How to Backup Android to Google

Part 1: What Does Google backup from Android?

By default, Google backs up certain types of data automatically. Most of the time these are the types of data that Google associates with Google services you use. They include;

• Contacts, Emails and Calendars- these are automatically synced with your Google contacts online and can be accessed from your Gmail or the Google Contacts page. The emails are stored in Gmail while the calendars and events are synched with Google calendar.
• Chrome browsing data- Android users who use the Chrome browser, their bookmarks will be synchronized with their Chrome account. For newer versions the stock browser will also sync with Chrome bookmarks as well.
• Google Talk Chat logs- These are stored in your Gmail account if you haven’t disabled chat logging in Gmail.
• Some system settings
• Apps and other purchased content that are linked to your Google account.
• Google may also automatically backup some third party app data if the apps can sync your data with web services.

Google will not automatically backup SMS messages, Game progress, login information and App settings. Google will also not automatically backup Google Authenticator data for security reasons.

Part 2: how to backup android to Google

It is important to note that Google does allow you to sync most of the important data on your phone with Google servers. You can sync all app data, calendar, browser data, contacts, photos, music and Gmail data and even Wi-Fi password and device settings

To back-up most of you Google related data go to Settings> Accounts> Google> and then check everything you want to sync.

To backup device settings and other data such as Wi-Fi passwords go to settings> Backup & Reset. Check “Backup my Data” and then Automatic restore. This will ensure that all settings and passwords will be saved on Google servers.

You can then easily access and restore the data on Google servers.

Part 3: How to View android backup in Google

The files that are created by backups are XML files which can be viewed in any web browser as well as opened MS Excel. You can view these files in three different ways using a backup reader, open in a web browser or open it in MS Excel. Let’s see how to view your backup in each of these three ways.

Use a Backup Reader (Can only work with SMS backups)

XtNetwroks is working on a Java based viewer that will allow backup files to be viewable on a computer. Currently this system works by displaying threaded conversations on Linux, OSX and Windows systems. It can also be used to export messages to text files.

You can find out more information here

View the Backup data using a Web Browser

This method will not work on Chrome or Firefox for security reasons.in order to allow the files to be viewable on the web browser you need to make sure that the preferences are for “Add XSL Tag” and “Add Readable Date” in the preferences are checked in the app before creating the backup. Once you have done that, follow these simple steps.

Step 1: Copy the backup file to a folder on your computer and open the xml file in the browser.

The browser will now display it in a friendly HTML format.

View the Backup file using MS Excel

MS Excel can also be used to view backup files. Here’s how to do that

Step 1: Open Excel select file> open and in the drop down menu select XML Files (*.xml)

Step 2: Select the file from the list and then open it. Choose “Open without applying a style sheet”

Step 3: When requested to select how you would like to open the file, select “As an XML table”

You should be able to view the file in MS Excel although if you edit the file in this column the program may not allow you to Export it back to XML.

It is important to note that the above methods may not work for all kinds of backup files. In most cases you are not able to view backup files except for sms backup files and call logs. Therefore the methods discussed above are for backup files that contain SMS messages, call logs and contacts.