How to take full Backup of your Android without Rooting

Android is a rising mobile OS platform and have left behind Blackberry OS, Nokia Symbian, Apple iOS. When you root your Android device and install some developed firmware you can unleash the real power and functionality of your device. WE are going to tell you here how you can backup your device without rooting it. This requires adb drivers on a windows PC and you will need to execute some commands to get a full backup of your device. The procedure is somehow hard for a starter but we have explained everything in step to make it lot easier for you to backup your Android device easily and safely.

If you have already installed the Android SDK and also updated the Android SDK Platform Tools with thelatest version using SDK Manager.

1. First of all, connect your Android Device with your Computer using USB cable.
2. Then, in your Computer open the command prompt. Once it opens, type the following command to ensurethat Computer has recognized your device:                  ‘adb devices’.

The command ‘adb backup’ is to enable you to perform full system backup.

The command format to create backup is:

adb backup [-f <file>] [-apk | -noapk] [-shared | -noshared] [-all] [-system | nosystem] [<packages...>]

and the most basic command is:

adb backup –all

The above command will help you to take the backup of app and device data only to the current directory as ‘backup.ab’

in case if it doesn’t work then try the following command:           adb backup –all –f C:\backup.ab or you can also type the desired folder path in place of C:\.

Command to explain the parameter:      -f<file>

Command to choose the location of backup file to store:                              ‘-f /backup/mybackup.ab’, this is going to save it to the root directory of your drive in a folder named backup with a file name ‘mybackup.ab’ but it’s better to set a location manually.

The command ‘-apk | -noapk’ is to conform that whether or not APK should be included in the backup. If –apk is not available in the market then we have –noapk as default.

We use ‘-shared | -noshared’ to enable or disable backup of device’s shared storage. In default we have -noshare.

To backup all the apps contain in your device, use –all.

The –all command also includes system app. So, we use –system to include system app and -nosystem to exclude it. But it is good to use –nosystem, which entirely depends on you. By default we have –system.

<packages…> is used to list the package names. It is recommended to use this command only at the time of backup of specific application.

3. After taking the decision for creating the backup, type the following command:

adb backup –apk –shared –all –f C:\backup20111230.ab

and you will see the following screen in your device:

4. Here you need to enter a password for encryption of the backup file.
5. When the process will complete, it will show ‘Backup Complete’ on your screen or if it not complete then your device will return to the home screen.
6. Then you need to unlock your bootloader.
7. After booting back into Android, you need to select add your account or you can skip it now for later.
8. Now, here is the command to restore your device through command line:

adb restore C:\backup20111230.ab

Remember that if you have a different location then replace C:\backup20111230.ab with your location of backup file.

9. When you will see the following screen then type the password for your current encryption.
   
10. 10. The process may take several minutes but once it back to normal you can see some widgets on your home screen. All you data will be restore as earlier.
    This is one of the best solution for the people who want to root their device  and want to backup everything before that. Also, check our latest tip on how you can create Nandroid backup without entering into recovery mode.