While many of us store most of our personal data in the cloud on various services such as Dropbox, Gmail and Google Photos, or use streaming services, some of our personal data will still be stored locally. If you need to reset your phone settings, you will definitely lose them if you don't make a backup. You may need a backup copy in other cases as well. Any phone can be broken, lost, or simply stolen. In this case, it will be simply impossible to save the data. Again, only a backup copy will save you, which can be done in one of the ways indicated in this article.
You should always back up your smartphone.
Checking the status of connection to the storage
The easiest way to keep as much data from your phone as possible is to periodically check the sync with the cloud storage. Sometimes problems can arise with this and your data will simply not be sent to remote storage.
To do this, open the Settings app, tap the Accounts option, select your Google account, and make sure that all apps and services on that account have recently been synced.
If some services have not been synchronized recently (for example, if you have not opened one of the applications for a long time), click the “Synchronize now” button. If there is a gap between scheduled syncs, you may lose some contacts or other data that you have recently saved.
Check photo sync
If you are using Google Photos to back up photos and videos taken with your phone, make sure the app is still working properly. All you have to do is open the Photos app and find your account icon and cloud icon on top of it. If everything is fine, then the synchronization is complete. If the cloud is crossed out, then no.
If you have previously disabled cloud backups in Photos, you can easily enable them. Just open the sidebar, hit Settings and select Backup & Sync to enable syncing. It's very simple.
How to back up your photos.
Of course, there are many other photo backup apps for Android including OneDrive, Dropbox or Yandex.Disk. You can also enable automatic synchronization in them or do everything manually.
If you don't like using photo backup services, you can also just copy all pictures and videos to your memory card or computer.
If you want to copy all the photos from your smartphone, just go to “Files” and transfer the entire DCIM folder to the memory card or external drive – this is the camera folder.
Download Google Files app
Back up photos to your computer Windows
A simpler option is to simply connect your phone to your computer and copy the phone's DCIM or other desired folder. All you need is the USB cable that comes with your phone. Make sure your phone is in MTP (file transfer) mode and not set to charging or other USB connection mode.
Copying photos from Android to Windows is easy enough.
You can change the setting by connecting the cable in the pop-up menu or in the notification curtain.
Copy Photos from Android to Mac
For Mac, you need to download a separate tool to transfer files from Android devices. This app doesn't always work well, so I still recommend using a cloud storage like Dropbox, or setting up an FTP server or SMB share on your phone using a tool like AndSMB.
These tools can hardly be called simple and modern, but they work. Not everyone wants their files to be in the cloud, but they don't. You copy them there for download. Once the procedure is complete, all files in the remote storage can be deleted.
Copy contacts and calendar to the cloud
Some phones, like the Google Pixel and some others, simply cannot save contacts and calendars locally only. In any case, whatever your smartphone is, it is better to check in advance before resetting the data, whether you have an up-to-date copy.
Storing contacts in the cloud is very easy and useful.
The exact process depends on your phone model, but first you can try opening the Contacts app and locating your accounts. In the top menu, it becomes possible to move phone contacts to an online account.
It is also possible to store a limited number of contacts on your phone's SIM card, but this method is hardly modern.
How to prepare a smartphone for sale
If you sell your phone or give it to someone else, you need to sign out of all Google accounts and remove all lock passwords. Android introduced the Device Protection feature back in 2015. It requires you to enter the password for the last Google account used on the device after the device has been wiped. Of course, in the event that you did not log out of your account before resetting.
It's much easier to save everything to the cloud and have it with you at all times than just lose it.
While Google states that Device Security should not trigger password verification after a factory reset on most phones, deleting your Google accounts and lockout password is the only way to ensure that there are no problems with reactivation. More than a dozen smartphones have passed through my hands and I have seen enough of these problems. Especially when someone gave a phone for a test and the previous user did not reset their data. Or, on the contrary, when he himself forgot to leave the account in the heat
To disable device protection, you must first sign out of all Google accounts. Open “Settings” on your phone, go to the “Accounts” section and click “Delete account” under each account.
After that, turn off any passwords you may have on the lock screen. This can be done in the “Security” section, in the same settings.