Help Backing Up Home Screens

[AeolianReflex]

Is there any way to back up home screens on the S4 so that they don't have to be manually reconfigured after a hard reset?
I'm not rooted and don't really want to root at this point.

 

[Gomjaba]

Not really in Touchwiz but you could download a different launcher (no root needed) as some of them offer backups. I am using 'Nova Prime' and once you have a backup of the setup, you can easily restore your settings / shortcuts / widgets etc.

I even came from an S3, got my S4, Google Play downloaded all apps automatically, then I restored the Nova backup and it looked like nothing happened

Nova in particular doesn't save the backup to cloud so you need to copy it yourself, but that's easy and takes 10 seconds

 

[DaveSyd]

The closest I have come to doing this is taking a screen shot of the various pages of the home screen and rearranging the new one to suite. Not sure about the S3 because the key combination has changed a little over the time. The right keys probably tied to which Android version you are running.

 

[AeolianReflex]

Thanks for the suggestions. I was using Apex on my previous phone which also has a backup utility but I was hoping to just use the stock launcher. I heavily customize my screens with folders containing categorized apps, widgets and apps for different business & personal functions etc. I even have one screen with 12 contacts on screen and four folders containing close to 80 contacts for fast access. It makes the phone so much more usable but its a pain to set up.

 

[lotus49]

I use Lightning Launcher. It does allow me to backup the home screen but I've never seen anything that backs up widgets and their configuration. This is a giant pain in the bum but I've never seen a solution to it .