How to back up your Samsung Galaxy phone or tablet

Whether you’re replacing your phone, sending it in for repairs, or want to avoid losing your data if you misplace or damage your phone, backups are a quick and easy way to protect your apps, personal information, settings, and other content stored on your device.

Samsung’s Galaxy range is one of the best when it comes to Android devices, so it’s only natural that Samsung One UI 4 offers a seamless way to back up and restore your data. You even have the choice of using Samsung cloud, a physical backup, or Google Drive, allowing you to choose the method you want to use to safely back up and restore your phone.

Using Samsung apps

An easy way to backup your phone is to use your Samsung account, which you may have created or used when you first set up your phone. As this is the manufacturer’s backup solution, it saves many of your settings including wallpapers, alarms, call logs, calendar, messages and your apps. However, this option does not upload your files like your photos, videos and documents. So save these independently or use the Smart Switch method explained below.

Samsung cloud

Backing up your data to Samsung cloud ensures that it can be easily restored to another Galaxy device in minutes without having to manually retrieve or reset your personal settings.

Follow these steps to back up your data:

1. Open your phone the settings.
2. Beat Accounts and Backup.
3. In which Samsung cloud section, tap backup data.
4. Tap next to each item you want to back up.

5. Beat Secure now to start the process.
6. Wait for your phone to back up.

7. When it’s done, tap Finished at the bottom of the screen.

find my phone

In addition to starting a backup process from your phone, Samsung offers the option of backing up from another device using a web browser. This method comes in handy if you’ve lost your device, provided it’s still turned on with an active data connection and you’ve enabled Find My Mobile before starting the process.

1. Using a web browser, navigate to Find My Mobile.
2. Sign in with your Samsung account.
3. Give it a few seconds to find your phone.
4. If you have multiple devices linked to your Samsung account, select the one you want to back up from the list on the left side of the screen.
5. Under your device’s status, tap To back up Symbol.

6. Select the data you want to protect and select To back up Button.

7. The backup process takes a few minutes. Once it’s over, the Save button will appear Closeso you can get rid of the window.

intelligent switch

Another easy way to back up your data is to use Smart Switch, which allows you to transfer your phone’s contents to another Galaxy device or external storage device. This is the most comprehensive option as it saves all your settings and data, including images and files stored on your phone.

The first method below is often used when switching to a new handset, but is also a great way to protect your data on a spare phone you may have at home. The procedure works wirelessly or with a cable, so whatever method you prefer, you’re covered.

1. Download and install the Smart Switch app from the Play Store on both phones.
2. Beat Send data on the phone you want to back up. Beat Receive data on the target device.

3. Choose the transfer method you want to use, e.g Cable or Wireless.
4. Wait while your phones find each other. You may need to allow the connection to continue.
5. At the Finish Phone, select the data you want to import and tap Next to start the process.

6. You may need to confirm a few steps on both phones and enter your Google credentials on the target phone.

Alternatively, you can store your data on an external device such as a USB stick or MicroSD card. The steps are simple and only take a few minutes:

1. Paste or join an external drive.
2. Open your phone the settings.
3. Beat Accounts and Backup.
4. In which intelligent switch section, tap External storage transfer.
5. Choose the device you want to back up your data to.

6. Select the data you want to back up and tap Next to start the process.

7. To recover data from an external storage, repeat steps 1 to 4 and select the backup you want to recover from Recover from external storage.

Restore your backup

If you have your data stored in the cloud, you must know how to recover and restore them to your Samsung phone. The process is pretty easy if your data is stored on your Samsung Cloud, which is true for the first two methods above.

1. Open your phone the settings.
2. Beat Accounts and Backup.
3. In which Samsung cloud section, tap restore data.
4. Choose the backup you want to restore.
5. Confirm what data you want to bring back to your device.

6. Beat Restore to start the process.

Use of Google Drive

If you prefer to store your data on Google’s servers, this option is worth considering. It is the one to use if you are planning to use another brand for your next phone as you can recover the data on any android device.

1. Open your phone the settings.
2. Beat Accounts and Backup.
3. In which Google Drive section, tap backup data.
4. If this is your first time using Google Drive as a backup method, tap turn on.
5. Beat Secure now to start the process.

You can only restore a Google Drive backup during the setup process of an Android device, so you’ll need to reset it to recover your data.

Keep your data safe

Whichever method you use, back up your data so you’re ready in case you damage, lose, or change your device. A popular method is to create a backup on an external SD card with Smart Switch so that the data is stored in the same place. Alternatively, the other methods are reliable to store your data in the cloud but do not ensure that your files are backed up so you will have to use another solution like Google Photos to keep them safe. And we have many tips and tricks to help you use Google Photos.