How to Back Up Important Phone Data
Quick summary: Back up photos, contacts, chats and files so a lost or broken phone does not mean lost memories.
Phones get dropped, stolen, damaged by water and lost on trains. When that happens, the phone is replaceable but the photos of your family, your contacts and your chats may not be. A backup turns a disaster into an inconvenience.
A good backup plan is simple: your photos and important files in two places, your contacts and settings synced to your account, and your chat history saved regularly. This guide shows each piece, and how to check that it really works.
Before you start
Backup menus differ between brands, and Samsung, Xiaomi and others have their own cloud services in addition to Google's. The steps below describe Google's tools, which most Android phones have. Backup space is limited on free plans, so check how much storage you have.
1. Decide what you cannot replace
Make a short list: photos and videos, contacts, messages, documents, authenticator codes and chat history. Photos and documents are the most important because they cannot be recreated. Banking and authenticator apps need special care. See the warning below.
2. Turn on your Google backup
Open Settings, then Google, then Backup (on some phones under All services), and switch on backup. Tap Back up now. On many phones, this covers app data, call history, device settings and, depending on your phone, SMS. Your free storage is shared with Gmail and Photos, so check how much is left.
3. Back up your photos and videos
Open Google Photos, tap your profile picture, then Photos settings, then Backup, and turn it on. Choose whether to back up over Wi-Fi only. Wait for it to finish, then check on a computer at photos.google.com that your latest photos appear. If you use a different gallery cloud, check its own settings.
Example: If you take 500 videos at a wedding, a free plan may fill quickly. Check the progress bar to see whether backup is stuck for lack of space.
4. Sync your contacts
Open Settings, then Passwords & accounts (or Accounts), choose your Google account and make sure Contacts sync is switched on. Contacts stored only on the phone or SIM may not be protected, so in the Contacts app, look for an option to move them to your account.
5. Back up WhatsApp chats
In WhatsApp, open Settings, then Chats, then Chat backup. Choose your Google account and how often to back up, and tap Back up. Include videos only if you have enough space. If your version offers end-to-end encrypted backup, you can turn it on, but you must keep the password or 64-digit key safe, because WhatsApp cannot recover it for you.
6. Make a copy on your computer
Connect your phone with a USB cable, choose File transfer mode and open the phone from your computer. Copy the DCIM folder (photos and videos), Pictures, Documents and Downloads to an external drive or computer folder. Do this every few months. It protects you if your cloud account is ever locked.
7. Note down important codes
Save recovery codes for your Google, banking and social accounts, and make a note of which accounts use an authenticator app. If your authenticator app supports backup or transfer, set that up before changing phones.
8. Test your backup
Open a backed-up photo on another device or the web. Check that contacts appear in Google Contacts online. If you can, look at a backup of a chat. Testing takes five minutes and shows you immediately whether something is missing.
Pro tip and important warning
Pro tip: Follow the 3-2-1 idea: three copies of important files, on two kinds of storage, with one copy somewhere else, such as a cloud account. For a family photo library, that could be your phone, an external drive and cloud backup.
Important: Cloud storage fills up, and a full account stops backing up without making much noise. Check backup status every month or so. Do not clear the data of authenticator or banking apps before you have a recovery method, and never share your backup password or recovery key.
Conclusion
A backup takes about half an hour to set up and may save you years of memories. Turn on Google backup, check Google Photos, sync contacts, save WhatsApp chats and copy your photos to a computer now and then. Related reading: How to Free Up Storage Without Deleting Important Files, Essential Smartphone Security Tips and our How-to Tutorials category.
