Beware that Android backup app
I’ve been investigating backup apps lately after a rather lackluster performance by Samsung’s Smart Switch app between my Galaxy Note 8 and my Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G. What I’ve discovered is most of these backup apps appear to be fairly useless.
First thing you should note – there are a total of about six things to back up on your Android. These are Text/SMS Messages, Apps, application data, how you’ve got stuff laid out in your launcher, and account data.
What I’m finding is more and more of these backup apps will do your messages, layout, and apps, but forget about account data and application data. These are the two things you need for a complete restore.
While for many apps with cloud-synced backends this means you’ll enter maybe your Google password to sign in once and it’ll just work, older apps and things that require account data are all going to require a re-login. Your craptastic game from 2015 will be sans progress.
Literally the only thing I’ve seen in the few that I’ve investigated that is at all different from Google’s backup options is the ability to save text messages to a computer and restore from there.
Just be aware – if it can’t back up and restore app data and accounts, you’re going to be logging into things and recreating the app data. Make sure to ask if it can do that without root before purchase. If you don’t you might just find that all you’ve purchased is something that reinstalls your apps and puts them like you had them in your launcher.
