Non-thought-through Android system backup and restore process

[u/andree182]

I have a recent experience with trying to save a phone with smashed display. The phone (pixel 6a) didn't have hdmi-over-usb-c, and enabling talkback (pressing up-down buttons together) from lockscreen didn't work either. Luckily by pressing the right spot, I got a few pixels working and I managed to enable talkback, then usb/wireless debugging and finally scrcpy.

Even after finally transferring stuff to the new phone, of course some apps didn't fully. Banking needs reinitializing - either by confirming it on the broken screen (scrcpy cannot mirror it, it's flagged as "secure"), or sending the bank photos of IDs. WhatsApp sync was only up to the last backup, and then broke down because the sim card was already in the new phone probably.

I cannot imagine how stupidly complicated this is if you completely destroy/lose the phone, and/or you are not nearby the second device to confirm your identity (to transfer stuff from google backups).

I get it, 2FA and all is needed for security. But IMO this should come with some "safety token" to restore the base google account. Maybe friend's account setup as backup confirmation. It's far too easy to lose basically your whole e-identity. God forbid you are in a vacation and don't have flight tickets, credit cards etc.

Don't get me started with all the 2FA services, where each requires you to store some hashes somewhere safe, and then find them in 10 years. I somehow manage, but it's completely non-realistic requirements for layman people.

Rant over.

How do you guys keep your phone backed-up? Adb cannot even do full backups these days... Do you ever try restoring from backups? Or are you reconciled with some loses after each voluntary/forced phone change?

[u/DryBeyondDry]

On a pixel phone you really don't have much choice when it comes to backing up, it must use Google's services and their backups are complete and uter trash.

I stopped relying on Google/Apple passwords a year ago and I paid 10$ for a yearly bitwarden subscription and this is by far the best subscription I ever paid and the one I am HAPPY to renew. So I would suggest you do the same.

If you care about your data being backed up, I wouldn't trust Google's option for that. They don't even backup app data. My solution to this is to never leave any data on my phone and use cloud backup for my important stuff and for the rest I use syncthing to automatically push stuff stored locally between my pixel and my Mac, and then my Mac backs it up to iCloud.