Android/adb

With a non rooted device, the only things you can backup locally is what the couple device/android will let you do. That is pretty much the same files you can copy with the already mentioned software. With the Android 4.x devices, a nice solution to make such a partial backup is the so-called "adb backup".

adb stands for Android Debug Bridge, and it is a part of the Android Software Development Kit (SDK). It can be installed with

Install :

When it is done, you may have to logout and login in order to backup the files with

where:


 * -f : the path of the *.ab file that will be saved on your computer. This file is a compressed file that contains an archive of the data/apks from your device.
 * -apk|-noapk : indicates if the *.apk files should be backed up (default is -noapk)
 * -shared|-noshared: enable/disable backup of the device's shared storage / SD card contents (default is -noshared)
 * -all : indicates that you want the entire system backed up. you can use the packages filter to just backup specific packages, or use -all for a full system backup.
 * -system|-nosystem: indicates if all the system applications and data are included when backing up. (default is -system)
 * : this is where you can list specific packages to backup. Use these if you want to back up only specific applications. If using -all, you do not need to specify packages.

To backup the phone into ~/HTC_backup :

will start the daemon and show you the devices on the USB.

will backup every thing the device will let you to backup.

will restore the backup into the device.

To stop the daemon: