Ask HN: How do you backup your Android?

The only data I care about on the phone already gets backed up by Google and is then exported regularly via Google Takeout. I don't live on my phone so I tend not to generate much of any value on it other than random pictures of things.

Prior to Google automatically backing up everything, I used Titanium Backup.

My device is rooted and I use NeoBackup to backup apps with all their data (including what the app developer marked as "should not be backed up", often data that they would like you to backup on their own cloud instead).

Syncthing synchronises these backups to my home server automatically, as well as the phone's user data (photos, mainly).

The photos are additionally sent to Photoprism.

I avoid Google's cloud as much as I can.

I don't have root on my android and I try to avoid using any FAANG's infrastructure. A few weeks ago I bricked my phone and lost a bunch of data because I only backed up my photos. More on that in a sec, but the big thing I learned is how much stuff on my phone I didn't miss once it was gone and how much I did miss.

App backup? who cares? This was a chance for me to see what's new on F-Droid and it's been great (lookin' at you keyboard.futo.org).

I back up my photos using termux, rsync, and rsync.net. This model seems pretty solid. I should extend it to app data, but I don't have an automated way to back up app data yet. It's just a thing I have to do when I think of it, which is a recipe for disaster.

I'm taking syncthing out of the picture. I was using it to share markdown, html and some graphics between devices and my phone, but I regularly end up diffing .conflict files. I hope to get better behavior from Nextcloud.

Still, I'm the same happy guy I was before December 30 so I think a few manual app data back-ups, back-ups for non-photo content to Nextcloud so I can share it between devices more easily, and the same old rsync stuff for photos should work great.

Having switched phones a couple of months ago, there didn't seem to be a good option. Either you need to have root - which means that most banking apps won't work anymore -, you need to backup to the cloud which a) not every app supports and b) I don't want to do for more private data, or you need to use the backup API that however some apps also don't support.

It's a mess and I don't understand that Google hasn't fixed that.

I just let Google handle it with the built in backup: https://support.google.com/googleone/answer/9149304?hl=en&co...

Using the LineageOS built-in backup tool : Seedvault and upload it to my nextcloud server. Didn't have to use it to restore yet so no real idea how good the restoration is. I also have automatic pictures/video upload to nextcloud and contact/agenda sync with DAVx5.

Unfortunately his positronic net contains too much information to duplicate, so I rely on the third law.

I just plug in an external SSD formatted with exFAT via the USB-C port and manually copy folders (Documents, DCIM, Downloads, etc.) to it in the Files app.

After dismounting it in the Settings app (Advanced menu), I plug it into my computer and copy any files over I want to store there too (e.g., Pictures).

Nextcloud for me. I run my own home server, which is just a normal PC on a cheap UPS, on a residential internet connection with dynamic DNS. On that, Proxmox, and Nextcloud lives in there as an LXC container.

On my phone, the Nextcloud app is installed, and that takes care of the photo/video/downloaded file "cloud" sync, and DAVx5 takes care of calendar, contacts, todo. Nextcloud, with additional apps, can also do Kanban, multimedia notes.

rsync -a --delete --quiet '/run/user/1000/gvfs/mtp:host=SAMSUNG_SAMSUNG_Android_5210f7e3ea5e5417/Internal shared storage' /home/luqtas/Android; notify-send "android backed!"

I use Folder Sync Pro to sync files to a NAS. This app provides a lot of flexibility in terms of the kinds of destinations (NAS, various cloud service providers) and support for different protocols like FTP and SMB.

I use adb and a script to pull my data via USB. Backup and restore is easy. Unfortunately, this is largely useless to me. The actual data on my phone already easily syncs as needed as part of the apps I use. What I really care to back up is the app settings and account data, which I haven't been able to successfully transfer. When wiping or changing phones, reconfiguring and logging in to all my ~100 apps is tedious to say the least, even with a password manager. If anyone has a non-google-services, non-root solution to that, I would love to know about it. Convenience and difficulty don't matter, anything can be scripted.

DAYS=(some number); cd /place-to-save-stuff ; adb -e shell "cd /sdcard/; find . -mtime -${DAYS} | cpio -o" | cpio -idmuv # rooting phone not required

The classic tools for local Android backup are/were Titanium Backup, Swift Backup, and 3C All-in-One Toolbox. Here is a comparison chart provided by the latter versus Titanium:

https://www.3c71.com/android/?q=node/1134

Syncthing for files (music, photos, videos, noted), DAVx5 for contacts+calendar. Everything else is either a client app (email) or ephemeral (text messages).

I'm running crDroid, all my photos are backed up using Immich, and the rest is handled with Seedvault [1] to my Nextcloud server.

[1] https://github.com/seedvault-app/seedvault

Android internal storage backup with Termux (and ssh daemon and rsync):

https://wiki.termux.com/wiki/Remote_Access

and apps I use the internal Google mechanism.

Seedvault. Natively in LineageOS. It makes fully encrypted backups regularly. Then syncthing-fork to backup data on NAS and desktop.

Restoring took about 15 minutes. It restores everything from apps data to system settings.

Contacts and such I currently "trust" the default behaviours for, though I've got some noted down the old fashioned way for emergencies or if I somehow get looked out of the account. I keep meaning to use Takeout as an extra measure. Photos I sync to my own backup system via rsync+SSH via Termux. Everything else is easy enough to replace or came from other sources (my local media library, etc) anyway. I used to backup more (podcasts & such) via rsync but recent versions of Android have made that more difficult without rooting.

I use syncthing to sync all my photos and a few other bits and bobs to my local NAS. Works wonderfully.

I also took that setup to allow me to sync some selected media back from the NAS to my phone.

This way I am not reliant on cloud services as the primary store of my personal data, and I don't have to use their export tools to get my data back. I back up the original sources directly from the phone to my own infrastructure.

I back up my photos to a Synology NAS via USB cable a little more frequently than quarterly. The NAS does off site backups to aws glacier (low price s3).

Anything interesting I download, pdfs etc periodically I'll backup to the NAS before I retire a phone. Anything that's not photos I just assume are destroyed when I upgrade and that's fine I don't keep anything else on my phone.

The NAS for backing up my desktop has been very freeing, dumping my Documents folder to the network and installing a fresh copy of Linux or whatever is very freeing.

I use LineageOs and my device is rooted. Weekly backups via seedvault (including files) to a dedicated backup server. I haven't done a restore in ages so I don't have any inkling of what may work or not but I like the simplicity of the routine.

rclone [1] (bidirectional sync) on Termux [2], with Termux:Widget [3] to make syncing as simple as a button press. I backup my stuff to Google Drive, although rclone has many other supported remotes.

[1] https://rclone.org/

[2] https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.termux/

[3] https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.termux.widget/

Install adb then:

adb pull /sdcard/ /path/to/backup

I've never used Android, so the answers here are surprising. There's really no equivalent to iTunes/Finder that'll just back up your phone to a PC?

Interesting! The only thing of value are pictures, notes, and TOTP 2FA.

I use kde connect to backup the first two, and store keys at time of creation instead of scanning QR code for the last one.

Which then gets into my NAS / 3-2-1 manual backup process.

Just copy DCIM to NAS

Everything else like contacts, sms, software backups goes to the cloud.

All the stuff I care about is all backed up in some form (photos to Google Photos, emulator game saves through Syncthing between my decices, contacts in Google Contacts, emails are in Gmail, credentials through Bitwarden, etc).

Plug my phone into my computer and run a php script that puts all the photos in neat folders onto a hd attached to a pi. Sound like i could upgrade based on the responses here.

Google for contacts and small stuff. Photos get copied to a home server which itself gets backed up. I've used rsync front-ends, non-standard apps which I don't like (PhotoSync). It's been plain SMB shares accessed through CX Filebrowser recently, I haven't cared to get fancy. I'm always using this SMB share with various devices anyway because tons of things "just work" like VLC on Chromecast.

I use my Android tablet for sheet music. The music often gets annotated during rehearsals, and so it needs to be backed up. I find that SyncThing works great for this, and my backups go to another PC in my house. Since it doesn't require the cloud, I can access it in performance spaces where I can't get WiFi.

Everything else is backed up through their respective services, such as Gmail, and I just don't have an interesting enough digital life to have much else to backup.

Git works fine with Termux.

Aegis for 2fa. Can backup to a file which can then be imported on the new phone.

Google's own backup service for normal backups. When I was rooted I used titanium backup but that was ages ago.

And then a lot of apps that have data that I care about have an export/import functionality, so I can just copy those over without much hassle.

2FA is Authy which backs up everything automatically.

Google photos for images, and a periodic download to my computer of original sized images (then backed up to other locations).

Any other data worth storing is placed in my persona Nextcloud instance (backed up via BorgBackup to an offsite location multiple times a day).

Restic over termux triggered by Tasker to s3 (backblaze) . Addionally syncthing to my laptop. Sounds unnecessary complicated, because it it's.

I use CalyxOS and sync with the Nextcloud app to my home server. There is Seedvault built in but I've found it to be slightly janky. Many apps can directly operate on files synced through the Nextcloud app like that, or at least directly export backups to Nextcloud through the file provider APIs. Calendars and contacts are supported through WebDAV apps lile DAVx5.

It pretty much just works with little manual involvement.

Resilio Sync. Very efficient and fast. Start periodically on desktop and phone to sync all needed data both ways. Uploading data from desktop to s3 compatible storage as backup.

The Android container on my phone keeps its data in ~/.local/share/waydroid/data, so it just gets rsynced with the rest of the backup.

Things I cannot (easily) replace, such as contacts and photos, I keep with Google (this will change once I run out of free space, most likely). For passwords, I use Bitwarden.

Everything else is either account-based, or can backed up using Seedvault (a backup solution integrated into AOSP, and therefore present in GrapheneOS)

I don't backup my android but I synchronize some stuff (photos/docs) using syncthing-fork. These are then backuped on the server they are synced to.

Additionally I sync my calendar and contacts with davx. Same as before, backup is done on the server itself.

I don't see the point making a backup of installed apps and their local config.

I just spent the last few weeks figuring out how to solve this problem for myself after running out of space on my free Google plan, so here goes.. I do have a NAS at home, so I was basically trying to move my backup from Google Cloud to my local NAS. Another consideration was that my wife should be able to use the solution so it needed to be simple and hands-off.

Probably the most difficult to solve for is Google Photos. Google offers 15 GB, and this gets filled up really fast if you take a lot of photos and videos. I don't, but still with every phone upgrade I've tried to move all files over to my new device, which results in space running out quite quickly. On top of that, Photos is actually _really_ nice. It works seamlessly, and offers features like facial recognition out of the box.

Anyway, I tried 3 different options - Nextcloud, Syncthing, and Immich.

Nextcloud was a little too complicated to setup, even with docker. Wasn't impressed by it.

Syncthing had an issue with Android app support. I think there are a couple of forks, but I didn't want to rely on that.

Immich was what I finally settled on. It is photos/videos specific, so doesn't work as a general purpose backup but I was more than happy just solving for this. My Google storage was being used roughly half and half by Email and Photos. Solving for half was good enough! On the plus side, Immich is a really impressive Google Photos replacement, and behaves almost exactly the same as the Google app, and has advanced features like facial recognition, dupe detection etc.

For email, contacts, SMS etc, I'm still relying on native Google backup.

Finally, there was Whatsapp. I had disabled Google backup a while ago, but wanted to preserve the photos from it. For that, I configured Immich to sync the whatsapp images folder with my library, and that's been working perfectly well.

Seedvault. What I miss is a backup app which can take a full snapshot of the current state and make it flashable from adb or TWRP. Although, I think that method would definitely require root which is not worth the hassle

I use EasySSHFS to mount a backup directory my desktop, then NeoBackup to back up apps to it. Both require root.

Syncthing to my home NAS. Bakup is triggered automatically when the phone is connected to the wifi and charging (which happens every night).

Syncthing for loose files and exported backup configurations, SMS Backup & Restore Pro for text messages, radicale for calendar and contacts in addition to Zoho (email provider). Immich and Google photos sync photos in the background.

The important stuff gets auto uploaded to my NAS via the NAS app, whenever I'm home.

Self-hosted Nextcloud + Nextcloud's auto-upload feature. Works on non-media as well.

Used to do complete system mirrors with lower level backup solutions, but gave up, when I realized, that I won't be restoring it to a phone anyways.

I use Fusion https://github.com/mohammad-mallaee/fusion for the files. Swift Backup for Apps, Contacts, etc.

Syncthing-Fork running on phone in background and syncing one-way to my PC all the time on home network

Genuine question: what do you feel the need to backup other than photos?

I enduro using my phone explorer: https://www.fjsoft.at/en/

It has the similar feel to iTunes for the iphone.

wow, hacker news and all these people just "phoning it in"

We really need more folks to hack on their phones and set/spread a good example.

Otherwise "general computing" will be replaced by landlords.

The concept of a landlord may be traced back to the feudal system of manoralism (seignorialism), where a landed estate is owned by a Lord of the Manor...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landlord#History

Off-topic: The exact phrasing of this question is probably going to mean something completely different in a generation or two.

FTP over LAN with no access to internet gateway.

none

phones are treated as disposables

including all data around it

simpler that way

Seedvault, Syncthing, DAVx5-to-Nextcloud, Signal Archive, passwordstore.app (discontinued) + git

+1 for Syncthing, and self-hosting a few services like Bitwarden so the data is under my control.

SyncThing-fork, Google cloud for everything I can, and FolderSync handles that!

GrapheneOS's backup system

I don't. Anything worth saving is not on my phone.

All personal data - photos/videos, mail, messages, etc - is synced to my own server. Since I mostly use web apps running on my own server there isn't that much personal data or configuration on the things anyway. Configuring a 'new' device comes down to installing an AOSP-derived distribution without any Googly bits, add F-Droid to get applications, add Termux and the necessary applications to:

- connect to my network: Wireguard (encrypted tunnel)

- keep out unwanted content: Adaway (hosts-based content blocker), AFWall (firewall configuration)

- access control to my own and other services: Aegis (TOTP app, configuration is synced to the server)

- access services on my own server: Nextcloud (sync), DavX5 (contacts, agenda), K9 (mail), Conversations (messaging), DSub (audio), Antennapod (netcasts, syncs with gpodder on Nextcloud), Audiobookshelf (audio book player), M.A.L.P (controls several MPD instances around the premises), zmNinja (Zoneminder viewer, used for video surveillance around the farm), Timelimit (access controls for my 13yo daughter's devices), Librera Reader (eBook reader, connects via OPDS to archive on server)

- add the few proprietary applications needed: BankID (Swedish electronic ID), DigiD (Dutch electronic ID), DB Navigator (German railway app), NS reisplanner (Dutch railway app), Västtrafik To Go (Swedish railway app for western Sweden). These all connect to accounts on remote services and do not keep local state so backups are not needed, for the first two backups are not even useable on other hardware since their state is directly connected to the IMEI and/or IMSI of the local device.

Once configured I make a backup in the recovery (TWRP, PBRP etc) which I sync to the server. After that I only make backups after more radical changes to the device, e.g. when I install a new distribution. The rationale for this is that it is always possible to recreate the device from 'scratch' by following the above steps, these are scripted for a number of devices. All personal data ends up on the server (currently a DL380 G7 running Proxmox) which gets backed up daily. If and when a device breaks or gets lost in some way I can recreate it after repairing or replacing the hardware and firmware.

Apart from the mentioned proprietary apps there is no data leakage outside of my own network.

i have passwords in bitwarden and i backup my photos regularly to my pc

You don't. Google backup is partial and very limited compared to what apple does, plus privacy issues and you don't get access to app folder without root. (I know about adb but then you can't push the files back there).

So it's a shitshow as usual with Android, it all depends on the app. My weight lifting app it can backup on Google cloud. Great. My 2Fa on the other hand it only backup to the 'external' storage, need to transfer it to the computer then. Some app don't have backup option. Some app give backup option but then break when you restore it, like moon reader. Some books just disappeared from the backup.

And so on, and so on.

At the end I focus on photo, obsidian vault and 2fa. Everything else is just bonus if I backed it up.

Step 0: Use a reasonable device.

Story from a few years back: I have an old Samsung Galaxy I needed to migrate off of. As I recall, the only way to back up all the important data without involving trusted cloud infra was unlocking the bootloader and using TWRP. Don't recall if rooting was also part of the process - I think I wanted to back up before attempting rooting and later actually reflash it. Somehow I think I managed to trip a hardware fuse in the process because the device bricked and I'm not sure if I will ever be able to get at that data or if it's already gone forever...

Especially infuriating that what caused the full data loss was an attempt to back it up!

I'm so done with combating malicious manufacturers and OSs.

Syncthing is the answer

Syncthing

I backup photos onto external drives every few months when I remember too. Is there anything else to backup?

Samsung smart switch has a backup feature on the PC application.

I use Syncthing.

Copy all photos / videos periodically to my linux server where everything important lives and gets backed up. Everything else gets nuked.

If I change phone I log into Google, start from scratch and download the apps I need / log in wherever I need the first time I need to.

I'm not very happy with using Google / Gmail for contacts and as a login manager, I've been postponing de-googling for 5+ years. The only promise I made to myself is that I'm not giving them a cent (and I keep living with 3% free space).

I recently put my backup strategy to the test upgrading from Lineageos 20/Android 13 on a Oneplus 8pro to Lineageos 21/Android 14 on a Pixel 8pro, so can claim it works - mostly. Rooted OS in both cases.

For contacts, I use DAVx⁵ to sync with a Nextcloud install on my NAS. All my family's phones do this and it makes it super easy to add and edit contacts sitting at the desktop instead of in the phone (I hate typing on the phone and avoid it where I can).

For calendar I use Google calendars. Again, whole family uses and we share via that. If I was to shift I would probably look at DAVx⁵ and Nextcloud like contacts, but syncing when away from the home network may be more of an issue here. (Business Calendar is my preferred calendar app currently - although I believe they may have switched to a subscription model since I bought it.)

Messages and call logs are backed up by Swift Backup (more on that below).

I'm a Bitwarden user so that takes care of passwords and TOTP.

I use Foldersync to do a two-way sync of photos (the DCIM folder, and other photo folders) between my phone and the NAS via SFTP, when on the home wifi. It does a really good job of this I've found.

For actual application backups I use to use Titanium Backup which I'd previously found very good. Unfortunately it appears to no longer be maintained as the last update in the Play store was 2019 and it definitely does not work with Android 13 and later.

These days I have three different backups running. I started with Neo Backup which is okay although instability earlier in its development made me want an alternative. That's when I came across Swift Backup which has a bit more of a solid feel to it. At some point I saw a Lineageos blog post about Seedvault so turned that on too. The backup files for all three are sent to my NAS via Foldersync just like photos.

I'm going to be away from home for five weeks later this year and am pondering if I want to stress about off-phone backups for that time. I might look at using Folder Sync to some other target, or think about using Syncthing Fork. That said, a five week old backup is probably going to be 95% okay to maybe not worry too much.

--

So how was restoring? It was still painful to be honest.

The good:

Seedvault restored the data on probably half my apps. Could not really figure out the whys as to which it did and which it didn't. It was disappointing in that regard.

I can't remember if it was Seedvault or Swift Backup, but restoring messages was not a drama.

Most other apps I could restore from either Swift Backup or failing that, Neo Backup.

The Bad:

Some account details, mainly the DAVx⁵ ones, I had to re-enter again by hand. Fortunately I've documented the URLs and configuration settings this time to make it easier in the future.

I still had to go through each app and check it was working as expected and had my data. Sometimes had to completely uninstall the Seedvault version and restore from Swift Backup or Neo Backup to get the data. I think a couple of apps I had to install fresh from the Play store or F-droid before doing just a data restore, or there was no way to restore data.

All in all it was a lot of frigging about.

Lessons learned:

Redundancy is good! I would recommend Swift Backup and at least one other backup - be it Seedvault, Neo Backup, Google or another option.

Doing a comprehensive restoration is time consuming! There is no click-and-restore-the-whole-phone solution which is a pain.

Currently, root access seems to be needed for even a decently reliable backup.

And before you ask: I've used Magisk in the past, but have tried out Apatch which fills a similar role with hte new phone and feels a bit easier to deal with. That, along with chiteroman/PlayIntegrityFix gets Google Wallet and some other apps working for me, but it is an annoying arms race.

I also use Netguard as my network firewall - don't have a phone without one. Used Afwall+ on my previous phone but was flaky on the new one so went with the second choice.

My contacts are saved in Nextcloud. For other local data, I have Magisk and back up apps (including data) weekly using NeoBackup. Syncthing also comes in handy for other specific data that I need to save.

The only thing on my phone that really ever needs to be backed up is my pictures, videos, and audio recordings. I use Owlfiles to automatically back all that up to my NAS via Tailscale for fast secure connectivity to my home network. Everything else is Nextcloud on the same system. All of that data gets backed up daily to Backblaze B2, and once per month I write everything to an LTO-6 tape that I swap out between 3 tapes: One in my bank deposit box, two in my firesafe.

Backblaze costs me about $100/year for the ~2TB of data I store there.

I got my LTO-6 drive for free from my employer after we upgraded to LTO-8.

I got a 20-pack of new LTO-6 tapes from eBay for $100, and have no idea what to do with the remaining 42.5TB of space. I guess after several years of rotating my existing tapes, I should start using new ones.

By signing into my Google account.

"adb backup" sometimes works (when it does not hang randomly). Restore also sometimes works. This was one of the reasons i got an iPhone, TBH

I have a folder synced with syncthing to my laptop and a raspberry pi that has a hdd. I actually have three hdds that I rotate now and again.

I use Nextcloud to backup images or potentially other files. Other than that, there is nothing important to backup.

it really is just astonishing how far behind iOS Android is on this front, in 2025.

By throwing it in a trash bin :)

Pretty reliable and you only need it once )