This post is prompted by the accidental complete erasure of my phone.
I’m going to write about what I’m currently doing, I’d like to hear about your experience and recommendations too.
This is about individual backup files for each app that potentially can be restored to a different model of phone etc. It is not about backups that save the entire memory of the phone e.g. nandroid or TWRP. And not about backing up applications, the assumption being that they can be reinstalled.
Other relevant topics
Sync to murena.io (formerly ecloud.global)
With the default settings, the following things are sync’ed:
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Contacts
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Calendar
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Tasks
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Notes
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Photos
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Documents
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Music
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On murena.io Devices/DEVICE_ID/rom_settings/app_list/packages_list.csv - is there a way to use this when restoring a device
(TODO: find link to description of everything that syncs to murena.io, how to exclude things from sync)
I create a folder Documents/Backups/ to use as the destination location for various app backups. Everything in this folder syncs to murena.io .
In the following sections I call this Backups
Using IMAP (the default these days), your emails remain on your mail server.
In the Mail or K9 Mail apps, go to Settings/Export settings where you can choose to export General settings as well as settings for each email account you are using. You need to do this manually each time you make (major) changes to the settings, or add a new email account.
SMS and phone logs
I use SMS backup and restore available via App Lounge. Despite the name, it also can back up phone call records.
It has a setting to do scheduled backups to a specified location, e.g. Backups.
Music
The Music folder is included in sync. If you have a large collection this will fill your storage on murena.io
To avoid this, I create another folder called music-nosync to contain my collection. The Music app will find files in here without any additional configuration.
Other apps
Aegis TOTP authenticator
Settings>Backups>Automatically back up the vault
AntennaPod podcasts
Enable Settings>Import/Export>Automatic database export, and choose your Backups folder. Database will be backed up every 3 days.
Catima loyalty card / barcode storage
Manual backup only using menu>Import/Export>Export
Firefox
Firefox sync can share bookmarks, payment methods, history, passwords and open tabs with another instance e.g. your desktop browser.
I use BitWarden for password storage, so my passwords are effectively backed up.
OpenTracks fitness/track recorder
Settings>Import and Export>Instant post-workout export
I give this its own sync’ed folder in Documents/OpenTracks
OSMAnd maps
Manually Settings>Export to file
Signal chat
Period backup can be enabled in Settings>Chat>Chat backups
Seedvault?
I don’t know much about this built in backup thingy. Particularly how to check what is being backed up, and how to test that the backup is working correctly.
