mobile

Backup management (for Flashaholics)

Hi all,
The amount of questions on this forum that could have been avoided by proper backups is alarming.
I have been helping friends, family and coworkers with their phones for a while and what I have noticed is that many people have little or no idea of backup management. Some have backups of their contacts and pictures on 4 different cloud services which all auto upload their info burning lots of data and battery.

Others have little or no backups and get in trouble when flashing a ROM or dropping their phone in the toilet (yes that does actually happen folks)
Especially when flashing ROMs on your rooted device, it’s important to manage your backups in a logical way. In the description below I’ll explain how I manage my backups for apps, contacts, pictures, and full Nandroid backups in a logical way.

I am assuming the people reading this already have root and TRWP recovery on their phone. If that is not the case but you would like to have those, please follow the link to a great tutorial from zedomax on how to get those.

Contacts:
When storing contacts on your phone, you can choose were you want this contact to be stored. Make sure you always use the same account to store contacts so you won’t have them devided over 3 or 4 accounts. Personally I just choose my gmail account as this is the first thing you will install on any new phone.

Under settings /cloud you can see were your contacts and data is backed up manually or automatically. Make sure you check these settings so your device will backup regularly when on wifi.

If you do have your contacts shattered over several accounts now, then the contacts optimizer app can help you fix this. It can remove double contacts or merge them together. The app also makes it possible move contacts from one account to another, or to move all contacts between accounts (the pro version). Be aware of the fact that some pictures you have stored with your contacts can get lost during the transition.
Her the playstore link for the app:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...lson.optimizer

Pictures and video’s:
Same story here. Choose one cloud service to auto upload all you’re your media files. I have seen phones that had installed 4 cloud services, all of which would auto upload the pictures. Just choose one and stick to it.
Personally, I will auto upload my pictures and videos to dropbox but any service will do.

TWRP recovery
Please make sure you have the latest version of TWRP installed on your phone. For some ROMs it won’t make a difference but for others it does. For example CM12 official will not install on an old version of TWRP.
You can find the newest version for your device here:
http://www.techerrata.com/browse/twrp2/

Before flashing a new ROM ALWAYS make a full backup with TWRP. This way you are safe when something goes wrong. The backup will contain all your apps, but also your ROM and your recovery.
Make sure you give your ROM a name you can actually understand 3 months from now.

For example, when having flashed CM12 official without any apps or settings installed, you could call it:
CM12 official Fresh install

Or when having installed all your apps and put your settings in place:
CM12 official Full install

After flashing a ROM, I will run it, let the playstore do the updates and make a fresh backup. This way I can get back to the original installation quickly.
Be aware that when restoring a TRWP recovery, you will not only restore your apps but also your ROM. To have your apps separately you will need another tool.

Titanium Backup
Although there are many backup apps, and I have tried most of them titanium backup seems to be one that I keep returning to. It simply has the most options and I use it a lot.
Playstore link:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...TitaniumBackup
Full You Tube tutorial:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZEa10WtFng

As storage space is no longer an issue, I make seperate backups for each ROM I use. This simply saves a lot of time updating apps from the playstore and decreases the amount of apps I have to reinstall when switching from say a Kitkat 4.4 to a Lollipop ROM.
By managing the backups in separate folders I can let titanium backup scan for the location of the backup folder, and pick the right one.
You do this by going to:
Menu,
Preferences,
Backup folder location
Detect (button)
Whole device

Titanium will find the folders and let you choose:
I usually call the Folders: TTBU and the first 2 letters of the ROM

In this picture you the folders for CM 12 and AllianceROM



Storagespace:
With your note 4 it is possible to use a 128GB microSD card. All the files you can store on your SD will be unaffected when flashing a new ROM so use it for everything you want to keep available.
Another option is to copy all the needed files to your PC, whatever suits you best.
So do not worry about the storage on you phone!


Using this method I now have:
Contacts in 1 place
Pictures and media files in 1 place
Nandroid backups before and after with logical names
Titanium Backup (separate folder per ROM)
Whatever happens to my phone I can get it back to were I want it to be in under 10 minutes.

This saves you from a lot of asking for help on XDA developers.

I am curious to see how others manage their backups.