Advised Backup soft?

Does anyone know what the “application settings” synchronization category of the /e/ account stands for? Does it actually synchronize application data to the /e/ cloud, and how can it be restored?

Welcome in the forum :slight_smile:

For now apps data aren’t sync so it’s something else.

Thanks @marcdw for the tip about this new version of Oandbackup which I downloaded from F-Droid and installed to try it out. The interface is not the easiest to understand, but I finally saw how to do a complete backup of system and personal apks without data and with over a hundred files to backup it completed the job in 18 minutes which quite surprised me compared to the complication of Titanium Backup. So now I’ll downlaod the whole folder called OABX by default and save it by adb to my computer. Very useful tool!

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I need some clarification,

Is seedvault going to be part of /e/? When will this happen? I saw somwhere a tag on git with 0.13 but this dosn’t tel me when this will be.

Can I already use seedvault even if it is not in fdroid?

I do have my selfhosted nc 19.0.4 server. Is it possible to backup my whole phone with seedvault on my nc server?

There are very few informations about seedvault for normal users like me. That why I ask here.

I do have an aplication on my phone wich says that ifmy phone is in root it will not work. So OandBackup is no option for me.

I’m a bit worried about loosing my phone because I don’t have a good solution for restoring my datas yet.

I’ve tried out seedvault with LineageOS and have a bit of experience with it.

First of all it’s meant to be a system app so that it doesn’t require to root the phone. That way, you can’t just install seedvault as an app, it needs to come with the OS. Which has the consequence that few people have experience with it/little information is available, as to my knowledge only Graphene OS and Calyx OS have it at the moment (for /e/ it’s in beta testing IIRC; for Lineage I had to build the ROM myself to integrate seedvault).

And to my knowledge it will not be possible to backup “everything”. App developers can specify if their app (data? not sure) can be backed up. When I tried it out some of the apps couldn’t be backed up indeed (sorry, don’t remember which).
But on the other hand, the homescreen was preserved and also several settings I checked (like volume/brightness level etc.)

My conclusion is: it’s as good as it gets for a “normal” user (i.e. when root or TWRP backup are not an option). Even if it’s not perfect.

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Maybe this helps: Backups, bootloader, root

These days I found that Seedvault now included in the official LineageOS for MicroG builds! Looks like we finally got a self-hosted alternative to the Goolag’s backup solution.

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It looks promising, indeed ! :slight_smile:
Some readings : https://www.xda-developers.com/lineageos-seedvault-open-source-backup-solution/

However, it has to be complied with the OS (10/Q only), some detail here : https://github.com/seedvault-app/seedvault/wiki/Building-with-AOSP

The way the developers of Seedvault provide their solution only works on Android 10, true. But the /e/ Team ported it to Android 9. I already tried a working beta version. And IIRC it’s supposed to come with the next v0.13 release.

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Thanks @Ingo_FP_Angel for this very promising feedback ! :slight_smile:

Is it somehow related to the “Backup” in Settings ?

I came to this thread looking for a backup option for /e/ on a FP3+, but so far, it left me more confused that informed.

  1. I noticed that there is an AppInfo entry for SeedVault in current /e/ (installed yesterday), but I don’t seem to be able to do anything with it.
    Can anyone shed some light on this?

  2. oandbackup requires root. There is no official /e/ guide for rooting, I read in other threads it is strongly discouraged unless you already know how to do it, basically.

  3. Since the FP3+ is an A/B device, there is no way to have a TWRP recovery partition. So using TWRP to make a system backup would require me to keep my bootloader open.

In summary: If I want to do any decent backup of (let’s say, at least most important app data on) my device, I either need to root it, or keep my bootloader open (or both). Does this sum it up correctly? Is there really no non-cloud /e/-supported backup solution?

I’m really looking forward to SeedVault! I am in the same situation, I don’t want to keep the bootloader unlocked to obtain root (for its security implications).

My current workaround: most of the apps are stateless anyway (including for example contacts, calendars and mails which can be fully restored by syncing DAV and IMAP) and the few that require some kind of data store (messengers, accounting, home screen, …) offer the possibility to backup the data locally. From there I use FolderSync to sync to my nextcloud.

Yes it is not optimal, it takes some manual steps to restore each app individually and it does not backup/restore the full list of installed apps. But for me the backup is merely desaster recovery, this is a good enough workaround until e has a native backup solution, and most importantly it allows me to keep the bootloader locked. I tested the approach when migrating from e-Android 9 to 10, and everything worked fine.

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Fully agree with you except that i have about 7 mailboxes and calendars to configure.
It would be a lot faster (and less error-prone) when I could backup and restore these settings from a backup. Same goes for saved network settings.
Pictures and stuff I backup manually about once a week, so don’t care much about them…

I only have 4 e-mail accounts :slight_smile: but I use the Export settings’ function (which is present in both K-9 Mail and /e/'s forked Mail version). I export to a file and keep a copy on my SD Card and a copy in my /e/ files directory. On a new phone, or one with a ‘clean’ install, I import the settings from the file. I still have to input the passwords, but that takes a lot less time than inputting all the server details.

Calendar, Contacts and Notes are all synched by DAV.

The thing that takes time for me is entering the details of all the accounts that are managed by Account Manager - 2 x Nextcloud accounts which each have to be entered three times: once for CalDav/CardDAV, once for Notes, and once for NextCloud file sync: Garmin, BBC News, OpenKeyChain and Twidere accounts.

If I could only backup the account details, then I would not care about backing up anything else. Let’s hope SeedVault does that when it arrives in /e/ version > 14 :slight_smile:

{EDIT] Actually, I also want the settuings for my Home Screen & Launcher (Lawnchair) backed up. Setting that up is the thing that takes the most time on a new install

Root is must have!
Use:
Titanium Backup
for all stuff.
Just complete rom backkup is made by TWRP.

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There is a closed thread here called Soft to backup apps+appsdata without root? I don’t get the reason why closing threads automatically after 6 month, anyway this is why I join this topic here. I tried helium backup: I had to grant access for the helium app with the helium desktop client (for Linux in my case). Because of a missing library, I had to install libncurses5:i386 (32 bit package). Then it started, helium got it’s access, but crashed when trying to run the backup. I had an USB-key connected to the phone, via USB-OTG, that was the reason. After I removed it, I was able to make a backup to the internal storage. Then I discovered, that there is a option in the helium app called “PC-download”. This is more what I wanted… I was able to download the backup.zip from the phone, but the restore on the second phone with the “PC download” option didn’t work.
Maybe I’ll give it another try another time…

Hello and thx for the great job!
I’m using /e/ for more then a year now and I’m very interested in Seedvault.
I have seen a LineageOS with Seedvault working quite good.
@Ingo_FP_Angel Where is it possible to follow how it is now included in /e/ oder dev /e/ ?
Does this mean end of april :


And is it possible to test a beta version and give feedback ?
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Sorry, I don’t know about the status. The latest Q test builds for the FP3 did not include Seedvault, no idea if it is present for other devices and/or Pie builds.

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