Seedvault to different phone

lawman

My pixel fold battery is overheating and undercharging.

If I restore the seedvault backup to pixel 7, will this work?

Thx

mar2112

In my experience, Pixel 4a(5g) to Pixel 9a some, but not all, apps and data will be restored on the new phone. I found that it was easier to load all apps from the appropriate app store before restoring from seedvault.

Niko

I suggest you either repair your phone or start migrating to the new phone. Don't wait until your phone stops working and then try to restore from the backup, because not everything can be restored.

I just bought a new phone for somebody and decided to test SeedVault restore.

On Pixel7a, I've configured the backup location to be WebDAV. The WebDAV is provided by SFTPGo, which I self-host. I configured SeedVault to only "Backup my apps".

On Pixel8a, after installing GrapheneOS, I got an offer to restore the device right after installation. Connected to WebDAV and chose the latest backup. It gave me options to choose which apps I want to restore; Also SMS, device settings, call history, and contacts.

Overall, phone backup and restore went well. However, it's not possible to completely backup and restore your phone. Ideally, you'd want to keep your old phone fully up and running while migrating to the new phone.

Most of the apps, including some system apps, were installed from the backup and their settings were restored just fine. Some apps were just installed without having their settings restored. Some apps were not backed up in the first place. Because apps can tell Android not to back up their data or not to back them up at all. SeedVault is respecting that setting.... Though I personally wish I could override it since it's my device and my data.

Only on the original phone in the "Backup Status" you can see which apps have been backed up fully, without settings, or not at all. You can't see that in the backup restore on the new phone.