• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Help How to backup EVERYTHING?

romeodakins

Member
May 23, 2012
57
0
I'm gonna switch to a new phone so how do I backup EVERYTHING so I can transfer, I want to save all the game data of all my games too so I don't have to start over. Before I didn't back up so I had to redownload all my apps and replay every game. So I want to make sure everything is backed up correctly this time.
 
the easiest way is to root your phone and use titanium backup to backup everything. (systems settings, apps, app data), when you get your replacement root again and then restore with titanium backup.

Titanium Backup

motofail run the run file once it is unzipped.

This would, of course, assume that you were going to root the new phone in order to restore the data. The only other warning is that if you buy a different model phone, you should be careful about restoring system files on the new phone (the apps colored red or green in titanium.) things may work, but phones with different frameworks may not store system data in the same way.

If you are not going to root, my backup may be able to restore apps and data.
 
Upvote 0
There are two points that i think are important to make ...

When he root-s his phone he is assuming responsibility for it. Root-ing will not introduce a problem. The fact that it is root-ed and soime of the guards are down will almost guarantee that he will introduce a problem by mistake. He will have to solve that without help from Motorola or Verizon. He needs to understand that and be ready.

If he is restoring to anything other than exactly the same model of phone it is likely to not work when restored. It might not work even if restored to the same model phone. The problem with restoring data from an old phone to a new one is that you "take along the old problems" and things seem to work fine for a while and the odd problems start cropping up. You never know for sure if it was an old problem from the old phone or a new problem from something you did no the new phone.

I always reinstall from scratch and use it as an opportunity to clean up things I never got around to cleaning up on the old phone.

As for game data ... the game should support storing data on the SD-Ext card and you should be able to dump/restore a few of those files as a special case when moving form one phone to another.

... Thom
 
Upvote 0
I don't have the game app you originally mentioned installed (I would but it is not free and something I would never use).

Does the app have the ability to store the data on the SD-ext card? If it does then having the author segregate the data there would take a lot of the unknowns away.

If it doesn't and you use it and other games a lot (I don't) contact the game authors and press them for the capability.

Optionally getting the data on the SD-ext card seems to me like the solution to a lot of your concerns. With it you could reinstall the app on a new phone from distribution and then just copy your data files for that game.

... Thom
 
Upvote 0
So would I need the to install the pro version on this device AND my new device so it would cost me 10$?

Like SFWB said you would only have to buy it once but i was just reading the description and I don't think you should waste your money because it wont do what you want to do anyways. All it will do for you is backup the .apks (apps) it wont backup app data unless your phone is rooted. Sorry to say but the only way to achieve what you want to do is to root your phone but you don't want to do that.
 
Upvote 0
Like SFWB said you would only have to buy it once but i was just reading the description and I don't think you should waste your money because it wont do what you want to do anyways. All it will do for you is backup the .apks (apps) it wont backup app data unless your phone is rooted. Sorry to say but the only way to achieve what you want to do is to root your phone but you don't want to do that.

I want to at least save the data on games where i have worked hard on so can i just manual find the data of all my apps and put it in my new phone? I know temple run is able to do that because i did it before but i tried mini motor racing and a bunch of other apps and it didnt work.
 
Upvote 0
Ok I used mybackup pro and backed up all my apps to sd card but it only backedup the apks. How do I backup the app data now? I don't really care about the apks since I can just download them off of the app store but I really need to save my app data because some games I spent hours playing and I don't want to start over.
 
Upvote 0
Ok I used mybackup pro and backed up all my apps to sd card but it only backedup the apks. How do I backup the app data now? I don't really care about the apks since I can just download them off of the app store but I really need to save my app data because some games I spent hours playing and I don't want to start over.

Like we said before the only way is to root your phone. I told you mybackup pro would only backup the .apks and not the data. Why not just root your phone, use titanium backup and then unroot?
 
Upvote 0
Like we said before the only way is to root your phone. I told you mybackup pro would only backup the .apks and not the data. Why not just root your phone, use titanium backup and then unroot?

I don't know how to root and it takes too much time to learn and I don't want to brick my phone. Isn't all game save data saved in the Android folder, why do you need to root to get the game data? Where is it all saved in?
 
Upvote 0
I don't know how to root and it takes too much time to learn and I don't want to brick my phone. Isn't all game save data saved in the Android folder, why do you need to root to get the game data? Where is it all saved in?

romeodakins,

You are making a newb mistake... assuming. Each programmer has their own method of where they are going to save data simply because there is no standard location for it.

Since there is no standard... Some of the locations that the data may be stored in may not be in a location that certain security settings would normally allow you to copy from if you are not rooted. By being rooted you get around that type of obstacle ( if it exists for the games/programs you want to backup the data from )

So it appears that if you want to do what you are asking you have two routes to take... Either learn where your game or program stores it's data and see if there is a method to back it up... Or follow the suggestions you have been given such as root the phone and use Titanium or a similar util to perform the backup. Either way, you will need to learn a little bit about the procedure you choose.
 
  • Like
Reactions: romeodakins
Upvote 0
... and from what has been said up until now about what you are willing to delve into I strongly recommend that you do not root your phone.

Root-ing does not introduce errors. Root-ing removes many of the fences that protect you from making unintentional errors. Most (all?) people who root their phone "shoot themselves in the foot" at least once.

The storage of data that you keep coming back to is under the control of the developer of the app (game). They have either provided controls for storing the data or they haven't. If they are storing over 1 GB of data and don't allow you to control where it is stored ... you might ask yourself if you want anything that incompetent on your phone.

The far left "button" on your Bionic is the entrance to those controls. With the game loaded and you press that "button" does it bring up some configuration options ... like ... data storage location?

... Thom
 
  • Like
Reactions: romeodakins
Upvote 0
I don't know how to root and it takes too much time to learn and I don't want to brick my phone. Isn't all game save data saved in the Android folder, why do you need to root to get the game data? Where is it all saved in?

Most apps store their data in the /data partition, which is not exposed to standard users - only to root users. Google hasn't really solved the problem of moving apps and their data to a new phone (or a factory reset phone) like Apple has done with iCloud since iOS 5.

Some apps save data to the SD card, but it depends on the app.

Which phone are you moving to?
 
  • Like
Reactions: romeodakins
Upvote 0
Most apps store their data in the /data partition, which is not exposed to standard users - only to root users. Google hasn't really solved the problem of moving apps and their data to a new phone (or a factory reset phone) like Apple has done with iCloud since iOS 5.

Some apps save data to the SD card, but it depends on the app.

Which phone are you moving to?

I think I might be moving to Motorola Atrix 2. Do you guys know if the atrix 2 has media area? I really don't want the media area. Since it's another Motorola phone and also uses the same motoblur I'm scared that it might have media area.
 
Upvote 0
I think I might be moving to Motorola Atrix 2. Do you guys know if the atrix 2 has media area? I really don't want the media area. Since it's another Motorola phone and also uses the same motoblur I'm scared that it might have media area.

Please post your Atrix 2 questions in ... Motorola Atrix 2 - Android Forums.

... Thom
 
Upvote 0
I think I might be moving to Motorola Atrix 2. Do you guys know if the atrix 2 has media area? I really don't want the media area. Since it's another Motorola phone and also uses the same motoblur I'm scared that it might have media area.

I think that you should consider a galaxy nexus. I believe that it is the only phone that has a unified storage area for media and app data - so, the 16 or 32 GB storage is used for app data and photos, etc.

I do not know for sure, but it would be a strong guess that a moto gingerbread phone like the atrix 2 with an internal memory area is just like the bionic's memory model.
 
Upvote 0
I'm interested in this thread as I'm moving to a replacement Bionic and am a bit annoyed about all of the data loss I'm going to experience (added to the data loss I already experienced in the factory reset).

I have a specific question, though, which is:

In Settings > Privacy, there's an option for "Back up my data" which says, "Back up application data, Wi-Fi passwords, and other settings to Google servers." And then there's that one beneath it that says "Automatic restore," explained as "If I reinstall an application, restore backed up settings or other data."

What does that do, exactly? It didn't seem to save much application data when I did the (previously annoying) Factory Reset (although, in all honesty, I'm not 100% sure I had both those boxes checked, as I wasn't focussed on it at the time).

It looks to me like this is intended to address the problem we're discussing here, but I'm having serious doubts that it does. Does anyone have any experience with it?
 
Upvote 0
As somebody who rooted a phone in the past, I have tried that setting many times and I has never restored third party app data. Maybe some of the google apps, and I know that it has restored some user settings (wifi access points and settings, animation off, screen off after 30 seconds, home screen wallpaper are ones that I specifically know get restored) but, strangely, not all of them.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Adara
Upvote 0

BEST TECH IN 2023

We've been tracking upcoming products and ranking the best tech since 2007. Thanks for trusting our opinion: we get rewarded through affiliate links that earn us a commission and we invite you to learn more about us.

Smartphones