iSync for iCloud

There's a good chance your smartphone acts as a hub for everything going on in your life. It's where you keep all of your contacts, cherished photos, important documents, etc., etc. Your phone allows you to easily access these things no matter where you are, but what if something happens to it? Whether you break your phone or it's getting time for you to upgrade, here are a few things you can do to ensure all of your precious data is backed up and safe. If you were hoping to just back up all of your data with the press of one button and be done with it, we're sorry to say that it's a little more complicated than that. However, we're going to walk you through each step one-by-one and make things as easy as can be.

First thing's first, let's talk about photos. They say the best camera is the one you have in your pocket, and for a lot of folks, this results in your phone being used to take pictures of just about everything. From selfies to family portraits, chances are these are all captured and stored on your phone. With so many special moments living on your phone, it's important to keep them backed up to the cloud so that they aren't lost forever. For this, we recommend Google Photos. Google Photos is 100% free to use and offers unlimited cloud backups of photos and videos. Once you download and install the app from the Play Store, getting it set up takes just a couple of taps. Open  Google Photos . Sign in to your  Google account . Choose your  desired quality settings . Wait for your photos to sync. With that done, Google Photos will take all of the pictures and videos on your phone and save them in the cloud on your Google account. If you have a lot of image...

Okay, so you've got your pictures backed up, but what about all of your other files? That's where Google Drive and Dropbox come into play. Both of these are cloud storage apps, allowing you to keep all of your word documents, presentations, PDFs, and other file types safe and secure off of your phone's local storage. Getting started with either app is quite simple. For Google Drive: Open  Google Drive  on your phone. Tap the  + icon  in the bottom-right corner. Tap  Upload . Select the files you want to upload. All Google Drive users get 15GB of free storage to use right out of the gate, but if you need more, you'll need to pay a monthly fee. Extra Drive storage is sold through Google One, with plans starting at $1.99/month for 100GB. There are a bunch of tiers offered, including 200GB, 2TB, 10TB, 20TB, and even 30TB. If you don't want to use Google Drive for whatever reason, we also recommend using Dropbox. After downloading Dropbox ...

If you use a messaging app like Facebook Messenger or Telegram, accessing your messages on your new phone is as easy as logging into your account. However, if you still rely on good old-fashioned SMS text messaging, things are a bit more complicated. You'll need to download an SMS backup app from the Play Store to save a backup of all your texts, and then on your new phone, download that backup so all of your conversations are restored. There are a few apps you can download to do this, but the one we recommend the most is SMS Backup & Restore by SunTech Pty Ltd. It's a free download on the Play Store, and getting set up with it is pretty straightforward. Open  SMS Backup & Restore  on your phone. Tap  Get Started . Tap  Set Up A Backup . From here, you can backup not just text messages, but any phone call history you have, too

On a related note, something else you'll want to make sure is backed up is all of your contacts. For this, we recommend using Google Contacts. Devices like the Pixel 3a and Nokia 7.1 come with Google Contacts pre-installed, but if you have a phone from OnePlus, Samsung, or LG, chances are you're using a contacts app made by that manufacturer. If you're already using Google Contacts on your current phone, you can download the app on your new phone, log into your Google account, and all of your contacts will be synced automatically. If you need to dig a bit deeper, Google Contacts also offers tools for importing, exporting, and restoring contact files. Open  Google Contacts  on your phone. Tap the  menu button  at the top-left. Tap  Settings . Tap contacts. Here, you can import a .vcf file, export contacts from a Google account, and restore contacts you've saved to your account.

Moving right along, you'll also want to make sure all of your applications are backed up. Backing up apps used to be a pain in the butt, but these days, Google keeps an automatic backup for you on your account. As such, downloading your apps and all of their data is as easy as diving into the settings on your existing phone, making sure the toggle is turned on, and selecting the backup option when you get your new device. On your current phone, doing so is as easy as follows: Open the  Settings  on your phone. Tap  System . Tap  Backup . On this page, you can turn automatic backups on/off, manually initiate a backup, and see when the last time backups were made for app data, device settings, and much more.

Finally, if you're moving over to a Samsung phone, the Samsung Smart Switch app is worth checking out. This involves downloading Smart Switch on your old and new phone, making a connection between the two either wirelessly or with a USB cable, and transferring all of your data in one clean sweep. Smart Switch can be used to transfer just about everything, including: Call history  Contacts Calendar data Text messages Images, media, and other files Getting started with Smart Switch on your old phone is pretty simple. After downloading the app from the Play Store, follow the following on-screen prompts. Open  Smart Switch  on your old phone. Tap  Agree . Tap  Allow . Tap  Let's Go Tap  Cable  or  Wireless  depending on which method you want to use.

Google Photos provides free unlimited photo and video backup, as long as you're all right with Google changing them to "high-quality." That just means that Google caps the photo size to 16 megapixels and videos at 1080p.  You can opt to have Google Photos back up your photos and videos in their original quality, but anything backed up will count against your Google Drive storage limit.  Make sure you have Google Photos installed on your Android phone, turn on backup, and pick the quality you'd like to use.

Samsung offers its own backup and restore service through Samsung Cloud, and in my experience, it's been slightly more reliable than Google's backup service.  Check to make sure Samsung's backup service is turned on by opening the Settings app and selecting  Accounts and backup  >  Backup and restore . There you'll find backup settings for your Samsung account, as well as Google account.  Use both services . Using both not only creates two backups of your phone but also gives you the flexibility to switch to a non-Samsung phone a year from now, if you decide to, because you can use Google's backup service to restore your phone.  Under the Samsung account section, tap  Back up data  and make sure all of the data categories you want to be backed up to Samsung are checked. You can manually start a backup by selecting the  Back up  button at the bottom of the screen.  Backups to Samsung Cloud will use the 15GB of free s...

When it comes to backing up files you've downloaded or stored on your phone's storage, you have a couple of options. You can either connect your phone to your computer and move the files over manually, or you can use cloud storage services like Google Drive or Dropbox.  Set up either app on your Android device, then select the files or folders you want to upload and let the app do its thing.  Going forward, if you get in the habit of saving any files in the cloud, you'll always have a copy backed up, and you shouldn't have to worry about routinely manually uploading any updates to either service.

you’re not already using Google Photos, you should be. The service automatically backs up every photo and video you take to the cloud, so you’ll never have to manually backup your media ever again. If the Photos app isn’t already on your phone, you can  download it here . Once it’s installed, you’ll need to  make sure Photos is set to automatically backup your files. Here’s how to do that: Open the Google Photos app In the menu, head to Settings Tap ‘Backup & sync’ Make sure the switch is turned on The best part about Google Photos? You can upload as many files as you’d like for free. Photos and videos will have a maximum upload quality of 1080p for the free unlimited storage option, which should be good enough for most people. If you’d like to keep the original resolution quality of your photos and videos, you can, but it will count against your Google Drive storage limits. Here’s how to check your Google Photos upload quality: Open the Google ...

Cloud services are a dime and a dozen, and Google isn’t the only offering oodles of storage. In fact, Microsoft’s OneDrive is a very competent alternative. In case you are subscribing to Office 365, the company tosses in 1TB of online storage for free. Elsewhere, Amazon Drive offers unlimited photo storage with a Prime subscription. Meanwhile, unlimited storage is a mere $60 per year making it an affordable, albeit not as tightly integrated alternative. The biggest downside of straying from Google’s ecosystem is the manual effort required in making sure all your content is copied over. All these services offer up a simple file browser app and you can copy over your files and documents as you please. The same files can then be accessed via a web browser or desktop app as well.