing anything. Waiting for your apologizes.

Anar4 said:
Waiting for your apologizes.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not gonna apologise anything but maybe i misunderstand something here.

Anar4 said:
Did you read those articles? Just please read and be sure before writing anything. Waiting for your apologizes.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did, and it seems to suggest that the site does now support importing of messages between the iOS and Android versions of the software. I don't believe that Dayuser needs to apologize (I assume that this is what you meant instead of "apologizes," which doesn't make any sense in this context, and certainly doesn't help your credibility) for pointing out your inaccuracy.
Anar4 said:
Why do you comment if you don't have any clue about the topic? It takes a really time to read all tose bs. FYI dummies:
1. WhatsApp Android backs up data ONLY to -> Google Drive (and restores backup ONLY from Google Drive)
2. WhatsApp iOS backs up data ONLY to -> iCloud (and restores backup ONLY from iCloud)
3. There are no other options to do this Backup-Restore in WhatsApp other than points above.
4. There is no connection between iCloud and Google Drive in regards to switching backups..
5. Some crooks in WhatsApp are connected to paid software companies (corruption) and more than 6 years they delay this development, it stuck somewhere.
6. All those paid software have the same business process and similar prices.
7. There is only free way until now (except paid software) - it is a small app "Move to iOS:, which is introduced just recently. But it requires to factory reset iPhone before transferring data.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Let's try to avoid the name-calling, going forward.

Quota and Functionality Questions related to Device Backup

I am confused about inconsistences between Device Backup on two different Pixel phones:
On my old Pixel phone, the Backup app says the backup will use Google One storage, so I do not have it turned on.
On my new Pixel phone, the Backup app doesn't mention Google One. In fact, it explicitly states that the device backup will not count towards "Drive" storage.
I'm not sure the new Pixel phone is fully patched (just took it out of the box) so it's possible the software hasn't been updated to reflect the Google One service.
I have the following questions:
Does the device backup count towards a Google storage quota or not?
Is there a difference between Google One and Google Drive?
On both devices, the device backup states that the information is encrypted before being uploaded, but it is not clear whether the backup is inaccessible by Google (can Google decrypt the backup)?
The device backup states that it will backup: apps, app data, call history, contacts, device settings (including Wifi passwords) and SMS & MMS messages. How do I restore these things on the new phone if I back them up on the old phone first?
Can I selectively restore apps and app data for only a few apps? There are some apps that are device-specific (e.g. Syncthing) where I don't want to necessarily restore the settings and app data associated with that app, because my shared folders will be located in a different place on the new phone. I would rather set up from scratch and establish my new folder locations, then allow the files to sync through Syncthing.
Thanks for any answers you can provide to these questions.
I would also welcome links to resources that explain how this works, especially vis-à-vis the new Google One branding.

With regards to "Is there a difference between Google One and Google Drive?" look inside here