My Company Will Wipe my phone out -- how do I save everything

[Tedred1339]

Hi - the company that I work for wipes everyones phone completely the moment they resign and leave that day.

It is my phone, but I am connected to their exchange server for email. Somehow - this gives them the ability to completely wipe my device and it will eliminate everything I have on the phone, not just wipe out my email account.

With no SD card on this phone, I want to know how to save everything, back everything up, so I can restore it after they destroy my phone and bring it back to factory state.

How do I do this? I am not rooted.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Old Member]

Hi - the company that I work for wipes everyones phone completely the moment they resign and leave that day.

It is my phone, but I am connected to their exchange server for email. Somehow - this gives them the ability to completely wipe my device and it will eliminate everything I have on the phone, not just wipe out my email account.

With no SD card on this phone, I want to know how to save everything, back everything up, so I can restore it after they destroy my phone and bring it back to factory state.

How do I do this? I am not rooted.

Thanks in advance.

Root and use Titanium Backup.

 

[creektrails]

I just purchased My Backup Pro from play store to move everything from my razr maxx hd to my droid maxx. I'm not rooted and it was super easy. You simply move everything that you want to the internal sd or to their server (much longer time) and then download the app on your new phone and use "migrate" to send everything to your new phone over wifi. It's amazing. If you don't have a new phone just save everything to their server.

edit: just finished moving everthing. Almost flawless. Had to restart the droid Maxx a couple of times to authenticate my liscense on it but other than that it even moved my wallpaper. Waaaaa (angels singing) LOL

 

[tweak4]

Touchdown has been my solution so far. It basically creates a secure area within your phone where you can set up your exchange account. If your company sends the wipe command, then it just wipes the Touchdown data instead of the whole phone.

It isn't a cheap option, but it is an option, and so far it seems to be one that works fairly well...

 

[rabidhunter]

The other backup application that you can use is Helium. The upside about Helium is that it works without Root.

 

[Kevin-B]

I have the same situation with my employer's control of my phone once I connect to my account on their Outlook Exchange server.

I was figuring I could just disconnect that particular account from my phone and they'd no longer have control over it. For example, the hour before I resign. (Harder to arrange if I expect to get terminated involuntarily.)

I haven't tried this, though. Does anyone know if that will work?

 

[Thom]

OK you got my interest.

(1) What are they using to wipe the phone remotely? Can't you disable the mechanism so they can't request it remotely?

(2) If you root and do a total backup, they clear the phone, and you do a restore ... aren't they once again back in control and can wipe your phone at any time?

(3) Why not just backup the pictures and contacts the way you should be doing anyway ... let them wipe it ... you reinstall apps from Play Store and restore the pictures and contacts?

... Thom

 

[Kevin-B]

Hi, Thom:

This is a layman's view, so I'm sure I don't have every term correct.

In every company I've worked for where they allow you to connect your smartphone to the corporate Outlook Exchange email system, they require the company to be an "administrator" of your phone. It's part of the permissions they require you to accept in order for mail, calendar and contacts to flow between your phone and the corporate servers.

I assume the rationale is that if your phone gets lost, they don't want a competitor accessing the data on email, etc. As "administrators", they could wipe the phone remotely.

So that's the sacrifice we corporate drones make to have the convenience(?) of getting our office email on our phones. That's why I assume if I cancel that account -- thereby making my company no long an "administrator" -- the phone is mine completely.

The administrator feature is also how other remote wipe apps work, including the ones from Google and Motorola.

And now I've said more than I actually understand.

 

[Harry2]

... The administrator feature is also how other remote wipe apps work, including the ones from Google and Motorola...

This administator permission could be ticked on a check box on Settings, Security ... can't you uncheck it?

Harry

 

[scupking]

Not sure on the backup but I work for IT of a big company and I never recommend using a personal phone for work because of this. I always tell people to request a company phone when they ask.

 

[tweak4]

In my experience, once the Exchange account is set up, any settings that would reduce its ability to wipe the phone are disabled.
In fact, at my company, they also required that phones that accessed corporate email be locked with either a PIN or password lock. After setting up the email, the None, Slide, and Pattern options were disabled in the security options, and the only way to re-enable them was to remove the Exchange account. Since I normally just have my phone set to slide unlock, this was annoying to me...
However, by using Touchdown (which I mentioned above), it just forced the actual Touchdown application to be PIN locked, while my phone itself was able to keep the slide lock that I prefer.
There may be other apps that do the same thing. TD was just the one recommended to me by another guy in my office.

 

[Harry2]

In my experience, once the Exchange account is set up, any settings that would reduce its ability to wipe the phone are disabled...

Would you get that Touchdown abilty you described even if the Exchange account is already set up?

Harry

 

[tweak4]

Would you get that Touchdown abilty you described even if the Exchange account is already set up?

Yes and no. While the Exchange account is set up, the administrative lock-outs that go with it remain active (in my case, that means no pattern lock, etc). However, the moment that the Exchange account is deleted from the phone, any settings that were enabled/disabled as a result of adding the account are returned to their normal state. In my case, I didn't want to use a PIN unlock, so I deleted the account and it re-enabled my previous slide unlock setting.

TD's account list is entirely separate from the phone's account list and they exist only within the TD application, so any accounts you add to TD will only exercise administrative rights over the TD application and not the phone itself.
You still get notifications about emails and calendar appointments (if you choose), but if you click one for more information, you'll be prompted to enter your PIN to unlock the application, rather than needing one to unlock the whole phone.
Make sense?
I've only been using TD for a month or so, so I am far from an expert...

 

[Kevin-B]

Great info, tweak4. That aligns with what I think I know about the Exchange administrator function. Especially that deleting the Exchange account from the phone immediately reverses the corporate control of the phone.

Nice to see that TouchDown actually talks about "Corporate Data Separation." Do you need to use all the other TouchDown features (none of which appeals to me) or can you just use the Outlook email/contacts/calendar on the phone as always?

I'm a little confused about the versions of TouchDonw. The one you linked to, "TouchDown for Smartphones", seems to be a 30-day trial. When that ends, did you buy "Exchange by Touchdown Key" for $20?

 

[tweak4]

I'm a little confused about the versions of TouchDonw. The one you linked to, "TouchDown for Smartphones", seems to be a 30-day trial. When that ends, did you buy "Exchange by Touchdown Key" for $20?

That's how it works, yes. I think all of the different flavors use the same unlocker, so once you buy that, you can use the smartphone version or the tablet version (or whatever else they have) as you see fit.