How to make a copy of the most important thing you have on your cell phone

A smartphone is more than just any device these days. It stores valuable digital information: photos from your last vacation, video from your birthday party, and an important message from your boss.

In a hyper-connected world, the amount of information we store is enormous. Think about every photo or video you take or every message you send. Maybe not everything is important, but there are always things you don’t want to miss.

Having a cell phone damaged or stolen is already a significant financial loss. It’s even worse when the information contained therein is lost forever.

That’s why technology experts always recommend that you do backup of essential information. This also frees up space on the device.

Photos and videos

For those who have a cell phone with an Android operating system, one of the best options is the Google Photos application, which can be downloaded for free.

The app automatically creates a backup of all the photos and videos you take and saves them to the cloud. To do this you have to:

• open the app
• Tap your profile picture in the top right corner
• Select photo settings
• Enable Backup and Sync

Google Photos is not completely free. You can use up to 15GB of storage at no cost and then pay a monthly fee through Google One, Google’s subscription cloud storage service.

Google One not only allows you to store the information saved in Google Photos, but also allows you to backup your device, including apps, SMS messages and call history.

To backup to Google One:

• Open phone settings
• Tap on Google option
• Type “Backup”
• Enable “Google One Backup”
• Return to the main “Backup” settings
• Tap “Backup Now”

Another option is Amazon Photos, which offers unlimited photo storage and 5GB of video storage with a Prime subscription.

Music

Google One is a good choice for photos, videos or information saved both on the device and in Gmail and Google Drive. But with songs, it doesn’t work.

YouTube Music is Google’s top music service since Google Play Music shut down in 2020. Its app has been downloaded over a billion times and allows it to be used both by the app and the web browser.

YouTube Music allows you to upload up to 100,000 songs. For this:

• Visit music.youtube.com
• Click on the profile picture in the upper right corner
• Select “Load Music”
• Choose the songs you want to upload and select Open
• To play the songs, both in the app and on the website, go to Library > Music > Uploads

other files

But what happens when it comes to an important file?

There are services like Dropbox, Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive that provide a fair amount of free storage, with additional space available for a monthly or annual fee.

The Autosync app allows you to automatically sync files between different devices connected to the same account (such as mobile and tablet) and has specific versions for Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive and Box.

And the iPhone?

With devices that use iOS, Apple’s operating system, the simplest and recommended option is to back up your iPhone to iCloud, Apple’s cloud storage service.

• Connect to a Wi-Fi network
• Go to Settings, tap your name and then the iCloud icon
• Make sure the switch is on to perform automatic backups when your iPhone is charging, locked, and connected to a Wi-Fi network
• Tap “Backup Now” to take a backup
• Check or uncheck any options you want to make a copy of, such as photos, messages or contacts

iCloud allows up to 5GB of free cloud storage. As with OneDrive, once that capacity is exceeded, you have to pay.

Whatsapp

WhatsApp is the most used instant messaging application in the world. Although there are safer options or options with different functions, the app is a leader among Android and iOS users.

To create a WhatsApp backup to Google Drive, you first need a Google account on your phone and the Google Play Services app installed.

• open whatsapp
• Tap the More Options icon > Settings > Chats > Backup > Save to Google Drive
• Select how often you want to save copies (other than Never)
• Select the Google account to use to save the chat history copy
• Tap Save using to select the network type

WhatsApp also allows you to enable the end-to-end encrypted backup option or generate a backup manually.

For iOS, to make a manual copy:

• WhatsApp Settings > Chats > Chat Backups > Backup Now
• Automatic and scheduled copies can be enabled by choosing the frequency between daily, weekly or monthly

Copies are saved to iCloud, with a capacity of up to 5 GB. To save space, Apple offers the option to delete videos.

What if I don’t want cloud storage?

Cloud storage offers many advantages, such as the option to access files at any time and from any device, in most cases with an internet connection.

But it’s not an option for everyone, either because they don’t want to pay for additional space or because they prefer to avoid potential hacks.

Both Android and iOS allow you to store information locally on Windows PC or Mac computers.

From iPhone to Mac:

• Connect iPhone to Mac Computer
• In the Finder sidebar on Mac, select iPhone (Finder is available for operating systems macOS 10.15 or higher. For other versions, iTunes must be installed for file transfer)
• At the top of the Finder window, click Files
• Choose Transfer from iPhone to Mac option

In case you don’t have a Mac but a Windows PC, the procedure is the same, but using iTunes.

Using an Android phone, the procedure is different. Google allows you to connect your device to a Windows computer and copy files easily. In the case of transferring the files to a Mac computer, an application called Android File Transfer is required which can be downloaded from the official Android page.