data, Dustin Fontaine

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.

Backing Up Your Data

Whether it’s family photos, professional work or sensitive legal documents, everyone in the modern age has some amount of data that is precious to them. Not everyone is entirely informed on the best ways to preserve that data though. In previous endeavors, I’ve seen people come to tears that their computers drive had failed after storing the last five years of their childrens’ lives on their computers. The fact of the matter is, the materials in these machines are finite and you have to expect them to fail. There isn’t a set time-frame so the sooner you take action, the better off you’ll be.

In this article I’m going to discuss a few different options, considering there really isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. The option (or options) you decide on will depend entirely on how precious the data is to you, and how much it will cost to maintain the integrity of the data. Also it should be noted that I’m targeting the consumer class here, larger organizations I expect to have much more complex backup solutions.

I’ll start off by mentioning the most common solution – external hard drives. There are a few things to be aware of when choosing to use external hard drives. First, they fail too. Just moving all your data to a drive will not keep it safe if that is the drive that fails. Second, natural disasters – they can be damaged or lost in a fire. A decent solution to this if you want to be completely offline is to purchase two drives, one that you use consistently, and one that you store in a safety deposit box and update maybe twice a month or whatever time-frame you deem reasonable. Obviously you would be subjected to rent on the box, see your local banks.

Another option would be your standard-issue cloud storage provider. I’m not going to go into this one too much because most users are aware of services like Dropbox. However, there are a few things to consider on this, first is your cost, you’ll be paying a subscription to get any reasonable amount of storage. Second is privacy. It’s one thing to nonchalantly recognize that everything you do is being tracked. It’s an entirely different thing to read a person’s first-hand testimonial to the practice. No matter your opinion on the subject – you need to be aware that anything you upload will be visible to someone.

There are a few services that boast privacy such as Tresorit and Sync . You can also opt for a backup software that you designate the file structure such as Spideroak or Sugarsync.

Luckily there is a happy median to these solutions. I personally use a software called Duplicati. This software has been around for quite a while and has a large community of contributors that help to improve it and fix bugs. One reason I recommend this software is it runs on all the major operating systems – it just runs in the background and you open up the interface in your favorite web browser. You can set it to run the backup job on a schedule, and best of all you can encrypt those backups in-transit to many types of cloud storage. And there you have it, cloud + privacy. Win/win. The most important thing here is to store your encryption passphrase in a password manager (you DO use one, don’t you) so that it’s safe because it’s a two-way street – without that passphrase you can’t access that data either.

If you have the technical know-how, you can build out a Nextcloud server (a cloud storage solution that YOU manage) in your own home for a reasonable price, I do this personally, and have Duplicati backing up to a cloud storage I use every six hours. This is more advanced and requires you to have your own hardware, but it’s also the best way to have your cloud be completely private.