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[GUIDE] How to do a FULL low level backup of your Android Device

This Guide is simple and is straight the point, but is helpful and may come in handy for those who experience a hard-bricked phone or missing file in your phone like I did. Basically, nandroid is not a FULL backup, it only backs up your system, data, sd-secure, and boot partitions. A low level backup does every partition on your phone (even low level ones) and puts it on your sdcard. Now note that a full backup can create quite a large backup size total.
Credits to XDA user closeone for teaching me how to do this:
In a terminal emulator app perform this command in your terminal:
dd if=/dev/block/mmcblk0 of=/sdcard/mmcblk0.img
(Quoted from closeone)
That command is a disk to file command with the parameter if (Input file) of mmcblk0 (the entire device) and the parameter of (output file) to the SD Card as a file called mmcblk0.img
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the "0" basically says "the whole phone" and as such backs it up. This will back up your radios, system, data, and every other partition you didnt even know existed in your phone.
I have been around android for a long time, but I did not know this, I hope this helps someone.

A couple of things you should mention: you're not responsible for any issues which may or may not arise or user errors.
Secondly, if the if= and the of= get reversed, well it would overwrite the phone's info, at least to the point DD can't run or encounters an error and stops.
Sent from my LG-P999 using xda premium

How do you restore this back to the device?
and if this restores without an issue, this might be a solution to the infamous ICS Brick bug in Samsung Galaxy Note and Galaxy SII.

Reverse the if= and the of= "if" is input file "of" output file. Think of this as being similar to making an ISO of a CD or DVD. And depending on what utilities are available and how the device is recognized, it could be a solution. If the device is recognized by a program which can flash .img files, for example for my phone we have nvflash which can. CWM can also be scripted to write them.
Sent from my LG-P999 using xda premium

Волк said:
Reverse the if= and the of= "if" is input file "of" output file. Think of this as being similar to making an ISO of a CD or DVD. And depending on what utilities are available and how the device is recognized, it could be a solution. If the device is recognized by a program which can flash .img files, for example for my phone we have nvflash which can. CWM can also be scripted to write them.
Sent from my LG-P999 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am not sure about the reverse... a working file system needs to be remounted as read+write before it can be overwritten. I am guessing this COULD be done in recovery mode using adb shell but still quite risky. If anything, I have a feeling it can hardbrick the device unless the boot and recovery partitions are left untouched. Comments?

Thank you, this is what I was looking for!
I want to encrypt my device, thus I won´t be able to backup with Clockworkmod afterwards.
Does this command also backup /sdcard1? That would be odd somehow, because you cannot write the backup to a partition you are just about to backup itself...
How can I issue this command with adb?
I would like to connect my device to my Linux workstation, use adb to issue the backup command and write the backup to my local harddrive. How could I do that with adb?
Best regards

papperlapapp said:
Thank you, this is what I was looking for!
I want to encrypt my device, thus I won´t be able to backup with Clockworkmod afterwards.
Does this command also backup /sdcard1? That would be odd somehow, because you cannot write the backup to a partition you are just about to backup itself...
How can I issue this command with adb?
I would like to connect my device to my Linux workstation, use adb to issue the backup command and write the backup to my local harddrive. How could I do that with adb?
Best regards
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wow talk about a blast from the past lol. Honestly man I left the dev scene for about a good year and some months up until.... two days ago lol, so I'm rusty as all get out. I'd have to get back on my stuff to answer it for you to be honest. Even at the time of my creating this, I didn't necessarily KNOW how to do it, closeone just taught me how and I felt like this could have possibly saved someone from a potentially disastrous encounter, I wasn't knowledgeable enough to tell you much is what I'm trying to say.

I have a generic rooted tablet and im unable to find a custom recovery and i want to send my rom to a dev who can or want to made cwm/twrp for me, so this is my question: is it a safe way to copy my actual rom? Im asking that cuz im scared to brick my tablet. Thanks

acuicultor said:
I have a generic rooted tablet and im unable to find a custom recovery and i want to send my rom to a dev who can or want to made cwm/twrp for me, so this is my question: is it a safe way to copy my actual rom? Im asking that cuz im scared to brick my tablet. Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is the tablet rooted? I might be able to look at it, give me a PM.
Sent from my HTC One using xda app-developers app

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These are the specs. Thanks

Is this possible to do without a rooted phone? What about via adb shell or as an external device?

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1818321 showed more advance function for low level backup.

would you please explain how you reach the point where you can run the dd command?

awambawamb said:
would you please explain how you reach the point where you can run the dd command?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
dd is a Linux command, so you should do adb shell from your Windows Command Prompt. Obviously abd should be installed beforehand.
http://www.theandroidsoul.com/how-to-install-adb-on-windows-full-guide/
Well, I am beginner, if this is not what you asked, sorry in advance

I need mmcblk0.img from someone please for htc m8s if anyone has ir can get a hold of cheers ?

How to install January 5th patch while using custom recovery and root on Google Pixel

Okay, I am sure a lot of you already know how to do this to your Pixel. Some of us do not, and I was one of them. I am the standard noob that just followed Youtube videos to unlock previous carrier locked phones. I am now enjoying this Google Pixel that is unlocked!
So if you are reading this thread, hopefully there isn't another one just like this (yes I looked).
To start off, if you are in here reading this, you have unlocked your bootloader and installed a custom recovery such as TWRP and rooted. Now you are seeing that you need to update your phone with the latest security patch. You try and you try and you can't do it. Even when you unroot it will still fail to update, or at least it did for me. Here I will explain what I went through and did to obtain the latest update. (Warning, you will loose root and custom recovery). THIS IS INTENDED FOR THE GOOGLE STORE PURCHASED PHONES
Lets get this started finally.....
Go into your developer options and enable usb debugging.
Download the newly released package file from google that has fastboot and ADB without needing android SDK.
DOWNLOAD or read about it HERE
Now you will need to download the Factory Image for you device
Find your correct device HERE
Make sure you choose the correct device and correct update, for me I downloaded the "7.1.1 (NMF26U, Jan 2017)" for my Pixel. Also a USA phone.
So now you have the adb fastboot binary package and your factory image. You will need to extract the platform-tools-latest-windows.zip and open the folder and you will see another folder, open it and now you will see a bunch of files. Now open another window and extract your factory image. Once it is done, open the folder until you see the files. Now copy these into the Platform tools folder in the directory with the fastboot.
Once this is done your folder should look like this:
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Now you will want to right click "flash-all" and click edit. It will open notepad and show the contents of the batch file. You can hit Ctrl+F and type in -w in the search and hit okay, or you can look for it without search (it is near the bottom). Once you find it, just delete the "-w" and save the file. Make sure to keep it as the batch file or this won't work.
Once this is done, in the folder that is shown above, click a blank area in the folder so no file is highlighted. Now hold shift and right click, it will come up with a dialog saying open command window here, click that.
Now we are going to reboot the phone into bootloader mode. In the command window, type everything that is underlined below
adb reboot bootloader
Now your phone should have booted into the bootloader screen or it should be asking for USB rights to use adb. If it asks for permission, hit okay and re run the code above and your phone should reboot.
Once you are in the bootloader screen you will need to do is run the flash-all.bat. It will load and go though some text on the CMD window it brings up. It will say some files are missing, which is fine. But if it fails it will tell you that it did. You can also tell by rebooting the phone or click "start" in the bootloader mode and then checking for OTA updates. It should say January 5th patch installed.
Now you can go through and install your custom recovery again and re root. Which takes no time at all and I am sure someone on here has posted before. If not, let me know and I can make a tutorial over it.
Note: I am very sorry for the bad layout and extended write up. First time ever doing this and I am hoping to help people. If there are any errors, let me know!

All of this is already well known and documented. It is device molding 101
No one with 2 licks of common sense uses YouTube videos for something like this.

zelendel said:
All of this is already well known and documented. It is device molding 101
No one with 2 licks of common sense uses YouTube videos for something like this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Haha well my apologies, I did state that I was a complete noob about all of this. I'm sure there are other noobs like myself

exbtlegends said:
Haha well my apologies, I did state that I was a complete noob about all of this. I'm sure there are other noobs like myself
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not a noob, but i'm a old fart, and we forget things, even simple things like this, I'm glad to have a simple reminder of how to do things. Thanks for the refresher.

jrat69 said:
I'm not a noob, but i'm a old fart, and we forget things, even simple things like this, I'm glad to have a simple reminder of how to do things. Thanks for the refresher.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not a problem ?

I know you say this is for the GPS version, but has anyone tried it on Verizon? I'm not sure if the firmware is the same on both phones, so I don't want to soft-brick by downloading the Google version if they're different. Same boat as you were, OTA fails even after unrooting.

32BitWhore said:
I know you say this is for the GPS version, but has anyone tried it on Verizon? I'm not sure if the firmware is the same on both phones, so I don't want to soft-brick by downloading the Google version if they're different. Same boat as you were, OTA fails even after unrooting.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As long as you never re-lock your bootloader, the process is the same. There's no more separate Verizon images, just USA and international.

This is really complicated. ADB side load the OTA file, reinstall TWRP and root, done.

Good work. This is a very minute stuff of removing -w from the batch file. Very handy work.
Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

Do you need to reflash stock kernel before removing root/TWRP before flashing?

32BitWhore said:
Do you need to reflash stock kernel before removing root/TWRP before flashing?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Flashing the image overwrites anything you customized besides the regular user data and internal storage (with the -w removed). You don't have to remove or reflash anything else before following these instructions.

TCPDump said:
This is really complicated. ADB side load the OTA file, reinstall TWRP and root, done.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I couldn't side load the update.. TWRP would not load the side load feature.

I'm having an issue also: https://forum.xda-developers.com/pixel/help/sideload-ota-t3534926... Can we just unroot, take the OTA and then reroot?

km8j said:
I'm having an issue also: https://forum.xda-developers.com/pixel/help/sideload-ota-t3534926... Can we just unroot, take the OTA and then reroot?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Even when I un rooted mine. I was still failing to get the update.

If you made any changes the the system partition then it will fail and simply unrooting doesn't make the all the changes needed. So if OTA mean anything to you then I would suggest not messing with your device as there is Jo promise that after an OTA you will be able to root again tonight away

jesssiii said:
As long as you never re-lock your bootloader, the process is the same. There's no more separate Verizon images, just USA and international.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know the past 2 were the same for google pixel and Verizon pixel but I wouldn't assume they are always going to be. I'm sure some of them will be specific at times whenever Verizon decides they wanna mess with them

FYI, I was able to sideload after updating TWRP to RC1, but now SuperSU 2.79 will install from within TWRP but when the phone restarts SuperSU is not installed... not sure if we have to wait until a new version of SuperSU is released.

SpoiledHeeb said:
FYI, I was able to sideload after updating TWRP to RC1, but now SuperSU 2.79 will install from within TWRP but when the phone restarts SuperSU is not installed... not sure if we have to wait until a new version of SuperSU is released.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You need SuperSU 2.79 RC3

question about backup true twrp

Stupid question,
I normally use root essentials to make a system backup but I think with op6 it will not backup al the required files anymore I think.
So I want to make the backup true twrp but can someone list the files to backup. As there are also vendor partition listed. So please let me know what to backup exactly to make the correct backup.
Thanks in advance.
Regards ysco..

Bump,
Anyone?

I think you need to backup all partitions.
https://forum.xda-developers.com/oneplus-6/how-to/how-to-restore-backup-twrp-t3807546

Bradden1 said:
I think you need to backup all partitions.
https://forum.xda-developers.com/oneplus-6/how-to/how-to-restore-backup-twrp-t3807546
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For a successful nandroid you need following partitions:
boot
system image
vendor image (not sure, if image is really needed, haven´t tested) yet
data
Separately an efs-backup is highly recommended which should be copied to an external storage.

Flying Fox said:
For a successful nandroid you need following partitions:
boot
system image
vendor image (not sure, if image is really needed, haven´t tested) yet
data
Separately an efs-backup is highly recommended which should be copied to an external storage.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ysco said:
Stupid question,
I normally use root essentials to make a system backup but I think with op6 it will not backup al the required files anymore I think.
So I want to make the backup true twrp but can someone list the files to backup. As there are also vendor partition listed. So please let me know what to backup exactly to make the correct backup.
Thanks in advance.
Regards ysco..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the reply is not correct you explicitly don't need exactly those two image partitions to backup because they remain stock intact at all times, they only make your backup huge, up to 14GB instead of only 7-9GB once unchecking them.
of course as always you HAVE TO backup system and vendor, just not the system and vendor images, they serve to keep a clean stock
system available to recover from a soft brick, you can test that by re-locking and re-unlocking the bootloader and/or by formating all partitions
including user data on both slots. it will boot directly into a clean system (setup wizzard) like on first unboxing and this what you boot into then is exactly vendor and system image which remains untouched no matter what you do (except intentionally killing everything with brute force which is not even so easy)
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i shall attach a screenshot to illustrate and much more important ist that if you ever opened parallel apps settings you'd have to delete all
999 folders in root > data > (all 3 misc + all 3 system + both user) folders else you get a 255 error.

Thank you.. i did wonder whether backing up image files was the right way.

magnamentis said:
the reply is not correct you explicitly don't need exactly those two image partitions to backup because they remain stock intact at all times, they only make your backup huge, up to 14GB instead of only 7-9GB once unchecking them.
of course as always you HAVE TO backup system and vendor, just not the system and vendor images, they serve to keep a clean stock
system available to recover from a soft brick, you can test that by re-locking and re-unlocking the bootloader and/or by formating all partitions
including user data on both slots. it will boot directly into a clean system (setup wizzard) like on first unboxing and this what you boot into then is exactly vendor and system image which remains untouched no matter what you do (except intentionally killing everything with brute force which is not even so easy)
i shall attach a screenshot to illustrate and much more important ist that if you ever opened parallel apps settings you'd have to delete all
999 folders in root > data > (all 3 misc + all 3 system + both user) folders else you get a 255 error.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's absolutely correct. I was not precise enough in my post. I recommend a backup of the system image, at least I do it so, because I can not know in advance, whether later a factory set or a clean install will be necessary. So it does not bother me that the backup is a bit bigger then. It does not hurt and costs nothing.
As I said, the thing is, if I wipe system, then I need to flash it again if I did not back up system image - that's my experience.
Or am I wrong; I like to be corrected, especially your knowledge interests me.

magnamentis said:
the reply is not correct you explicitly don't need exactly those two image partitions to backup because they remain stock intact at all times, they only make your backup huge, up to 14GB instead of only 7-9GB once unchecking them.
of course as always you HAVE TO backup system and vendor, just not the system and vendor images, they serve to keep a clean stock
system available to recover from a soft brick, you can test that by re-locking and re-unlocking the bootloader and/or by formating all partitions
including user data on both slots. it will boot directly into a clean system (setup wizzard) like on first unboxing and this what you boot into then is exactly vendor and system image which remains untouched no matter what you do (except intentionally killing everything with brute force which is not even so easy)
i shall attach a screenshot to illustrate and much more important ist that if you ever opened parallel apps settings you'd have to delete all
999 folders in root > data > (all 3 misc + all 3 system + both user) folders else you get a 255 error.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
why i can not find 999 folders from root ? even i have opened parallel apps

Incompatible Hardware with System ROW ROM 332

When I install the .332 global rom, when I start the device, I receive a message that says: the hardware is incompatible with the current system. Someone with a similar problem?

Same problem but once i managed to start 332 rom. Don't know how. Sadly after restart it came back to incompatible hardware. Only roms that works on mine phone are 091 global and chinese.

Derba7 said:
Same problem but once i managed to start 332 rom. Don't know how. Sadly after restart it came back to incompatible hardware. Only roms that works on mine phone are 091 global and chinese.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same to me, only 91 global Works to me and chinese :$ sadly

What is your version of legion ?

DioSilva said:
What is your version of legion ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
16G + 512GB

Derba7 said:
16G + 512GB
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Iam with a Variant 12gb and 128gb

I think we are just missing some steps to make it work because i was able to run 322 once before restarting.

Derba7 said:
I think we are just missing some steps to make it work because i was able to run 322 once before restarting.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes i guess, i search top much place, and nothing, i try to unlock bootloader and nothing.

also i try recover by lenovoAssistence

I unlocked bootloader via fastboot but it didn't help

Derba7 said:
I unlocked bootloader via fastboot but it didn't help
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
me too :S

Derba7 said:
I unlocked bootloader via fastboot but it didn't help
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if u got something, tell us please <3

i know how to install 332 you have to carefully follow my steps
First Of fall Before flashing you need to make a backup of
Persist
And
Modem Partition
For That
follow this tutorial
Once Done
Follow the next Instructions
This Is The FireHorse Configuration you need
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Now In Meta Build Select 332 content.xml
and flash
After Flash you will boot into Crash Dump Mode
Keep your phone connected with pc and hold power button as soon as you hear the sound of disconectivity hold both volume up and down button
you will boot into edl again
in Qfil Flat Build Go to tools select Partition Manager
in Partition Manager
Find Persist
Right Click on persist and Click On Manage Partition And Click On Erase First Then Click On Load Image And Load The Persist File You Backed Up before flashing
And Do The Same For modem Partition and Load your modem partition which you backed up before flashing when done simply restart your phone by holding power button and wola 332 is successfully installed
here is the screen shoots
make sure to make backup if you did not make any backup then you will lose your imei and some sensors might stop working
best of luck
if you did not make backup then restore persist.img from your rom folder
and for modem partition restore NON-HLOS.bin from your rom folder
if anything goes wrong let me know i will help you

mrgreapes said:
i know how to install 332 you have to carefully follow my steps
First Of fall Before flashing you need to make a backup of
Persist
And
Modem Partition
For That
follow this tutorial
Once Done
Follow the next Instructions
This Is The FireHorse Configuration you need
View attachment 5261385
Now In Meta Build Select 332 content.xml
and flash
After Flash you will boot into Crash Dump Mode
Keep your phone connected with pc and hold power button as soon as you hear the sound of disconectivity hold both volume up and down button
you will boot into edl again
in Qfil Flat Build Go to tools select Partition Manager
in Partition Manager
Find Persist
View attachment 5261405
Right Click on persist and Click On Manage Partition And Click On Erase First Then Click On Load Image And Load The Persist File You Backed Up before flashing
And Do The Same For modem Partition and Load your modem partition which you backed up before flashing when done simply restart your phone by holding power button and wola 332 is successfully installed
here is the screen shoots
View attachment 5261417
View attachment 5261419
make sure to make backup if you did not make any backup then you will lose your imei and some sensors might stop working
best of luck
if you did not make backup then restore persist.img from your rom folder
and for modem partition restore NON-HLOS.bin from your rom folder
if anything goes wrong let me know i will help you
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Interesting How did u get that method way?

because i have used it more than 7 times to install different roms

mrgreapes said:
i know how to install 332 you have to carefully follow my steps
First Of fall Before flashing you need to make a backup of
Persist
And
Modem Partition
For That
follow this tutorial
Once Done
Follow the next Instructions
This Is The FireHorse Configuration you need
View attachment 5261385
Now In Meta Build Select 332 content.xml
and flash
After Flash you will boot into Crash Dump Mode
Keep your phone connected with pc and hold power button as soon as you hear the sound of disconectivity hold both volume up and down button
you will boot into edl again
in Qfil Flat Build Go to tools select Partition Manager
in Partition Manager
Find Persist
View attachment 5261405
Right Click on persist and Click On Manage Partition And Click On Erase First Then Click On Load Image And Load The Persist File You Backed Up before flashing
And Do The Same For modem Partition and Load your modem partition which you backed up before flashing when done simply restart your phone by holding power button and wola 332 is successfully installed
here is the screen shoots
View attachment 5261417
View attachment 5261419
make sure to make backup if you did not make any backup then you will lose your imei and some sensors might stop working
best of luck
if you did not make backup then restore persist.img from your rom folder
and for modem partition restore NON-HLOS.bin from your rom folder
if anything goes wrong let me know i will help you
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hi guys , how did you do the backup of the persist and the modem ? i mean i tried with the tutorial but i need the emmc file for the firehose or i dont know what file i have to use , when i use the tutorial file i have the " download fail" error by the qfil

kh_daisuke said:
hi guys , how did you do the backup of the persist and the modem ? i mean i tried with the tutorial but i need the emmc file for the firehose or i dont know what file i have to use , when i use the tutorial file i have the " download fail" error by the qfil
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you have to use the downloaded firmware files to go into file manager

i could it ! but i have the camera problem , how can i fix it ?

kh_daisuke said:
i could it ! but i have the camera problem , how can i fix it ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i did , i had to re calibrate in the development option , now everything is working ( less the fingerprint) but with the chinese rom i lost one of the sims , now both are working

kh_daisuke said:
i could it ! but i have the camera problem , how can i fix it ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
have you recovered you persist and modem [email protected]

Question How to make full pixel 7 backup to image ?

I would like to make a full backup of the system before I update so that I can restore the full system with all applications and their settings in case the update fails.

You'll need TWRP afaik for a full nandroid backup. Which doesn't exist for the P7P I guess.
But Google backup does a pretty good job, excluding the settings. You could also try Migrate or Swift backup, but I don't think full images are possible like in the older days.

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m3ath said:
View attachment 5811723
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Does this take a full image backup?

krakout said:
Does this take a full image backup?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I didn't try it

m3ath said:
I didn't try it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As far as I know this just applies to regular file transfer to a PC via USB, it does nothing special and nothing of the sort that OP asked...

I would like to use TWRP but it doesn't seem to work on Pixel 7 yet, I'm looking for something that does just that.

daveyyy said:
I would like to use TWRP but it doesn't seem to work on Pixel 7 yet, I'm looking for something that does just that.
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Click to collapse
Your best bet is to use Swift Backup for your apps/data, backed up to Drive or some other cloud Storage and then after the reset, let Google restore your G-Apps and Phone/Messages/WiFi points, etc while you restore your apps from Swift

krakout said:
Does this take a full image backup?
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Its for an adb backup, which is pretty similar to what gooble backs up, and respects application manifest flags specifying if an application's data should be backed up or not.

96carboard said:
Its for an adb backup, which is pretty similar to what gooble backs up, and respects application manifest flags specifying if an application's data should be backed up or not.
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Cheers, googling for it actually gave me results for mtp transfers. Gotta Google me some adb then...

Use DD

Lossyx said:
Use DD
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What is DD ?

IIRC (this is a normal Linux command, but the method for obtaining an Android backup is pretty old) it is used to get a binary image of your selected partition. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

@krakout: that's correct, dd is used to create 1:1 bit per bit copies of partitions. When the device is encrypted the issue is that the 1:1 copy contains the encryption. When you do a new clean setup of your phone the encryption key is reset, which will result in the backups not being usable ... this means it should work on non-encrypted devices, but restoring full partitions has always been a risky business.
I do change phones quite often (oder reflash the existing ones ), my process for backup and restore is (you need to be rooted for #1):
Backup/Restore apps and app data using Swift Backup (or free tools like OAndXBackup) - sadly this does not work for all apps (mainly security critical ones like banking apps), but still for most
Backup and restore internal storage using ADB, either with Total/Double Commander and a plugin or using a python tool - connecting the phone via USB. Transfer speed is quite high (depending on phone and PC ~30-150Mbps). Positive here is that you automatically have a full backup of your phone on a PC
use Android native backup/restore for settings

@s3axel thanks for the confirmation and the write up! Seems like indeed these days Swift is probably the best option.
Damn I got excited when you mentioned the TC plugin, thought it was something for the Android version! Not using it on my PC (love my Directory Opus setup!) but I think I'm gonna try this

While it is technically possible to do a "dd" style backup by stopping the zygote service and dd'ing it to something like a USB stick, it won't be useful because the cryptographic keys tied to the data will not be accessible.
Despite being recommended by some people, I would caution against "swift" backup software. This is something you are giving an unprecedented level of access to (for example, it could access the internet, even without internet permission!) and therefore needs to comply with the highest level of trust and security, none of which can be guaranteed by closed source software written by someone you can't even hold accountable.
Instead, I would suggest Neo Backup: https://github.com/NeoApplications/Neo-Backup (also available on F-Droid). This is OPEN SOURCE software, and you are therefore able to read every single line of code to verify that it is actually safe to use.
Others I see have suggested a TWRP backup. Believe it or not, this kind of a backup would actually be very similar to what you would achieve with Neo-Backup. However, the old "nandroid" backup is basically a historical relic -- like a "dd" backup, and didn't last much beyond the very very early solutions since it requires just so much storage space, and because its technically impossible without an external storage device (like an SD card) that is LARGER than the device's total internal storage. Even the name "nandroid" = "nand" + "android". Well direct usage of nand memory is not something you see any more, that was replaced by eMMC, which also was replaced by UFS!

Many thanks for your reply, indeed it is all about trust and I agree with you on that you never know what a software will or can do. However this also applies to the so-called open source software because you (or, more aptly: I as a user) never know whether the distributed binary is really using only the published code parts or something on top....

s3axel said:
Many thanks for your reply, indeed it is all about trust and I agree with you on that you never know what a software will or can do. However this also applies to the so-called open source software because you (or, more aptly: I as a user) never know whether the distributed binary is really using only the published code parts or something on top....
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F-Droid is a repository for open source software, and they build the open source software themselves (as in the repository, not the software developer), and signed with F-Droid keys. They provide the exact source code archive used to produce the binary, so you know *exactly* what source code was used to build it.
Alternatively, you have the option to build from source yourself. Its not as complicated of a task as it seems as first.

Many thanks and no offense intended ... I'll have a closer look at Neo Backup for the future...

@s3axel wow, how come I missed this solution! From a cursory look, it seems awesome!
Pity it doesn't support backup services, but at least I can use MiXplorer as a document provider to pick up my NAS as a destination...