On Saturday, December 5, 2020 at 5:40:15 PM UTC-5, micky wrote:
In alt.home.repair, on Sat, 5 Dec 2020 13:21:11 -0800 (PST), trader_4
wrote:

On Saturday, December 5, 2020 at 2:52:55 PM UTC-5, micky wrote:

and I'm sure most people who buy a new phone don't even
know how to copy texts to it.

A new phone comes with instructions on how to easily move what you have from the
old phone to the new.
Not all of them. Not my previous one, or I think my current one, or the
one still in the box.
AFAIK, using Google Account is just one, I think they may have
utilities that will do it for you too. Apple has similar, it's all backed up in the cloud.
Hard to imagine that in 2020 it would not include texts.



This discussion got me interested in what exactly does or does not get backed up by Google
on an Android phone. I was also thinking about rooting my phone, which would entail a
factory reset, so it would matter. As to texts, I still don't know. I see most sources saying
that Google doesn't back texts up. Others say that they do. Others say they do but it's
optional or part of something other than the normal backup that happens all the time.
So, IDK. But there are apps that will save them if you need them.

As to complete backup of your android phone, it's a big, hot mess. It's very unclear exactly
what gets backed up by Google and what does not. Looks like apps get backed up, so you
can restore them. Whether that includes data too, IDK. It backs up some settings.
I see nothing about it backing up other things, eg documents, files, pictures, videos, etc.
There are other separate solutions for that, eg Dropbox, but you would think there would
be complete backup options today.

I could not find a comprehensive backup app for phones that are not rooted.
Without root access, the backups can't backup most app data for example or wifi
networks that you have names and PWDs set for. And the ones
I looked at just dealt with apps, not with the files, pics, etc. On the other hand, if you
have a rooted phone, then there are apps which will essentially make a backup of everything.

I haven't used a restore in a couple years or more. When I did, I remember it did put back
the apps, but I don't remember how much more I had to do, like re-entering account names,
pwds, etc. It's actually amazing that for such an advanced OS and all the things people
have on their phones that backup is so screwed up on Android.

I finally decided not to root my phone. I was most interested in getting rid of the carrier
bloatware on it, which you can only do via rooting. But I found a way to easily disable it
permanently so that it no longer loads or does anything. It's still there taking up space
and it may still get updated from the Playstore, but it won't run or show up as an installed app.