How to back-up Nexus 5 OTB

[Taylor Cowan]

Hey everyone,
I'm looking for some info on doing a complete back up of my nexus 5, OUT OF THE BOX. That's everything from contacts to apps, pictures and video.
DO NOT try to tell me I need to ROOT my device. I am not interested and you will be shunned! Every piece of advice I can find tells me to root and I refuse. There has to be a way to back up this phone out of the box.
I am using a 32gb nexus 5 on a mac computer.
Thanks in advance, I love this forum

 

[Chex313]

If you use google plus your pics will be backed up there. I prefer to off load vids and pics myself. For Mac I use "Android File Transfer" Android.com I take alot of vids and Pics and only trust myself to keep them safe. Also the bandwidth to back them up to the cloud would be enormous. I send the good vid's(After editing) to Youtube.

Your contacts get backed up to your Gmail(There is a tab for contacts,top left corner)

Apps will restore themselves when you sign back in to your account.

Backup is under Setting's/Back Up and Restore. Check "Back Up My Data" and Check "Automatic Restore" Click the menu button top right corner and click "Help" and it will describe in detail what the backup covers.

Also for App's...... Setting's/Accounts/Google...Make sure its syncing to your account. It will show the last date synched.
Also for all App's that use it, Settings/Data Usage...Click the Menu button. Check auto Sync Data.
Hope this helps.

 

[jj14x]

I'm looking for some info on doing a complete back up of my nexus 5, OUT OF THE BOX.

Not sure what you mean by "Out of the box" in this context. Typically, OOB indicates factory image, to restore your phone to the condition you had when you first took it out of the box. But you then indicate contacts/apps/pictures/videos - which is not part of the phone when you first took it Out of the box.

If you just want to restore your phone to the way it was when you got it the first time, that's easy - factory reset. (stop reading further)

If you want a system image, to restore EVERYTHING the way it was at the moment you took the backup, your only option is to root. Yes, you can shun me (!!!), but that doesn't change the facts. I think I'll survive being shunned.

If you are ok with backing up individual parts, follow the steps that Chex313 outlined. Note that while your apps will get restored, some apps (that do not backup their data to cloud) will not restore app-data. So game progress for games that do not backup to the cloud, will be lost. If you have custom settings for apps like lightflow or tasker, you will need to go into the settings for those apps and create a backup of the settings, and remember to back those up to the cloud or your computer. There are some apps out there that do not have the option to backup their settings/widgets.

DO NOT try to tell me I need to ROOT my device. I am not interested and you will be shunned! Every piece of advice I can find tells me to root and I refuse. There has to be a way to back up this phone out of the box.

Nobody is going to force you to root your device - but if you want people to tell you a way to make 2+2 to be equal to 5, it ain't possible. A system image (backup of EVERYTHING) without rooting is not possible. You can backup most of the things, but not everything.

 

[Taylor Cowan]

Ok at least I understand why everyone insists on root as the only way to back up.
I basically wanted a way to plug my phone into the computer and have everything backed up in one file that i can restore from one source without any modifications. Kind of like the way you would do a back up through itunes if you had one of those "other" phones.
Thanks for the help

 

[jj14x]

If you use the google ecosystem (gmail contacts, google calendar, play store, google music, google plus for photos etc), most of the things are auto-backed up by google. The only things that aren't backed up are the user app data (for apps that don't store to cloud). For that, try helium backup (works without root too).
If you run into issues, and have to factory reset, everything will auto-restore (except the app data that you had to backup separately - just restore using helium).

Look at it this way - with ios, you have to connect to itunes and restore. Here, when you activate your google account on your phone, everything will auto-restore - and you have to use helium to restore the app data that didn't auto-restore. Number of steps is the same.

 

[milannakrani]

Mobogenie has now made it possible to backup an Android device on a Windows PC. Single Click Backup & Restore your Android Phones. Install Mobogenie on PC, launch it after installation and connect your device.Enable USB-debugging on your Android device to use Mobogenie.Mobogenie: All-in-one Android Smartphone PC Manager

 

[dwilbur]

I believe the app Helium by Koushik Dutta can back up the phone without root. You need to install a companion app on the computer to enable backup without root. You can backup to the cloud and the phone, but not sure whether you can backup to a computer directly. Check the playstore for Helium.

 

[Shilohcane]

The only things that aren't backed up are the user app data (for apps that don't store to cloud). For that, try helium backup (works without root too).
If you run into issues, and have to factory reset, everything will auto-restore (except the app data that you had to backup separately - just restore using helium).

Just use Google's DRIVE app. It has word, spreadsheet, folders and you can even put pictures and movies there. I put my grocery list in a word file made by my windows laptop in Drives' cloud app or even a recipe I want to get the ingredients for to cook and access them from my Nexus 5. I just keep them in the cloud and Google backs it up and I always have cloud access or can download the file to any of my devices.

Showed a buddy that owns his AC repair/install company and he uses Google Drive spreadsheet and word files to keep track of customers address, AC model, serial #, parts and mileage for taxes on service calls that he can access from his windows laptop, Samsung G4, or Android tablet. He will get a better cloud based system as soon as he can pay for it.

 

[jj14x]

If you use the google ecosystem (gmail contacts, google calendar, play store, google music, google plus for photos etc), most of the things are auto-backed up by google. The only things that aren't backed up are the user app data (for apps that don't store to cloud). For that, try helium backup (works without root too).
If you run into issues, and have to factory reset, everything will auto-restore (except the app data that you had to backup separately - just restore using helium).

Just use Google's DRIVE app.

Since you quoted me, what specific data backup are you recommending Drive app for? For calendar/contacts/music/photos? Why would you want to export all your data regularly from those sources into a flat file and then import them into google drive? Or for user app data? How would you use google drive for that unless you know each individual file that needs to be backed up for all apps? (not all apps provide the option to export settings)
Just trying to understand if there is an easier way of doing this

 

[herpderp2012]

Sucks to be using Mac, but otherwise for Windows or Linux I'd recommend using ADB Backup (also known as Holo Backup). Requires no rooting and can do a full 'image' of most Android 4.2+ phones. Google it, or check out the thread on xda developers, or find it on github.

 

[Verne Brewster1]

Backed up to Google Drive using Helium. Needs the Premium account to restore.

 

[Birk Binnard]

I've tried them all and the only one that seems to actually work the way you want it to is Holo Backup.

The reason for this is that it is the only method that actually backs up everything in the phone, and it does this by sending the appropriate DOS command string to the ADB program that runs on your PC. There are several steps you may have to go through to enable ADB to communicate with your phone (they involve installing the proper device driver and getting the phone into USB Debuggin mode), but htere are lots of tutorials that show how to do this.

Holo Backup is simply a fairly nice front end that sends commands to ADB. It is actually ADB that does the actual backup & restore work.

None of the other backup programs work nearly as nicely. It is a shame that Google has failed to provide a robust backup capability in Android.

 

[bleached]

After flashing the factory image to my Nexus 5 yesterday everything was back go normal after 20 minutes without me doing anything other than signing in. Even my home screens and folders were exactly the same as before without doing anything special. I only use apps that cloud backup and keep everything synced to my Google account. Makes everything much easier, especially if you lose your phone. Lollipop backup is quite good.

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