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Help Best app for a MacBookPro to backup an Android (Samsung) ?

A

AppleUser

Android Enthusiast
One would think that this is simple, but it is not. I've tried five apps and they have issues:

1. Won't connect to phone
2. Won't back up calendar
3. Might backup only "My Calendar"
4. MobileTrans demands installing "Connector" and the phone warns not to do it.

I read about exporting as an ICS file, but I prefer to have an integrated complete backup. It's unclear if Samsung's Smart Switch (which connects like a charm) will back up any of the Calendar.

Kindly help.
 
AppleUser said:
One would think that this is simple, but it is not. I've tried five apps and they have issues:

1. Won't connect to phone
2. Won't back up calendar
3. Might backup only "My Calendar"
4. MobileTrans demands installing "Connector" and the phone warns not to do it.

I read about exporting as an ICS file, but I prefer to have an integrated complete backup. It's unclear if Samsung's Smart Switch (which connects like a charm) will back up any of the Calendar.

Kindly help.
Click to expand...
Yup it will back up your calander events.
Samsung switch saved me a few times :)
 
Milo Willamson said:
Yup it will back up your calander events.
Samsung switch saved me a few times :)
Click to expand...

Really? Will Switch backup all Calendar events or only the My Calendar events NOT associated with gmail? Switch is the only App which easily and reliably connects to the Samsung Android.
 
AppleUser said:
Really? Will Switch backup all Calendar events or only the My Calendar events NOT associated with gmail? Switch is the only App which easily and reliably connects to the Samsung Android.
Click to expand...
Every app will transfer from one device to the other.
Just download it both to either or and just hit sent to transfer and plug, wait for a few minutes.
 
Smart Switch is fine for backing up the device's storage. I've never relied on it for Calendar backups so can't say: my calendars are synced, so I don't really need a local backup like that (but would probably just do an ics export if I did - just like I occasionally do vcf backups of my contacts).

Google used to have a utility called Android File Transfer for USB copy between Android and Mac, but they abandoned it years ago and seem only to support USB transfer to Windows these days. It might still work for you if you can find a copy to download (their official site no longer has it, so be careful where you download from and be aware that there's at least one third party app that's adopted the same name). However it can be a bit fussy about connecting (I've recently had best results with "start app, unlock phone, connect via USB") and it never backed-up Calendar events anyway, it's just a "copy files over usb" app. .

Basically Google want you to pay them for Cloud storage and back up everything that way, and have never been that interested in USB backups (unlike Apple, who started out from the iPod model where the iPhone synced with iTunes over USB, though they also prefer you to pay for iCloud storage these days).
 
Last edited:
Apple uses the Finder to back up an iPhone, and it updates that backup in increments so it is fast after the first backup. Smart Switch doesn't do that.

Which application for a MacBookPro with an Android phone attached will

1. Make an initial backup, and
2. Make incremental backups. (Like Apple's Time Machine), and
3. Allow the backup file to reside on an external drive also attached to the MacBookPro, and
4. The backup file can be used to restore to the Android.
 
AppleUser said:
Thanks, will investigate Terabox. Samsung Switch only does complete back-ups. Please name those "etc" ones.
Click to expand...
Previously used Terabox on my pc to back up dozen of photos, it takes some time depending on how much you want to upload, knowing my photographical right thumb is a troubled trigger finger hahaaaa....
 
AppleUser said:
Thanks, will investigate Terabox. Samsung Switch only does complete back-ups. Please name those "etc" ones.
Click to expand...
Verizon cloud, other cloud services, even MEGA cloud services but they are expensive, but with Tearbox you get one Terabit of data, I have not used it to the full terabit, I think only about a quater of it is filled..
 
Milo Willamson said:
Usb cord to the comp is an easy way to go.
Click to expand...

Yes it is. Attaching via USB is excellent, but proper software is essential. Which/What app / software will:

1. Back up the entire phone, and
2. Make subsequent incremental backups, and
3. Can be used to successfully restore to the Android phone

???????????????????????????????????
 
AppleUser said:
Yes it is. Attaching via USB is excellent, but proper software is essential. Which/What app / software will:

1. Back up the entire phone, and
2. Make subsequent incremental backups, and
3. Can be used to successfully restore to the Android phone

???????????????????????????????????
Click to expand...
I just back up my photos and videos to my pc, sorry man, I just bolted out of here so fast yesterday, I do not know where my mind was though,
app, oh the system app? What are you doing over there, I just hit the media transfer after the screen goes glittery upwards in the option menu on the middle bottom of my cell.
 
AppleUser said:
There must be an android equivalent of Apple's Finder copy with Time Machine backups.
Click to expand...
Apple do these things because they want to lock people into their "ecosystem" by making their own products work together better than they work with other people's products (I speak as a MacOS user by the way). Google don't have the same motivation because they aren't really a hardware company (my current phone is a Pixel, but that's not where Google make their money). And if they did have such a thing, they'd probably not do it for MacOS (they support file transfer with Windows much better than with MacOS - or, oddly, Linux).

I've been using both MacOS and Android since 2010, and TBH I don't know of anything that does all of the things you ask. There are third party utilities out there that say they can back up Android devices to MacOS, but I haven't researched any of them well enough to know how much they back up (from the descriptions I have read I don't recall seeing one that mentioned incremental backups, and if you want app data as well as user media you'll probably need something that uses ADB access - "Android Debug Bridge"). But as I've no experience of these I can't suggest or recommend one. For a Samsung owner Smart Switch is the obvious thing, but even when I owned a Samsung I never used it for anything other than USB file transfers and so can't really say much about its capabilities (because I tend to switch manufacturers and Smart Switch is Samsung-specific, so anything else it did would be of limited use to me).
 
Hadron, I have very awesome success of doing Samsung Switch just last night with a usb cord too, my tablet was getting too full of tv downloads through google play tbh, thanks for staying at my sister's place, whereas I cannot stream freely inside their house or mine though, but I only play like ten minutes into a show and then turn it off, or seen an episode so many times I can predict the joke and laugh at it.

For developing for the same thing as android, just hit the build number seven times on any Samsung device and it will appear in a strange layout but anyone can search for it. I was not perfectly clear on what the Apple user wanted or the op either.
 
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