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Hi can someone explain in a theoretical sense how to backup and Android installation? I am new Android (recent iPhone convert) and have installed the SDK. From the ADB shell can I basically just 'cp /' to another location and its all backed up? Would all of my contacts plus app data plus pictures and everything else get transferred?

Or is there a recommended method for creating a system image?

If I 'cp /' and I wanted to reinstall from a backup would just copy my backup back to the file system?

Any guides on doing this would be appreciated as well :) Thanks.

Payson Welch
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  • if you know the adb tool, use this thread, http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19225467/backing-up-android-device-using-adb# – Jacob Abraham Dec 07 '15 at 18:24

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For a full system backup, you can use Nandroid. But this tool is a bit advanced. It requires rooting the phone, and some other tweaks. Basically, this is very much used by people who install alternative ROMs. However, after backing up with Nandroid, you still need to backup the SDCard.

Using cp to copy the /data folder could maybe work to a certain extent, but I wouldn't recommend that because it could break if you restore after having upgraded some apps or for some other reason.

A simple backup of the SDCard (no need for adb, just plug with USB and copy) will normally contain your pictures and other files. But the contacts are stored in internal memory, somewhere under /data.

You can certainly find some apps on the market that are dedicated to backup. Don't skip this.

That said, the Android framework does provide backup to cloud storage, but this requires applications to support it explicitly and I am not sure that many apps do.

olivierg
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  • @Payson: you're welcome. By the way, your question has been closed by Will, because it looks like a user question, and StackOverflow is for developers. But I'm not sure it should be closed. My impression is that you're asking this question in the context of development, and not strictly as a user seeking for support. Am I wrong? – olivierg May 25 '11 at 21:19
  • @oliverg That's right I have around 15 years of dev experience on many platforms and will probably be writing some apps for Android. However I just got a shiny new HTC Evo 4G from sprint and don't want to mess it up ;) Or at least want to be able to recover if I do mess it up. – Payson Welch May 27 '11 at 12:48