New - APP - Data backup app without root.

[leeshor]

This may be a great solution for backing up the apps and data on your tablet. There is a free and a paid version. I'll provide the free link

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.koushikdutta.backup

 

[jztemple]

New user here, so bear with me. I see that Carbon is now called Helium. I checked out the description in Google Play and looked at the reviews, which has many happy but some not so happy. Anyone have experience with Helium on a Nexus 10?

 

[Spider]

Hi jztemple, congratulations on your new Nexus 10 and welcome to the forum. Glad you decided to join us here at Android Tablets. Helium is a free app and most of the reviews are good, why don't you try it and see how you like it? If it's not to your liking, just long press on it's icon and delete it.

 

[jztemple]

This may not be the appropriate place to ask this question, but it is applicable to the subject of backing up my Nexus 10. Before I went off using the Helium app, which requires new USB drivers to be installed, I decided to do something simple. I just plugged in my Nexus 10 to my Win7 64bit computer and opened it as a drive. I then copied the contents of the Nexus to a folder on my C drive and looked through them and it appears (not 100% certain), that the contents of the Nexus 10 are now backed up. Is there anything different doing the backup this way (what I call manual backing up) versus using an app like Helium? I know it takes a bit of time, but time I have since I'm retired . Otherwise are there any drawbacks to doing it this way, manually? Do I miss something? Thanks for any help, I'm really an Android newbie.

 

[Mrhelper]

If all that you want to save are your photos and other visible media files, etc., that may be enough. If you want backup contacts and other app data, that method will miss some things.

Copying from the /sdcard directory as you have done merely copies visible user files, but does not copy apps or app data/settings. Helium is granted permissions to backup contacts, etc. that the manual file copy does not get. Helium also uses the Android adb backup feature to backup all apps and app data. (Note that you can also run adb backup from a command line if you have the SDK installed on your PC.) Helium on the PC side apparently provides a handy wrapper to run adb so you don't have to install the SDK, remember the adb backup command syntax, or script it yourself.

 

[jztemple]

Thanks for your answer! I figured the manual backup solution was too good to be true . I'll give Helium a look.