📱 How to Back Up Your Phone the Easy Way

Frank Bravo 0:00
If your phone suddenly slipped out of your hands and straight into the snowbank, or into the holiday leftovers, or into a porta potty, which actually happened to a friend of mine, what would you panic about first? Your photos, your text, your contacts. That hilarious video of your dog wearing those reindeer ears? Well, today I'm going to put those fears at ease. And one of if one of these things happened because January is the perfect time to lock in your phone backups for the year, it takes just a few minutes and it will save you a whole lot of regret later on. So let's get going!

Guest 0:38
Welcome to your Tech Makeover, the podcast that gives you tips and tricks to help you simplify and get more out of the.

Frank Bravo 0:43
Technology in your life. I'm your host, Frank brotha. Today's topic is how to back up your phone the easy way. I've talked about backups a lot on this show. We've explored full computer backups, cloud storage, you know, the big picture stuff. But I've never dedicated an episode to just phone backups. And considering how much of our digital lives now live on these devices, it's way long overdue. So let's say maybe you got a new phone over the holidays, so this timing might be perfect for you. And even if you didn't. January is the best time for a set it and forget it moment in your digital safety. Our phones aren't just phones anymore. There are cameras. There are message archive your contact lists, the memo drawer. The document scanner, the wallet, and a lot of cases. Your family historian. When the phone goes down unexpectedly, you don't only lose your tech, but you potentially can lose your memories. And the truth is that most people think they're backed up, but maybe they're not. So there's a lot that is partially backed up, but there's often one important piece, like maybe photos or texts that aren't included in those backups. So today's goals are simple. Make sure your phone is fully backed up. And the easiest and most painless way possible. So let's be clear about something right off the top. Backup is a second copy of your stuff stored somewhere else that you control. As I've talked up before, sinking is often confused with backups. To clarify, as sync moves your data around while backups protect it and your photos being on your phone is not a backup. That's where the original set is. Even if you've saved it in Google Cloud or iCloud or Google Photos, you might think that everything is okay, but maybe it's not the easiest way to think about this. And you've heard me say this before, is you want at least one cloud backup and ideally, one local backup. Think of the cloud backup as your everyday safety net and your local backup as your break glass in case of emergency plan. A quick shout out to listeners like you who helped make your technique over possible. Your support helps keep this podcast going and I truly appreciate it. Want to contribute? Just click on the link in the show notes or visit your Tech makeover.com plus as a special thank you, supporters who give $25 or more will get $25 off a one time consultation with me to help you simplify your tech. Thanks for being part of the Your Tech Makeover community. Now back to what I was saying. Setting up a backup doesn't have to take a lot of time as our devices have this baked in. You may have to purchase more storage for backup if you do it online, but it's relatively cheap insurance policy. If you've never need it, it's still worth it. Here are some simple steps to help protect a majority of your stuff with a minimal effort. So first, if you're on an iPhone, use iCloud backup. Go to the settings. Find your name at the top. Select iCloud and then iCloud backup. Make sure that's turned on. Then your phone will automatically back up without you even having to think about it. When it's plugged in, locked in on Wi-Fi. If you plug it in overnight at home, that's usually when this backups will happen. It's the same trick for an iPad if you have an iPad as well. Next, you want to make sure that your photos are being stored in iCloud photos, while the backup will save photos on your device. ICloud photos is the next step that will allow you to protect individual images. If you happen to delete them. You'll find that setting in the same iCloud area. Turn it on to protect your videos and your pictures. And if you're low on space, choose Optimize phone Storage so that it won't eat up storage on your device. And again, this trick works for your iPad and it also works for your Mac. So you get the added bonus of having your photos everywhere that you are. Then you want to make sure that you turn on messages in iCloud. This setting is also in the iCloud settings, and when you turn it on, it ensures that your text sync properly and is stored and then allows you to restore them cleanly later on. Again, this works with your iPad and your Mac. They all have the same settings, and you should be able to set them all on the same way. Finally, do a storage check. If Apple keeps warning you that your storage is full, consider upgrading. January is a great time to bump your temporary plan and then reassess later on. Both Apple and a lot of other retailers have deals on Apple cards right now where you can get bonuses for buying them, and then apply them to your iCloud storage. If you're on Android, Google One backup is the way to go. To activate it, go to Settings Google and then backup. Turn that on and then Backup by Google. One just happens. Make sure your photos are backed up using Google Photos backup. You know, that's that's the same kind of place, but you'd have to go to Google Photos, tap your profile, and turn on backup. If you want to choose whether to store the original or the storage saver based on your preferences, that will save your space in your cloud. But storing the original is probably the best if you ever think you're going to print those photos. If you're using a Samsung device, there's a smart switch that is your friend that will transfer it to a new phone, or it creates local copies. So that is the thing you want to look for. If you're on a Samsung device and then just like with Apple, do a Google storage check, make sure you have enough cloud storage space. A couple of bucks a month solves a lot of headaches later on. So a quick checklist for both platforms. Here we want to talk about what the bare minimum is. We're talking about turn on cloud backup. Turn on photo backup. Turn on message backup or sync and make sure you have enough storage available. If you hit all four of those, then you're in really great shape. So what about a local backup? This is optional, but recommended. It's something that I do periodically, especially with my photos, which you've heard me talk about before. While cloud backups are, having a local copy gives you even more protection. It's especially helpful if you travel a lot and you don't always have access to Wi-Fi if you plan on switching devices soon. If you have years of photos and messages, and you want to make sure that those are really protected, or if you want a fast restore option on a mac with an iPhone, you would open the finder window. Once you've plugged it in on a windows machine, you need to download and install iTunes in order to do this for an iPhone. Plug your phone into the computer and you should see an option for backup now. You may have to grant it permissions to allow the phone to be seen by the computer, but once you've done that, you should be able to continue and make sure that you choose the encrypted backup so that passwords and your health data and any other sensitive items are also included in these backups. If you're on an Android device, you most likely have to use your manufacturer software to get a full backup. But sometimes you can connect that device with a USB cable and create a folder on your computer and just copy the photos and videos over. You don't have to do this often. I only make a computer backup when I'm upgrading my devices, but I'm also using the cloud backup, so I feel fairly confident in how I have my stuff set up. So what about apps that don't backup things automatically? You know you don't want to forget the data that's inside the apps, and this is where a lot of people get surprised if you apps require their own backup settings. And you may want to double check the apps that you use all the time. So, for instance, WhatsApp, you have to back that up individually. You need to turn on these iCloud or these cloud backups in order to go to make sure that they do their backups. You do that by going into the app, selecting settings and then chats and then chat backups, and just make sure that's on. And then you'll make sure that your chats and WhatsApp is, is stored. The authenticator apps are another thing that you might want to double check. The two factor authentication apps, you need to make sure they're backed up or export the options are enabled. This way, if your phone dies, getting back into your accounts aren't a problem. You know it's not extremely fun. And when I mean fun, it's not fun at all. What about password managers? Password managers are another thing. You want to make sure that your vault is sinking with the different devices, and make sure that it is also getting backed up. I do periodically I will export my vault and print it out and stick it in a safe so that I am sure I have a copy of my passwords at a particular time, so that I'm sure that those passwords are safe. And then finally, voice mail and call recording some carriers let you export them. And it's worth checking out if you have important ones saved. I've done this with a few of my voicemails that I really never would want to lose. This takes just a few moments for each of them, and they fill a gap that cloud backups don't always cover. So once you've said everything up, it's a good idea to make sure that everything is working. And this is true if you've set it up in the past. So after a few days of setting this up, you might want to go back and make sure that the last successful backup is not too long ago. It doesn't do any good to set these things up if they're not working. I tend to check mine every month or so just to make sure something didn't get turned off by accident. It takes 10s and gives you a really good peace of mind. So let's recap and wrap up with a simple rundown of the things that I absolutely want you to take away from this episode. So first, you want to turn on your cloud backups. You want to turn on your photo backups. You want to turn on your message backup and have at least one backup if you can locally. Then you want to make sure that you want to verify everything, and then set a reminder to check things periodically that they are still set the way you want them to be. This is one of the easiest, high impact tech tasks that you can do to protect your digital life. So have you turned on your backups? And if you have, are you sure they're running as they should? Let me know. And as always, if you have ideas for topics you'd like me to cover, please feel free to contact me via email at Frank at your Tech Makeover. That's it for now. Thanks for listening to your tech makeover, if you haven't already. Don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform so that you don't miss an episode. You can also check out your tech makeover, where you'll find more about each of these episodes, including this one. And if you're on Substack, make sure you subscribe there to get additional information about all the episodes. If you want to find out more about me, please visit Bravo! It's until next time. I'm Frank Bravo, and this has been your tech makeover.