4

A few days ago my new phone got damaged after a fall and I have to send it to ASUS to fix it since there's no in store assistance for ASUS phones in my country. I was told it will be factory reset to ensure my privacy despite the fact the damage is external, so I wanted to find a way to have a full backup (apps, settings, data, life universe and everything...) but from what I read on the internet tools such as Titanium and Helium backup are not working anymore on new phones (mine is running on Android 12) so I didn't even bother, also I can't use methods that require rooting since that will void my warranty and the phone is only few months old.

I tried running the command adb backup -apk -obb -shared -all -system -f fullbackup.ab but after a while it stops creating an incomplete backup, it stops at around 17-19 GB, always a different number, while my phone has 100GB of data to backup. The first time after a backup I tried extracting it but the process exited saying it was an incomplete archive.

I read that this might be cause by active apps, I tried closing them but it didn't help (guess it's some system app), I also found that sometimes it might be caused by not setting a backup password, but that didn't work either

So I would like to know if there's either a better way to fully backup my phone in 2023, or how to make adb backup work

Thanks

Improve this question
4
  • 1
    Possible dupe: How to fully backup non-rooted devices?. While the answers may be old, AFAIK it's impossible to do a full local backup using only ADB, moreover because each app can opt-out from being backed up.
    – Andrew T. ♦
    Mar 27 at 7:17
  • 1
    As far as I know adb backup does no longer work on recent apps on Android 12: android.stackexchange.com/a/231237/2241
    – Robert
    Mar 27 at 8:56
  • I'm more concerned about data and settings, I guess apps can be recovered from google drive backup? (I don't have enough space to do a full backup on gdrive)
    – valepu
    Mar 27 at 9:46
  • Still, my issue with adb backup is that it starts but then it stops after a while without completing the backup
    – valepu
    Mar 27 at 9:47

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
4

There is no method to make a full backup of android smartphones. It is always only a partial backup, be it adb backup or google drive.

I recommend to manually backup your files from adb.

adb pull -a /sdcard

You can backup apps with Google as explained here. also Swift Backup or Google One can backup app data of some apps.
https://www.asus.com/support/FAQ/1036182

For adb backup it's important to know, only apps that allow it in AndroidManifest.xml can be backed up with adb.
Does adb backup/restore still work because it says it's deprecated?

You can split backup into packages. only backup apps that you know. you can try list_app_labels.sh or list packages from cmd line.

adb shell pm list packages -3
adb shell pm list packages -s

for example

adb backup -f chrome.ab -apk com.android.chrome

AFAIK Helium can do this, but you can also try another automated script for splitting backup into packages.
https://github.com/IzzySoft/Adebar

Beware: even in case app data is backed up for single packages, it's not guaranteed it will restore on other devices.

Improve this answer
1
  • Thanks It looks like it worked! I had to use a different command than adb pull because it would file on a file it couldn't read. I found this instead android.stackexchange.com/questions/226573/… I saw your post on xda too, thanks!
    – valepu
    Mar 31 at 13:16

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .