Heyo everyone. Now and again I see posts about people losing devices or needing to restore backup data. People only think about backups when they need them, not before. Thought it might be nice to write some good backup practices.
Google account.
When connected to a google account, go to settings, google, all services, backup. Make sure backup by google one is enabled and make your first backup. All others will be automatic. You can also get here through settings, account and backup, google drive back up data.
Go back to the all services part of the google menu, make sure google contacts sync is on. Also turn sync device contacts on too just in case you don't have your contacts saved in the right place.
These will backup when the screen is off, the device has sat for a while and is charging. So charge over night when you can. Preferably with battery protection enabled.
Google photos. This is technically separate from the google backup system. This saves all your photos to your google drive. I'd advise you set it to storage saver mode to prevent using loads of storage.
Samsung account
Open the cloud app on your phone. Else go to settings, account and backup, samsung cloud backup up data. Make sure all backup options are ticked and on. In the same cloud app, make sure all sync options are on. This is the backup system for all the samsung apps and services on your phone.
These will backup when the screen is off, the device has sat for a while and is charging. So charge over night when you can. Preferably with battery protection enabled.
Gallery app
In the default samsung gallery app, you can enable sync with one drive. This copies all your images and videos to your one drive account at full quality. This can take up a lot of storage if you have giant files but if you pay for office 365, you get 1tb of one drive, so it's worth setting up.
Smart switch, the best backup
Install smart switch on your pc, connect your phone to your pc Preferably with a usb 3 cable but the included one works fine. Press backup on thr pc software, do any prompts on the phone, wait for everything to finish.
Optionally but less recommended, plug a usb drive into your phone, open the smart switch app, press the micro sd cards icon. You can back up to a usb drive as if it were a pc. Just slower and maybe harder to manage.
This will backup EVERYTHING on your device. So even if your device gets turned to dust, you should be able to restore almost an exact copy onto a new device. This will save the data onto your pc, so expect maybe 40gb or higher depending on what is on your phone.
This has to be done manually and requires your own pc and storage.
Optionally, samsung lets you do this without a pc by opening the smart switch app on your phone, press the cloud icon top right. You can now do a full backup as if you had a pc, this will be saved on samsung servers. Be aware after 1 month your backup will be deleted and these cannot be done automatically.
Whatsapp
Might as well cover this too. Open WhatsApp, settings, chats, chat backup, login to your google account and set backups to maybe weekly or daily. Run a backup to make sure it works.
Security notice
If you backup your data to a cloud service, that service can read your data. Here's some info on that.
Google backups are secured using your device code, google can't read these. As long as you have on device encryption enabled in the google password manager. Settings, google, password manager, cog icon, go down, enable on device encryption. On by default for new setups, older logins might have it off.
Google photos backups cannot be fully encrypted and secured. Google will always have access to backed up images and videos.
Samsung cloud, backup and sync data can be read by samsung, but they won't unless legally required to. If this is a worry, open settings in the cloud app, enable enhanced data protection. This secures your data so only you can access it. Be aware to not lose your recovery key as if samsung and you don't have the key, the data is lost.
Gallery one drive sync cannot be encrypted or have extra protection. Microsoft/one drive can view your data if they wish. Though they won't unless legally required to.
Smart switch. On the pc software, in settings you can enable encryption. This protects from someone who has your pc from accessing your backup data that is on that pc.
Smart switch cloud. Secure folder is secured by default using your samsung account. In the smart switch app, open settings, under security, set external storage to samsung account. This adds some extra protection. If you're worried about your account being backed, external storage and secure folder can be set to a password. So instead of your samsung account unlocking it, only you can unlock it.
Whatsapp, this is saved to your google drive. Google and anyone with access to your google drive could read the data. Though again, google won't unless legally required to. In the whatsapp backup menu, enable end to end encrypted backups to ensure only you can view your backup data. Again, lose the code/password, no more data. So don't lose it.
Smart switch will backup everything except whatsapp. The other methods don't backup as much as smart switch does but are automatic daily, where smart switch is manual.
