Backing up- samsung cloud plus google drive

[Riddick0510]

Hey guys. Just a little warning on backing up your phone...

I've backed up my phone on both samsung cloud and google drive.

Confident enough that i can reset my phone to factory settings (for beta softwae reversal) and then restore data, i did it, and guess what.

All of my photos are gone, also files with last 5 years of my work, really important stuff- contacts, wallpares and apps only been restored.

 Great job Samsung, can't you make all the data required by the user to be backed up, i am paing £7.99 a month for google storage, to be able to do it- there should be a warning saying that not all data is being backed up.

If i knew that would have been the case i would either try to save files to my laptop or transfer it to another phone- too late

Even on my " not so user friendly iphone" everything gets backed up to i cloud, and when you transfer it to a new phone you get everything 100%.

I've paid for data recovery software around $47 which managed to recover 5% of my photos which does not help with anything.

Samsung i am greatly dissapointed and slowly thinking of going elsewhere even though i've been with you since galaxy S1....

[Tourbillon De La Vie]

Never had a problem restoring data from Samsung or Google backup

[arianwen27]

The normal samsung backup is for important data, so media is excluded. Smart switch cloud backups backup your entire phone but have to be started manually.

As for google, google photos handles photo and video backups. If you setup google photos correctly, they'll all be inside that app

[Sonora]

Google implemented Gemini in Google Photos at the same time Samsung released the November security update. With that update Samsung broke Google Photos backup. Luckily I didn't reset my phone because I discovered that I have 16000 unsaved photos (well, they are backed, but Gemini not recognized it on my phone and tried to backup them again, still doing that. Samsung somehow broke connection and sync with Google Photos and didn't fix with December upgrade. It is Samsung issue,  because I read that users have issues with One Drive (Microsoft) too.

So, it is always good to check if your all important photos are backed, especially before factory reset. 

[Sonora]

Google Photos backup has worked perfectly for years. I have 230 GB backed photos. They are indeed backed, but Samsung somehow broken sync and nothing works, neither clearing or deleting data and app, sync is extremely slowly no matter of my GOOD connection,  everything works ok except backup on Google Photos. After Gemini finishes indexing and re-backing up I will have 16000 duplicates because Gemini not recognized them and I can't delete it now because Gemini duplicate them again. 

[MartynaK]

Hi @Riddick0510,

Thank you for sharing your experience. We’re really sorry to hear about the data loss you’ve encountered—this is understandably very frustrating, especially when important files and photos are involved.

During beta software programs, not all data is guaranteed to be fully backed up or restored, and some backup services may only restore certain categories such as contacts, apps, and settings. We strongly recommend using additional backup methods, such as manually saving important files to a computer or external storage, before performing a factory reset or reverting beta software.

We understand your disappointment, and your feedback about clearer warnings and backup transparency is very valuable. I will share this feedback with the relevant team to help improve communication and the backup experience in the future. Thank you for being a long-time Samsung user, and we truly appreciate your loyalty and patience.