Backing Up Your Mobile Data

You may have noticed that I didn’t include Mobile devices in my previous post. That is because I feel it deserves a post of its own, partially because the data is managed in ways that make this, well, not an easy task. Especially considering the fact that “offline backup” is not a term synonymous with the modern mobile ecosystem.

Between photos, contacts, calendars, and random items you’ve downloaded in between you may have trouble finding a reliable way to get everything in one go. To be honest the easiest way is to rely on the services that provide the experience – so Apple/Google or some other major service you might prefer (like some of the ones in my previous post). Of course most major cloud providers will have their own apps and they should have some sort of auto-upload function. The only caveat to this is (depending on the service) it’s only files – not app data or contacts, so you’ll likely need to rely on more apps to provide that functionality for your preferred service.

There are a few ways to get around having to use a service you may not quite trust with some of your data. Perhaps one the easiest is Syncthing . It does require you to have another target device that you use as a “server” but this can honestly just be your laptop. This app is installed both on your computer/server and your phone. It will then generate a unique ID that is entered on the device to be paired and you start setting up your folders. If you pair this with any number of backup/restore apps on the store, it should back up to your other device. Of course you’ll want to save your ID’s in a password manager.

The good news is, it adds your Camera folder by default.

For messages, your best bet would be one of the many SMS backup apps like this one for Android. You can then set the backup folder to sync via Syncthing. For Apple, it’s likely that your messages are going to be synced via iMessage, but if not – iTunes is probably going to be your best bet for an offline backup.

Two other choices for Android Backup include Fonedog and Migrate. Fonedog will take backups of your devices on your computer, and if you do not select encrypted backups, it will copy your photos and videos as they are. Contacts, calendar, etc are backed up in .info files but can be exported from the app. It is paid, but it does do a lot, and is probably worth it. You can select different components though if you only need the backup/restore.

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The other option is Migrate, this is ONLY for rooted devices using a custom recovery. It creates a zip file for you to flash in recovery to restore your data. I like this because it’s 100% offline. It has a helper app you have to grant permission for it to function and it does give a warning to test uninstalling and restoring apps before you try wiping your phone. I thought that was nice.

I’ve tested this one out briefly and it seems to work as intended. The apps are backed up and contacts are in a .vcf file, though the sms and call logs are in .db files which can be opened using a database viewer.