We invite you to read our complete and easy guide on how to make a full Android phone backup.
We are no longer in 2005, when cell phones were only used to make calls. Today, a smartphone contains important and valuable data such as photos, videos, messages, and documents collected over time. As with other electronic devices, even Android smartphones may stop working suddenly or be damaged. Imagine what the consequences could be: you could lose all your precious data and memories. If this unfortunately happens, you might regret not knowing how to make a full Android phone backup of your smartphone.
To avoid losing all your data and save yourself from the trauma that may result, it is important to make a complete backup of your Android smartphone. You have no excuse for not making backups. If you do not know how to do it, in this guide, I would like to show it to you by letting you know all the simplest methods you have available.
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How do you make a full backup of Android on your smartphone?
Full Android phone backup: Android contacts
In the past, messages like “I lost all contacts; send me your number” were very frequent. If you find yourself in this situation, let me tell you that there is a simple way to not lose all contacts again. All you need to do is synchronize them with your Google account.
Although contact backup is one of the basic Android features, many people are unfamiliar with this procedure. Contact backup is essential and will allow you to keep the phone numbers of your family and friends stored in the cloud. To back up, follow these steps:
- Access to Android smartphone settings.
- Select Account, and then Google.
- If you are logged in with multiple Google accounts, select the one on which you would like to store your contacts.
- In the display options, enable the entry of contacts.
That’s all. With the full backup of your Android smartphone, all contacts will be synced to your account. To restore contacts on your device, or if you want the same contacts on another smartphone, log in with your Google account and enable the backup sync option.
Calendar, Google Fit and app data with Google Sync
In addition to backups, your Android smartphone allows you to back up other important data, like your calendar, Google Fit, Google Keep, and Google Music, directly on Google’s servers. To allow Google to perform these backups, perform the same steps as previously done for contacts and select the items you want to keep in sync.
Basic information such as Wi-Fi password and other settings
Android also lets you back up basic information, such as Wi-Fi passwords and other system settings. This way, when you restore your smartphone or configure a new one, you will not need to re-enter all of this data. To enable this feature, follow these steps:
- Go to Settings > Backup and Restore.
- Enable data backup (this item may differ depending on the model of smartphone you have).
Done. Your Android settings will now be synced regularly, and you can just log in with your Google account to restore them to a new smartphone.
Messages and call log
Unfortunately, the internal features of Android do not allow you to automatically backup messages and call logs. To do this, you’ll need to download a third-party app from the Google Play Store. One of the most complete is SMS & Call Log Backup, which you can download and install for free on your device.
The application offers you two options for storing your backups: the first one allows you to copy the backup of the messages and the call log to the PC; the second one implies the use of Google Drive for storing the backup. My advice is to use this last feature, so all your backups will be stored online and you will not have to use your PC to complete the operation.
To configure the app, follow these steps:
- Download and install Super Backup from the Google Play Store.
- Launch the app and select the item Backup New.
- A popup will ask you to select where you want to store the backup. Select Google Drive (you can also select Dropbox if you prefer), and then confirm.
- The last popup will ask you to select the Google account on which to complete the backup. Confirm and wait for the operation to finish.
Your backup is now successfully connected to Google Drive. To restore it, just select the Restore/view backup item, and all your messages and the call log will return to your Android device.
Keep in mind that the app will not automatically back up. So you’ll have to remember to run it on a regular basis.
Photos
The easiest way to back up photos and videos on your device is to sync with Google Photos. This app is usually pre-installed on many Android smartphones. If you do not see it in your apps, you can download it for free from the Google Play Store.
To back up photos, open Google Photos on your Android device. You will be asked if you want to synchronize your photos and videos. Keep the related synchronization item enabled. If you have multiple Google accounts, select the one on which you want to sync your personal photos and press the confirmation button.
By doing this, your smartphone will automatically start synchronizing photos and videos that are in your camera roll. You can also decide to enable folder synchronization of WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, etc. To do this, after starting the app, select the album item in the lower right. All folders containing photos will be shown on this screen. Select the folders you want to keep synchronized and enable the Backup and synchronize item.
That’s all. Now, every time you take a photo, it will automatically sync with Google Photos. The special feature of this Google service is that you can store an unlimited number of high-resolution photos. If instead you decide to store the original resolution photo, then you will go to occupy the space made available for free by Google (15GB).
How to make Android backup of music and other media
To back up other important data, such as music and documents, you can use the expensive old manual method. You will have to connect your smartphone to the PC and manually transfer data from Android to the PC, or vice versa.
These are the steps to be performed:
- Connect the smartphone to the PC using the USB cable. The device will be treated as an external device, so you can browse all of its folders and subfolders.
- Access the folder to be synchronized, copy it, and paste it onto your computer.
You can also copy photos and videos with this method. Usually, they are saved in the DCIM folder. If you are looking for other images, try searching for them in the picture folder.
Full Android phone backup: Backup of the app
There are two methods that allow you to back up your apps to your Android device. The first is very simple, but you need an internet connection to restore all your apps. The second one is slightly more complex, but has the advantage that you do not have to download all the apps from the internet when you need to restore them. The choice is yours. Below, I show you both methods.
First method
You can simply download all the apps from the Google Play Store. To do so, start the Play Store, access the menu, and select the item My apps and games. On the page that will open, select the All option. You will be shown a list of all the apps you installed previously on your smartphone, and you can decide to install them manually on your new device.
Second method
As mentioned earlier, this method of how to backup Android does not require any internet connection, allowing you to save bandwidth and time.
Here are the steps to perform:
- Download the free ES File Manager app.
- Launch the app and select the APP entry on the home screen. All the apps installed on the device will be shown.
- Hold your finger on an app and then select the Select All item in the top bar. By doing this, all installed apps will be selected.
- Select the Backup Option item below. This will save an apk file (installation file) of all your apps within the device’s memory.
- Now connect your smartphone to the PC, go to the Internal Memory -> Backup -> Apps folder, and copy all the app files to your computer. When you need to restore the backup, transfer the app files and install them manually, one by one.
Remember, this method does not save the data contained within the app. It only allows you to create an installation file that you can use at a later time without downloading the app from the internet.
WhatsApp conversations
Most of our conversations are done via WhatsApp. This is why it is important to back up this app. Last year, the WhatsApp team introduced a feature that allows you to back up your conversations, including media files, directly to Google Drive.
In this way, you can restore the status of WhatsApp when you need to delete and install the app again. To know how to make an Android backup of the WhatsApp app and enable the saving of chats, follow this procedure:
- Start WhatsApp. Select the three dots at the top right, and then access Settings.
- Go into chat, and then backup chat.
- Select Backup on Google Drive, and then set the frequency with which WhatsApp must proceed with the backup. Finally, select the Google account to back up.
Conclusions
Knowing the procedure for making a full Android backup of your smartphone is very important. This procedure, in fact, allows you to never lose your images, your documents, or all that precious information that is present on your device.