Not for TWRP. For the tool I link to, the docs say the phone must be rooted, but it is sufficient to enable ‘Rooted debugging’ in developer options. The tool needs root access to mount, read, and write to the system partition on the phone via adb shell. Rooted debugging has sufficient access to allow that, even on sn unrooted phone
4 Likes
That’s a shame. In which case, TWRP backup looks like the only way for users running stable builds.
My comments were in response to a user with a FP3 running v0.23-p, an Android 9 / pie, who would like to update to v1.0, so needs to be running a Android 10 / Q or Android 11 R build. Upgrading from Pie to Q or R will involve wiping existing data.
If that user is on a stable v0.23-p build, then their only way of preserving their apps is TWRP backup and restore, which will probably involve using TWRP. And for some devices, even that does not work: a backup from a nougat or pie build cannot always be restored on a Q or R build.
If they are on a dev build, then they should have rooted debugging, and the backup tool I linked to offers an alternative solution
2 Likes
What about Seedvault? It should be included in every version now. [HOWTO] use Seedvault early to understand Android backup
You can launch it with ActivityLauncher (from f-droid) and off you go.
Good point - I’d forgotten about SeedVault. It doesn’t back up / restore as much as TWRP or the tool I linked to, but it’s better than starting completely from scratch.
Or you can start it from adb on a connected computer, as outlined in the first post in the thread you linked to. Worth reading all of that thread 
2 Likes
I have updated my Android version now using the Easy Installer of /e/OS for the Fairphone 3. It is easy to use and now I am on Android 10 as well, so that I have /e/OS v1.0 finally.
However, what I wanted to ask here in the forum:
@AnotherElk mentioned that people that own an Fairphone 3 and use /e/OS can be on different Android versions: either Android 9, 10 or 11.
The Easy Installer now automatically updated me to Android 10. As far as I have seen it, it unfortunatly did not give me the choice to update directly to Android 11, what I would have liked to do, when I do this manual effort.
Does anyone know more about this, if it is also possible to update the FP3 with the Easy Installer of /e/OS to Android 11 directly, so that this does not happen to me in the future again that I am on a too old Android version?
Thanks already for all of you guys’ advices!
Currently there are no stable releases of Android 11 (R) for the Fairphone 3/3+, there are only dev releases still marked beta.
The Easy Installer only installs stable releases.
3 Likes