Restore accounts and full settings?

[deppi0]

Hi all,

I am now on my 2nd Nexus 5 since 2 months and pretty happy in general with them.

I have had to now change from my initial Nexus 5 to a new one and I am trying to restore everything. I had installed GCloud on the initial Nexus 5 and backed up everything, installed also Helium and backed up all the apps with their settings.

The issue I have is that when I restore from either one of those apps, or both, I can't seem to get any way to restore the way the previous phone was set up including full phone settings, other accounts apart from the google one, the way the apps were organised on the phone, etc.
Basically I was wondering if anyone knows a way to back up and restore a phone (completely) in a similar way as and iPhone or iPad does.

It is crazy to have to go through everything once again including wi-fi settings, bluetooth, etc...

I love Android but I have to admit that for ease of installation nothing seems to beat iOS am I wrong?

PS My phones are NOT rooted and I still have both of them which hopefully might help the restore process.

Thanks a lot

 

[Paul627g]

Make sure your option under Settings>Backup & Reset> Back up my data, is checked. That will backup your WiFi and other settings to Google w/ your Gmail account. Then when you have to do a factory reset or swap to a new device upon the initial setup make sure you allow Google to restore the info back to your device in the Setup Wizard.

Otherwise, not being rooted you have basically already listed your other options like Helium and Cloud backup services.

 

[deppi0]

Make sure your option under Settings>Backup & Reset> Back up my data, is checked. That will backup your WiFi and other settings to Google w/ your Gmail account. Then when you have to do a factory reset or swap to a new device upon the initial setup make sure you allow Google to restore the info back to your device in the Setup Wizard.

Otherwise, not being rooted you have basically already listed your other options like Helium and Cloud backup services.

I did that but unfortunately it doesn't set everything back. All the other accounts that are NOT google (exchange, etc) are not restored.

That's amazing that Google doesn't do something like Apple to restore the phones!

 

[B. Diddy]

Google is not Apple (insert fanatical comment either way here). I would guess that the main reason for the difference in restoring a phone is that Apple's ecosystem is walled off, and Apple has strict control over how all of the apps and accounts work, while Android is much more open. It is therefore more difficult for Android to control every single account you may have had on your phone, and so it only deals with the Google account. Pick your poison--ease of restoration vs the flexibility of a more open ecosystem ...

 

[deppi0]

Google is not Apple (insert fanatical comment either way here). I would guess that the main reason for the difference in restoring a phone is that Apple's ecosystem is walled off, and Apple has strict control over how all of the apps and accounts work, while Android is much more open. It is therefore more difficult for Android to control every single account you may have had on your phone, and so it only deals with the Google account. Pick your poison--ease of restoration vs the flexibility of a more open ecosystem ...

I agree with you regarding the differences and the flexibility is one of the main reasons I have moved away from Apple and into Android for a few years already (for my phones).
I just wish Google found a way (or a third party at least) to have a much better back-up / ease of restoration as it is really a pain especially for people who have various accounts and change phones often...

Anyway thanks for your help guys

 

[jj14x]

The other thing to consider is that while apple has to deal with one or two phone models in a given year, Google has many many more. Even considering the previous models, Apple has to deal with under 10 devices, while Android has hundreds/thousands. So restoring from one device to another (with different CPU/GPU/chipset/screensize/etc) becomes very convoluted.

You should suggest it to Google on their product forums regardless - who knows, they may be able to make it happen.