backup whole phone to image?

[Android Central Question]

is there any software to backup a whole samsung s8 to an external image? I've seen plenty of apps that will back up certain files and such but I was hoping to backup my whole phone. I'm aware this would require booting the phone from another operating system. One can back up a whole computer by booting it from acronis or clonezilla or whatever so is there an equivalent for the samsung s8?

 

[hallux]

Without rooting? No

If you don't mind rooting, TWRP or similar can do it. Samsung had a computer based tool called smart switch that might be good enough for you.

 

[Rukbat]

One can back up a whole computer by booting it from acronis or clonezilla or whatever

Only one partition at a time. An Android phone has about a dozen partitions (think a dozen hard drives), so it's not that simple.

As Hallux said, TWRP will back everything (that can be backed up - it won't back up a couple of partitions that shouldn't be written to) up in one shot.

Remember, apps like Acronis or Clonezilla have to be booted from a CD (or DVD), and run rooted operating systems. That's a bit difficult on a cellphone (although Samsung is one of the few phones - some models, at least - that can be booted from SD card - but, because the boot image has to be signed, and Samsung isn't about to release the code for that, it still can't boot a fully rooted OS).

Stick to TWRP for your data and flashing the OS if you have to.