Can I safely delete some of the old Smart Switch Backups?

[MacKenrick]

It appears that Smart Switch makes a new backup each time it is run. I have two questions.

1. Do I need to keep All the backups to be able to restore my phone or can I just keep the most recent backup.

2. If I only need the most recent backup to restore my phone, why isn't Smart Switch designed to delete or overwrite the previous old backups?

Thank you for the help.

 

[Kizzy Catwoman]

You can usually just keep the most recent backup, as that is what it usually asks you to restore from. I believe Samsung may keep older backups in case you have an issue since a previous backup and you decide to reset your phone to correct it. An older backup from when your phone was working correctly may be preferable to the most recent backup in case it contains the setting/item/issue that caused you to reset.

 

[smvim]

Be very careful about deleting stored backup files, you might be wiping important data. Just keep in mind just what's involved. If every backup session is doing a full backup of all the data you've selected than it's a matter where each backup is a duplicate of the previous backup plus any new or changed files. In that case old backups are non-essential and yes, delete them if storage space is a factor. But, if you have things set up where only the first, initial backup session is a full backup of everything and then every backup session after that just involves only new and changes files since that first backup, in that case you need to keep everything as is. If you need do need to do a complete restore, you'll need all the accumulated data from that first initial backup session plus each smaller successive backup sessions.
An easy way to confirm one situation from the other is just compare overall file sizes. If all your backup sessions are relatively the same size their mostly to be full backups each time so deleting older ones will work out without a problem. If only one is really sizable and others noticeable smaller, than just leave the data as is.