Help - Cannot restore Pixel XL after unenrolling from beta

[Android Central Question]

Dagnabbit! Unenrolled from beta 8.1 and going back to non-beta 8.0. When I went to restore, it didn't show the Pixel XL backup on my phone. It only shows my old Android phones' backups. It shows the Pixel backup on my chrome browser on my laptop, but on the phone itself, no luck. Dang, I have to go back in time 18 months to my old phone's settings?!?! Any ideas on how I can get it to 'see' my actual (beta) Pixel backup data on the Pixel itself? Thanks!

Update: I re-enrolled in beta and it's there...I can see it and it restored. But I don't want to be in beta any more. Is there any way to get my restored data on a non-beta Pixel? There has to be, right?

 

[N4Newbie]

Short answer - no.

I just went through this over the weekend and, due to some other issues, was engaged in a lengthy chat session with multiple levels of Google support. As to this specific issue I was told, no, you cannot recover from a cloud backup because you cannot recover "backwards".

Personally, I think it's silly, but that is the way it works. I mean, I would have been happy had it simply restored my home pages, putting all the icons in the right places, but not even that was possible.

So, I basically had to start from scratch and do the entire process manually. Re-download all of my apps, reconfigure my home screens, reset my various preferences, and so on.

A huge PITA that ate up a good part of my weekend...

 

[donaldmd13]

Thanks, N4. Most unfortunate. I went back to beta (still a pita, but less of a PITA than a full wiping). Maybe one day when I have 8 hours to kill (or G fixes this problem), I'll fully unenroll.

It says that all user data will be wiped, but I think a better description would be that all user data will be wiped AND CANNOT BE RESTORED.

 

[N4Newbie]

Thanks, N4. Most unfortunate. I went back to beta (still a pita, but less of a PITA than a full wiping). Maybe one day when I have 8 hours to kill (or G fixes this problem), I'll fully unenroll.

It says that all user data will be wiped, but I think a better description would be that all user data will be wiped AND CANNOT BE RESTORED.

I agree; they could be more specific.

I've been through this sort of thing before and so I always have a multi-step process:

1. Take screenshots of each of my home screens. I like to get everything back exactly where it was.
2. Open the Photos app, go to settings -> Backup & sync -> Backup device folders and ensure that everything is actually being backed up to the cloud
3. In main Settings -> System -> Backup, check the "Last Backup" date/time for each item in the list to ensure cloud backups are up-to-date
4. Open WhatsApp and force a cloud backup (Menu -> Settings -> Chats -> Chat backup)
5. Do the same for any other app that supports it. For example, I use the Nine email app for my work Exchange Server email; it offers a way to backup settings and email/store them for later restoration.
6. Connect to my desktop PC via USB cable and copy to my PC everything that I am not absolutely sure is part of my Google profile. For example:
   1. SafeCamera encrypted image files; if I don't copy them off to a safe place, they will be lost forever. Since they don't have image-type file extensions, Photos backup refuses to back them up.
   2. My entire Music folder
   3. The contents of several other app folders that may or may not come back on their own. For example, I use an app called GedStarPro to keep a full copy of my genealogy database accessible on my device. I save a copy of the database file so that I don't have to recreate it again from my desktop RootsMagic app.
   4. I also have several Italian language dictionaries and related learning apps that may not fully restore without some manual intervention on my part.
   5. Custom ringtones, etc.
   6. Recordings made by my voice recorder app (SmartVoiceRecorder)

Only when I am confident that I have saved everything I could possibly want or need, do I then initiate the factory reset and restore.

 

[can3gxw]

@N4Newbie - one way that I have found is to run Nova Launcher (others probably work too). There is an option in Nova to backup and restore your home pages. I've done this many times, and make a backup about once a week "just in case" because really, I don't remember what was on what page until I go to use something and find out that it's not there anymore.

 

[N4Newbie]

@N4Newbie - one way that I have found is to run Nova Launcher (others probably work too). There is an option in Nova to backup and restore your home pages. I've done this many times, and make a backup about once a week "just in case" because really, I don't remember what was on what page until I go to use something and find out that it's not there anymore.

Yeah, that's one of the things I like about Nova.

Unfortunately, it's one of the *few* things I like about Nova.

I have toyed with it a few times over the years, but never felt that it was worth the trouble and keep just falling back to the default Google launcher.

 

[donaldmd13]

And just to reiterate, all my music is gone from my phone (obviously backed up on my computer), custom ringtones, photo folders, etc? That's just crappy.

Any idea how I could get those custom ringtones/notification tones back. Are they hidden somewhere on my phone or in my google account on my laptop browser? If I can find them somewhere I can transfer to phone. I'd love to have those back. Thank you.

 

[LeoRex]

Google doesn't yet back up the contents of your internal storage... So if you didn't have backups of those files before your reset, they are gone.

I used to do a lot of custom ROM jumping back in the day, and this was something that I ran into a fair bit. I got to the point where I made a directory in Drive that had a folder that contained all the extra stuff I put into alarms, notifications, etc. When I reset I just copied them down. I've also used apps like FolderSync to easily sync local folders to the cloud.

They recently enhanced the Google Drive desktop app to be a true folder sync, I hope that extending that to the Android app is on their roadmap.