In this tutorial we take a detailed look at how the Backup options have changed in Windows 10 Mobile from Windows Phone 8.1 and how you can manage backup for different items.
Backing up Apps, Start Screen, Accounts & Settings:
- For accessing the Backup options, go to Settings > Update & security > Backup. Now, you can toggle on or off backup to OneDrive from participating apps. This is a neat feature and will help in restoring devices without loosing app data in process.
- Clicking on “More Options” takes you to second screen where you can enable or disable automatic backups take a manual backup or even choose which apps’ data to be backed up.
- You can also go to OneDrive to manage backups already stored online. Read on below to see how to manage backups in OneDrive
Backing up Photos, Videos & Messages:
- Photos backup option has moved to the new OneDrive app and you need to setup photos backup by going to OneDrive settings directly or via Settings–>Devices–>Default Camera–>Manage OneDrive upload settings. (shown in screenshot below)
- Message backup has moved under messaging settings (Settings—->System—->Messaging).
Backup Hands-on Tutorial Video:
For reading the massive changelog of what Windows 10 Mobile brings over Windows Phone 8.1, click here.
For Windows Phone 8.1 Backup tutorial and for reading how to manage Backups in OneDrive, read on.
This tutorial aims to tell you everything you need to know about Backup options and Backup error resolution on your Windows phone 8.1 running devices. The Windows phone has option of making a backup of your important settings, messages, apps, start screen layouts and more to OneDrive. This helps in restoring everything back in case of any issue with your phone later.
You can even do a restore to get similar settings, if you buy a new phone. Obviously you need to use same “Microsoft Account” for enabling restore to other devices too.
1) Go to Settings—-> Backup and you can see three backup options,
a) Apps + Settings: If you tap on (apps+settings) it takes you to the next screen and you need to toggle on the backup for settings and apps individually. If you want to know what gets backed up, then here are the details,
The apps you’ve installed on your phone, along with high scores and progress from participating apps.
The passwords for your accounts.
Your call history.
Your Start screen layout and theme color. If you are on Windows Phone 8.1 update 1 then even Folders and their content is backed up
The accounts you’ve set up on your phone.
Your Internet Explorer favorites.
The custom words you’ve added to your phone’s dictionary.
Settings from around your phone, including photos, messaging, email and accounts, lock screen, Speech preferences and more.
b) Messaging settings:
Allows you to toggle on or off the messaging backup to OneDrive and set the period for which messaging backups need to be done. When you delete your messages from your phone, they’ll be deleted from the cloud as well, so you’re always in sync. Turning off backup won’t delete previously saved SMS and MMS messages. To delete messages from the cloud, you’ll need to turn on backup and delete the messages from your phone.
c) Photos + Videos:
You can select the quality in which Photos and videos will be uploaded to OneDrive automatically. for best quality you need to be on WiFi
Backup frequency and Manual option ( Apps + Settings ):
- Your phone will wait until it has a WiFi connection and is plugged into a power source to automatically create a fresh backup.
- You can do a manual backup at any time – go to Settings —> Backup —-> Apps + settings, then turn on Settings backup and tap Back up now.
- After three weeks without a recent backup, your phone will prompt you to create a new one.
Backup errors resolution & Managing Backups:
Most common error that people face with Back up is the “There was a problem backing up your settings. Try again later”. Now, what happens is that in many cases a Backup is created, even when you see this error.
For checking this, you can go to Onedrive.live.com and then click on Settings wheel—–>options and on left hand side you can see “Device Backups”. Click on this to see all the backups against your OneDrive account.
In case, no fresh backup is getting created and you can only see a old backup, you can delete the old Backup either from OneDrive or from your phone itself by going to Manage Backup ——>and clicking on delete as shown in the above screenshots. From the phone you can individually delete the apps and settings backups. Now, try to manually do the backup by tapping on “Back up now” in Apps+ Settings, and you should be able to see the fresh Backup.
Do let us know how you find this tutorial and for many similar useful Windows Phone tips and tutorials, browse our “Tutorials & Mods” category from top Menu or by clicking here.
