How to back up your Samsung Galaxy phone or tablet
Before you switch from your current Samsung Galaxy phone to one ofSamsung’s Galaxy flagships, it’s important to back up your data. This makes your transition to the new device easier, as you won’t spend time getting your contacts, messages, apps, and settings the way you like. Plus, you should always back up your Samsung phone before things go wrong, it suddenly stops working, or it’s stolen.
Samsung offers several ways to create a full device backup of your Galaxy phone or tablet. you’re able to either back up your data to the cloud or create a local backup on your PC. Alternatively, you can use Google Drive to back up important data on your Galaxy phone. Follow this guide to learn more.
What is Samsung Cloud?
If you have a Samsung account, using Samsung Cloud to back up the data and settings on your Galaxy phone is the best solution. It allows you to back up (and restore) your device settings to a new Galaxy phone with a few taps.
Below is the content that Samsung Cloud can back up:
There are some downsides to using Samsung Cloud:
While Samsung Cloud backs up your contacts, calendar, and messaging data, it only backs up items saved locally. So, contacts or calendar entries synced from your Google account are not backed up.
Samsung Cloud cannot back up files larger than 1GB, though you will unlikely reach this limit soon. All backed-up data is encrypted for security and privacy reasons.
Samsung Cloud does not back up data fromSamsung Secure Folder. So, move any content manually from the folder before resetting the device to ensure the data is not lost.
How to back up your Samsung phone or tablet using Samsung Cloud
When you turn on auto backup for Samsung Cloud, it automatically backs up your phone once every 24 hours when it is on charge, connected to a Wi-Fi network, and the screen is off.
You can see the backed-up data on your PC by logging in to theSamsung Cloud website.
How to restore your Samsung Cloud backup
Restoring a device backup from Samsung Cloud is easy. However, this cloud backup feature is only available on Samsung phones. So, you can’t restore data on a non-Samsung device.
What is Samsung Smart Switch?
Samsung Smart Switch lets you move data and content from your older phone or tablet to your new Galaxy device. The app is available for Android, Windows, and Mac. You’ll use the desktop app to create a full local backup of your existing Galaxy phone, which you can restore to your new Samsung phone.
Unlike Samsung Cloud, Smart Switch backs up all locally saved files on your device, including photos, videos, and other documents. It’s a more comprehensive backup solution than the former, though you’ll need access to a PC. The total backup and restore time might also be higher here, depending on the amount of data involved.
Apart from creating and restoring backups, it’s possible to use Smart Switch to install the latest firmware update or restore your Galaxy device to its stock state.
You can use the Smart Switch mobile app to directly transfer data from your current phone to your new Samsung device.
How to back up your Samsung phone or tablet using Smart Switch
Here’s how to use Smart Switch to back up your phone:
If the backup process gets stuck, turn on theKeep screen onoption on your Galaxy phone.
How to back up your Samsung device to external storage
One of the best parts of Samsung Smart Switch’s mobile app is the ability to directly back up your Galaxy phone or tablet to an external storage or microSD card. This is a great option when you need to back up your phone immediately but don’t have access to an internet connection or a PC.
How to remotely back up your Samsung phone or tablet using SmartThings Find
In addition to initiating a backup process from your handset, Samsung offers the ability to back up your device using a web browser remotely. This method is convenient if you don’t have physical access to your device or its screen doesn’t work, limiting you from taking a backup.
You must be logged in to a Samsung account to back up your Galaxy device remotely.
As a part of remote backup, it’s possible to save your locally saved contacts, calendar entries, call logs, messages, homescreen layout and wallpaper, system settings, and Samsung apps data to Samsung Cloud.
If your Samsung device isn’t connected to the internet, the backup automatically begins the next time the phone is online.
Because smartphones are hella expensive
How to back up your Samsung phone to Google Drive
If you don’t have a Samsung account or prefer Google, back up your Samsung phone to Google Drive. This is also the method you should use if your next phone is a non-Samsung device.
As a part of the Google Drive backup, selected app data, SMS and MMS messages, call history, and Google account data are backed up. For photos and videos, consider usingGoogle Photos.
You can only restore a Google Drive backup during an Android device’s setup process. You’ll reset it to restore your data.
Always create backups
Irrespective of whether you are selling your current Galaxy phone, always create backups. This way, you’ll never lose your data, even if something happens to your phone. And Samsung makes this process easier by offering several methods to back up your data. Consider usingShizuku to batch restore your Android apps after a factory reset, especially since third-party app data is not backed up in any of the solutions mentioned above. Backups make switching to one of thebest folding phoneseasier.
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