> Android does not allow you to take complete backups. Let alone "built-in".
Android has had full system backup capabilities through `adb backup` for years. It does not require removing carrier locks or rooting and has been available since Android 2.x iirc.
I've used this to transfer all of my apps, app settings, and system settings between all of my Android phones:
Nexus One -> Galaxy Nexus -> Note 3 -> Galaxy S6 -> Galaxy S8 -> Galaxy S9 -> Galaxy S10 -> Z Fold 2, all with one continuous chain of backup and restores via `adb backup` and `adb restore`.
These restores sometimes even worked flawlessly across different Android OS versions! Sometimes this has caused a lot of weird issues wrt system settings, so admittedly this process can be quite buggy.
> This is false. Android has had full system backup capabilities through `adb backup` for years.
Apparently this is false, because apps can "opt out" of ADB backup and many do (see other comments), furthermore it doesn't backup the entire phone, but only the system image (partly). Does it backup the root state of the phone? Nope. Does it backup the restore partition of the phone? Nope. Making it a "maybe full system backup but not full system image backup that is kind of buggy". In other words, like I wrote earlier: not a -full- system backup at all.
I was specifically talking about effortlessly backing up and restoring a full system image. Blackberry OS10 style: plug in phone, press "backup system image" and get a carbon copy of EVERYTHING that runs on the phone that can be restored to a new or existing phone with 1 click. Your post confirms that this is not possible in Android: using ADB is not "effortlessly" and it's not a full system image backup.
Even if I would backup and restore from and to the exact same rooted phone (that's all I'm asking), the restored backup would not be the same as whatever was on the phone when the ADB backup was pulled. Nandroid can do this, in theory, with a lot of hassle (but not on my phone, because TWRP for my phone doesn't support decryption of the system partition).
Many apps opt out of including their state in "adb backup" or act oddly when restored. Maybe this changed in the past few years, but it is still nowhere as complete as any automated or manual iOS backup.
It can if you charge from your PC and set up some very convoluted scripts (not recommended).
I use `adb backup` solely as a means of transferring my settings & app library between devices.
These are full system backups including potentially gigabytes of APKs, so I wouldn't want to run it every night. It is possible to use `adb backup` to only backup settings (no app files) if you want a lighter backup, but those backups aren't as useful for my purposes.
Thanks for the answer. I just wanted to highlight that, I can just take my phone for the day, throw it under a bus, go to an apple store, get a new phone and continue where I exactly left off (minus a couple of 2FA keys, which I have backups of).
This is what I like about iOS. I tested this method a couple of times (with less destruction though), and it just works.
Android has had full system backup capabilities through `adb backup` for years. It does not require removing carrier locks or rooting and has been available since Android 2.x iirc.
I've used this to transfer all of my apps, app settings, and system settings between all of my Android phones:
Nexus One -> Galaxy Nexus -> Note 3 -> Galaxy S6 -> Galaxy S8 -> Galaxy S9 -> Galaxy S10 -> Z Fold 2, all with one continuous chain of backup and restores via `adb backup` and `adb restore`.
These restores sometimes even worked flawlessly across different Android OS versions! Sometimes this has caused a lot of weird issues wrt system settings, so admittedly this process can be quite buggy.