Backups

Tryptamine I don't know what you're being so defensive for. Seedvault is terrible. And all your posturing about ios. I can plug my iPhone into my computer, create my own password, and back up the whole thing to my local drive. Its very easy, very effective and ridiculously private. Yes, I know. Even if it IS Apple. Funny that.

mmmm

rufus

I have nothing at all against Apple, I had an iPhone 4 for my first smartphone way back in the day, and it lasted a whole day before I jailbroke it. My last iPhone was a 13 Pro Max, and I jailbroke every iPhone I got in between those two within the hour that I got them home, and loved using them with root access! (Such that it is on iOS, nothing like Android!) I moved to Android because I wanted to try something new, got very high end and expensive IEM's and digital analog converter/amplifiers to go with (Campfire Andromeda /w iFi Gold Bar & Gryphon) and the Gryphon supported LDAC and compared with crappy AAC that topped out at ₃₀₀ -ish kbps, and was all Apple supported, on Android I could use LDAC @ 990kbps. Other reasons too, like a Pixel being a very open yet secure platform that you could tinker on, and most of all, loosing my jailbreak on the 13 Pro Max and seeing that unless you had an older device with a hardware exploit, you were going to either have to sit in a space without the latest security updates, sometimes going in half a year or more, (just terrible...) or loose the jailbreak for up to 6-12 months at a time, until Apple patches it and you loose it again!

Anyways, back on topic.

If Seedvault crashes, to restart it, if a backup is not running on the notification screen, go out of the backup screen in Settings and back in. That restarts the service in the background. If a backup is running on the notification screen, try restarting the phone first. If it crashes again while in a backup, then go into the backup screen, and click on your USB drive. Choose your USB drive again from the options you see. Ignore the warning of loosing previous backups, it is not what happens! For Seedvault to overwrite your previous backups, you need to generate a new 12-word encryption key.

A backup will start automatically once you initialize the drive again, and clear the stalled backup that was on the notification screen but not going anywhere! After that you can do another manual backup, whether it fails or not, regardless of what it says!! That part is very important! The text next to the D2D backups option in Expert Settings clearly states, "you MUST perform a manual backup, automatic backup will overwrite your D2D backups," or something like that. Regardless, D2D backup needs manual as last backup.

Don't forget storage backup too! Works great, but I always copy over my Documents folder since my highest important stuff like recovery files and codes for 2FA is stored there, (in encrypted .zip files) mirroring the Documents folder on my computer. Just in case storage backup misses something because it says its experimental I manually back up very important stuff too. But so far it has backed up over 150GB of files perfectly!

The thing you cannot do without Seedvault or root access, is backup app data or system settings! THAT'S why it's an important tool for many people, and a great convenience feature for just about
everyone else! Unless you root your phone, which is the absolute last thing you should do, unless you care to learn how to do it both with a locked bootloader and verified boot. Also build GrapheneOS on your own too so you own the signing keys to the OS, making it so you don't need to be in a persistent root state and can flash it on for half an hour then revert to a nice and safe GrapheneOS with intact security model. THEN I'd say it's worth it and you'll gain access to the tools that allow you the access to what Seedvault is offering. Until then? Seedvault is the best you'll get until the GrapheneOS team finishes their own backup and restore functionality. However for how far along it is? Not even started. Also sounds like there's a log of other higher priorities to get through before they get to that.

So because I've done all the trial by error already, and put it in a guide for new users even! Also I'm typing it all back out here for you and others that see it and it hopefully helps a few people not need the trials I went through figuring out what is actually pretty powerfully and works well. In effect it acts just like a root-based backup solution in effect, just as powerful, just as steep learning curve!

mmmm

rufus

Can't put into an edit, waited too long but this importiant, should have mentioned it far sooner...

Aldo, try getting some good quality USB drives or a decent external SSD. Works A LOT better with better media! Samsung BAR USB, SanDisk external SSD. I use both if these, Samsung BAR, NOT 64GB, they suck have cheap memory. The 128 and 256 GB ones are great! The extreme SanDisk SSD's are most excellent, but the regular ones work fine, just slower!

jackFang The thing is, without roit access or an all having system level access (UID 1000 and correct SElinux rules) nothing can backup app data...

Thanks for this though! I'm going yo check it out for sure. I need something like this!

@Tryptamine
Thanks for all your helpful informations.

Anyway I hope there will be a reliable working solution in future.
Meanwhile I gaved up with the idea of having backups from my phone. Only do backup my contacts and thats it.

I

gamer

I wouldn't trust an image from another user. But it's fairly easy to build a "userdebug" GrapheneOS image yourself that includes "adb root" support. That's how I do regular full backups of my device to my laptop with rsync.