New to android...back up accounts?

[jpstarn]

As my title states, I'm new to android...coming from an iphone. I have the backup my data turned on, but under back up account, it says no account is storing data.
Under accounts, I have very thing syncing to Google. Will it only backup if I'm plugged in? I'm not at the moment. Or, is there something else I need to do to backup my stuff?
Thanks!
Jamie

 

[pentel]

Goto Settings > Account. Add your Google Account.

On the Backup and Reset screen, you can backup using your Google Account.

 

[jj14x]

Since you are coming from iPhone, one thing to note is that Google backup doesn't work the same way. With iPhone, it basically makes a full backup of EVERYTHING on your phone - aka 'image', that you can restore to your phone and make it EXACTLY the same way as when the backup was taken.
It does have its advantages - it is a full backup after all, but at the same time, you end up taking backups of apps, and the OS as well - unnecessary IMO.

With Android, backups are not done this way. If you want a full backup, you'll need to create a nandroid image (which will require you to have custom recovery etc), or you can use the Android SDK and ADB commands to create a backup - again, may be overkill.

My suggestion would be to list out what you really need backed up.

• Apps - Your Google account knows what apps you installed, and will allow you to automatically re-download those apps for you on your phone when you set up a new phone (or after factory reset)
• App settings - most apps use your account info to store preferences. Some others, do not - look in their menu to see if there is an option to export settings - back those up to the cloud.
• System settings - these are also backed up (assuming you chose that option on your current phone on the backup/reset menu
• Pictures/videos - if you use Google Photos, it has the option to automatically backup all photos/Video to your google account (high resolution - unlimited storage)
• Music - I store on Google Play Music - so it is backed up
• Google Authenticator - If you use 2FA (which you should), Google Authenticator unfortunately does not backup to cloud (yet). You can use Authy instead, which has cloud backup
• Home Screen Layout - I use a Nexus 6, with the Google launcher - that automatically remembers where what icons are needed on the home pages. Most third party launchers (Apex/Nova etc) have that option as well. Not sure if the launcher on S7 has that though
• SMS/Call logs - If you need those backed up, you will need a third party backup software

You may have other things to backup
Most of the items above get auto-backed up, which is really how you want it to be. So, if I replace my phone today, as long as I sign in with the same account, I know everything will be set up the way it is on my current phone (One widget I use will need its settings manually restored)

 

[jpstarn]

Thanks! Seems I'm on the right track, lol! I have everything that can backing up to my Google account, including pictures. I also have pictures, music, and videos backed up to at&t locker (50gb free, may as well use it).
My contacts on my phone and looking at my Google account online aren't the same (unless phone stuff backs up differently). So, I also used at&t to back up my contscts.
Contacts, photos, and videos are the biggest things I want to make sure I have backups of. It took a little while to figure out, but I now have them all backed up in duplicate

 

[jj14x]

Your contacts should be getting backed up to your Gmail account.
Open your contacts app, and in settings, look for something like "manage accounts" or "Contacts to display"
See if you have contacts being saved to accounts other than Gmail - if so, that'd explain why those are not showing up in Gmail.

Depending on where the contact is currently being saved, you can look for an option to export from there, and pull it into Gmail.

Personally, I don't save my pictures/music/video/contacts etc on my carrier provided site - here's why. Tomorrow, if I decide to switch to another carrier, I don't want to have to migrate all of that over to the new carrier. And if I forget, and lose that data, that's scarier So, I usually save everything to Gmail/google services, and make a backup on another service (like Microsoft, or dropbox, or Box, etc). Personal choice, of course.

Most important thing is to make sure that you have backups at a location other than your phone, and sounds like you do that already

Edit: Also, read the very detailed sticky http://androidforums.com/threads/backup-backup-backup-now.1012662/

 

[jpstarn]

Thank you! I found the rest of my contacts! Somehow, the contacts that were from my iPhone were synced to my Microsoft Exchange account. Apparently, I have contacts in all sorts of places. Not sure how that happened. But, at least now I know where they all are.