Google One Now Backs Up Texts, 'Original Quality' Photos, and Videos on Android

Irreparably damaged your phone in a freak accident? Not to worry -- Google's got your back. From a report: The search giant today announced that subscribers to Google One, a subscription service that offers expanded cloud storage, can now take advantage of a whole-phone backup solution for Android that automatically copies videos, multimedia messages (MMS), and uncompressed photos to Google's datacenters. But wait, you might say, doesn't Google already offer a free backup solution for Android? That's true, but it only covers content, select data (apps, call history, contacts, and calendar), and settings. (Only Pixel phones get native SMS backup.) And while Google's eponymous Google Photos service backs up photos and videos for free, it by default resizes pics to 16MP (original-quality photos count against your Google Account storage). Google One doesn't touch photos before uploading them, and it throws in the aforementioned text messages backup at no extra charge.

I use iCloud ...

[CaptainDork]

... but I have an iPhone.

I use OneDrive

[Heir Of The Mess]

.. but I have a Windows Phone. However OneDrive also works on my Android Phone because on Android you can expand the low level functionality of the phone with 3rd party apps. Unlike your iPhone. Unfortunately Android is a bit crap. I wish the Windows Phone had taken off.

Re:

[jimprdx]

And I use OneDrive too... on my iPhone. I could also use Google Drive instead of iCloud if I wanted. Microsoft products are available on the iPhone as well as Android, I use OneDrive, Outlook and synchronize to my MS calendar. Not sure why you think you can't use third-party apps on an iPhone.

Re:

[Heir Of The Mess]

So does OneDrive on your iPhone automatically backup all your SMS messages, app settings, and photos and videos in full resolution? It does on my Windows Phone.

Plus they "backup" a few extra things

[Seven Spirals]

Everywhere you've ever been with your phone when GPS was working and every purchase you've ever made also gets logged & stored "just in case". Has Android even got selective permissions working yet or is it still just "accept our GPS tracking flashlight or we just won't start the application." ? The only smartphone I've ever seen to get permissions right was BB10 which flopped (but I enjoyed my BB10 Passport muchly).

Do they think more backup is a benefit?

[ron_ivi]

The main thing I care about on Android is how to block Google from backing up information. If Huawei starts selling a googleless android fork, I'd be quite tempted.

Re:Do they think more backup is a benefit?

[Mr0bvious]

Ah, the old swap the evil you know for the evil you don't. It's a good plan.

Re:

[Joce640k]

Translation of the double-speak: Google is now going to download and analyze ALL the files on your phone, not just your list of contacts and text messages.

Re:

[Ryzilynt]

Why do you think ISP have been rushing to maximize upload speeds?

It isn't for you, many users don't need that kind of upload speed.

But those kind of speeds can quickly and efficiently get the contents of your phone or hard drives.

Thanks NSA !

Re:

[tinkerton]

I am not stealing copyrighted songs, I'm only making backups of them.

Re:

[Vanyle]

My S10 allows me to deny any permissions for whatever app I want. I have yet to see an error unless the permission is truly required.

Google really needs to catch up in this space.

[shess]

I've been complaining about the Android backup experience since the G1. Every time our household gets a new phone, I have high hopes, which are completely dashed. There's always a slew of reasons given, some new SDK or API or something which will FINALLY make it just work, but every time I get a new phone some stuff comes forward, some doesn't, some data comes forward, some doesn't, exactly as if each app were making up its own strategy to handle things. Random associates will suggested crazy backup strategies involving rooted phones or dev tools, which I've never figured out. It sucks.

Meanwhile, our household iPads and iPhones "Just Work" when we do upgrades, to the point where I cannot even remember if it ever didn't work right.

Re:Google really needs to catch up in this space.

[drinkypoo]

If you root your Android phone you can use a real backup solution. Even ye olde Titanium Backup will back up SMS. Or if you replace your bootloader you can take a full system image. With some effort you can pull any data out from there.

I store photos and videos to my uSD card, so I can still get those from the device even if it is bricked, without having to back them up to Google. I only lose those if I lose the device.

Re: Google really needs to catch up in this space.

[Dixie_Flatline]

This is, of course, a terrible solution to a problem that shouldn't exist. I understand that we're on slashdot and your audience has people in it that are willing to do that, but as a generic piece of advice this may as well be "take your phone to a witch doctor and have him do the backup dance under the full moon."

But at least it sounds like Google's solution is free. My backups and restores on iOS are great, but I'm paying extra for enough space to back up those devices. I don't understand why this isn't

Re:

[drinkypoo]

"This is, of course, a terrible solution to a problem that shouldn't exist."

Yeah, the problem that shouldn't exist is that people have gotten used to having Google or Apple copying all useful data from the users' phones.

You should be in charge of your own data. I don't need Google to hold my dick for me while I pee, either.

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

What issues are you having?

I've found Google's backup to work very well for years now. When I upgraded to a Pixel XL it pulled all my settings and apps and media automatically. Even allowed me to connect the phone phone via USB to pull any local files off that too, including local app data.

I even set up Google Photos on my wife's iPad so that it saves all her photos and videos automatically to cloud storage. Is iCloud free? Maybe I should set that up too.

SMS only on Pixel?

[Daetrin]

"Only Pixel phones get native SMS backup."

Hmmm.... *looks at Xperia XZ1 Compact*

Settings->System->Backup->SMS text message, supposedly backed up 4 days ago.

So clearly there's some weirdness of miscommunication going on?

.

Re:

[ftobin]

That might be Xperia-specific backups, that might not restore to a non-Xperia device. Xperia has got its own backup system separate from Google's. (I'm an Xperia X Compact owner).

Encrypted?

[bill_mcgonigle]

So is this encrypted with a user password for privacy or is Google harvesting everything that it sucks up?

Correction

[d Bo]

Google now offers "the ability to restore" texts, original quality photos and videos as a service, which they have almost certainly been archiving anyway.

End of life

[Vanyle]

Anyone wanna take bets on how long until they kill this project off?

Counts against quota...

[Nononanon]

What they try to hide is that enabling that option will count 100% of the backed up content against your quota.
Have a 100GB plan? And an almost full 128GB SD card? Time to upgrade cause your 100GB quota just filled up!
The beauty for Google is that you don't have fine grain control over the backup and no direct access to it's contents (only a full restore gives you indirect access).
It means they can safely offload this data into the lowest performance and lowest cost archive section with really great

Seriously?

[nagora]

Google can fuck right off.

Charging for what already stealing

[Way Smarter Than You]

You think they didn't already have ALL your data? The only difference is they now give you the option to pay to restore it.

Google is spying

[LinuxAdmin]

Remember when this was called spyware? If you back up or sync to Google, these are the people with access to your photos: https://gawker.com/5637234/gcr... [gawker.com]