If you have ever broken your Android device for any reason and needed to get a new one, you might have realized too late that none of the stored data was saved. Luckily there are plenty of ways to backup your data so you’ll never have to worry about losing your data.
Lets break down the options:
Backup Your Data to the Cloud
One of the main benefits of an Android device is that it automatically connects to your Google accounts. This connection makes it super easy to backup your data to Google Drive with your devices built-in settings.
Step 1: Go to the Privacy Settings on Your Android Device
You can easily find the privacy settings by going to Settings > Backup & Reset
Step 2: Check off the Backup Settings Option
Once you are in the Backup & Reset option you’ll see a checkbox next to “backup my settings.” Check off this box as well as the box for automatic restore.
Step 3: Sync Account
Once you have completed all the steps, go to Settings > Accounts & Sync, tap on the account you want to sync and check all available options. This way, you can easily access your data through your Google account.
Backup Photos to the Cloud
If you happen to be using Android 2.2 or higher, you can easily backup all your photos and videos thanks to Google’s Instant Upload service. All photos and videos will automatically upload to a private folder on your Google+ profile.
Step 1: Enable Autobackup on Google+
Go to Google+ > Settings > Camera & Photos. Click on Enable Autobackup and move the slider on the upper right hand corner to ON.
Step 2: Manage Autobackup Settings
In the Autobackup menu, you can choose how you want your device to backup your photos. You can choose While charging only and, if you haven’t backed up your data yet, you can choose to back everything up immediately.
Backup to Your Computer
If you want to make sure that the most important items on your device are doubly protected (like pictures and videos) you can always backup this data to your PC as well as the Cloud. You can move over all items saved on your SD card to your computer.
Step 1: Connect Your Device to Your Computer
Connect your Android device to your computer with a USB cord and it will then show up on your computer as an external drive.
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Step 2: Navigate to Appropriate Folder
Go to your device hard drive from your computer and find the appropriate folder. You can browse the different folders and find the items that you want.
Step 3: Move Files to Your Computer Hard Drive
Once you have found the files that you want to save, simply drag and drop them to your hard drive. This will make a copy of them to your computer.
Backup to SD Card
Many Android devices come with an internal SD card or an expandable microSD slot. Images and videos are automatically stored on this device, but you can move over select apps and contacts over to the SD card.
Export Contacts to SD card
Although Google will automatically save all of your contacts to the cloud if you choose to backup all of your data, you might have peace of mind saving the contacts to your SD card as well. It’s a simple process and only takes a couple seconds.
Step 1: Go to your contacts menu
Find your contacts app and then go to menu.
Step 2: Export your contacts
Once you are in the menu select Import/Export and then a menu should pop up where you can select the option to Export to SD. This will export all of your contacts to your SD Card.
Export Apps to the SD Card
Exporting apps to the SD card is a great way to free up space on your device. Unfortunately, you cannot move all apps over to the SD card. If you have a lot of apps, it might take a while to scroll through all of them to find the ones that you can export. It’s a fairly easy process from there once you do find the ones that you can export.
Step 1: Manage your apps
Go to Settings > Applications > Manage Applications. Your app list will then populate with all of the available apps.
Step 2: Move App to SD Card
Click on an app that you want to move and you will then be directed to a menu that gives you more information on the app. The option to move to SD card will be lit up if you are able to move the app. If it is available, click on the button. Rinse and repeat this process for all apps you wish to move over.
Conclusion
There are plenty of ways to backup your data and they all only take a couple minutes of your time. The next time you drop your Android device without bricking it, be sure that you have all of your data backed up just in case the next time you aren’t so lucky.