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How to backup or transfer apps/photos/videos/music/etc from your Android phone to the cloud or desktop computer

Smartphones make for great point-and-shoot camera replacements, which means many people use their phones exclusively to take all of their photos and keep up with memories. The problem with that is that phones can easily get lost or stolen, SD cards can go bad or any number of things that can cause you to lose months or years of pictures unexpectedly. In this guide, we’re going to go over how to backup your pictures, just in case you run into some data loss down the road.

Connecting your Android device to your computer with a USB cable can be annoying and almost prehistoric. Most people have WiFi networks set up in their home and anyone using a smartphone is going to have a data connection, so why not use those to transfer files to and from your computer with your device? It’s easier and you’re not chained to a USB cable when you want to move some music around. There’s several different ways to get the job down, and this guide is going to go through some of those options.

Backup to your PC

The quickest way to backup your pictures is to connect your device to your computer and copy your photos, but it can be a little confusing to find exactly where your photos are at on your device. Many Android devices have internal storage and an SD card slot, so there can be two possible locations for it, and there’s tons of folders in both locations, especially if you have tons of apps. If you know what you’re looking for, it’s not too hard to navigate, and that’s where this guide comes in.

First things first, connect your phone to one of your computer’s USB ports with your USB cable. If you’re using Windows, you’ll see a new device show up in the left pane of Windows Explorer, around where your hard drive is listed. Some models require a driver or software to be installed in order to see the internal storage. If so, just follow the prompts to install it.

If you do have a device that has both internal storage and an SD card, you’re going to see two locations listed in your device. “Card” will be the SD card inserted in the phone, obviously, and “Phone” will be the phone’s internal storage. Most people tend to store photos on the SD card so it’s easier to move photos between devices, but either option works. Open up whichever storage you use to hold your pictures, and you’ll be able to see every file and folder that’s stored in it. For this example, we’re going to use the SD card because it’s less likely to be cluttered with folders from apps, but if you’re using your phone’s internal storage to hold your photos, it’s not uncommon to see dozens of folders here. You’re going to want to find the folder labeled DCIM. (Digital Camera IMages).

Opening your DCIM folder can show a few different folders, but you’re going to want the Camera folder. Open it to make sure all of your photos and videos are in it. Now we need move you stored pictures to your computer’s hard drive for backup. The easiest way to do this is to go back to the root of the DCIM folder (where you can see the Camera folder instead of the individual photos) and right-click and copy that entire Camera folder. Then, find a suitable place to backup your photos, which could be in your Photos library or just your desktop, and right-click and paste the folder. The copy process might take a few minutes depending on how many photos you have, but after it’s done you’ll have two copies of your photos in both places.

If you primarily take photos in other apps, such as Instagram, the photos may not be stored in the DCIM/Camera folder. Most apps will store photos in a Pictures folder, so for Instagram you would look for an Instagram folder inside the Pictures folder on your device storage. Aside from that, however, the copy/paste process is identical.

Cloud Backup

Connecting your phone to your computer to backup photos is an easy way to keep your memories safe, but it’s still a hassle to connect your device to your computer and manually move everything over. It also isn’t a feasible solution for someone that uses something like a Chromebook or tablet for their primary computer. Fortunately, you can use Dropbox’s fantastic app to automatically keep your photos backed up to the cloud, no cables involved.

If you already use Dropbox to frequently store files in their cloud, setting up Dropbox to automatically sync your photos is a piece of cake. If you don’t have a Dropbox account, you can get a free account and get 2 GB of space to store your photos, which, for most people, is way more than enough storage.

First things first, if you don’t already have the Dropbox application, you can grab it off of Google Play. It’s a free app, so no worries there. You can either sign into your current account or create one. During the initial setup, Dropbox will prompt you to setup your automatic photo backups. You can choose to either upload photos on your data connection and WiFi, or only WiFi. For most people with a data cap, sticking to WiFi uploads is the best option as Dropbox uploads photos immediately after taking them. If you snap a few dozen photos, you can burn through quite a bit of data in a short time without realizing it, and this is doubly true for videos. There’s also an option to go ahead and upload your current photos and videos on your device to Dropbox. Another cool aspect of the photo backup is that your first photo upload gets you an extra 500 MB of free storage space, so you’ll come in close to 2.5 GB total space.

If you already use Dropbox but don’t have the camera upload turned on, you can find the option to turn it on in the settings menu. It walks you through setup just like a first-time user, and you’ll still get your extra 500 MB for your first upload.

All of your uploaded pictures and videos are stored in a Camera Uploads folder in your Dropbox account, which can be accessed from the Dropbox app or any web browser from any device. You can even install the Dropbox desktop application and all your photos will be automatically copied to your desktop/notebook. You will find a Dropbox folder under your username folder (PCs) which always be in sync with the Dropbox website. Once you photos are copied to Dropbox, you can delete them from your phone if you wish. You can also move photos into Dropbox’s Public folder to easily share them with your friends and family, which is a great tool for those of you that are heavily dependent on social networking sites.

The downside to using Dropbox’s Camera Upload is obviously the data usage and battery usage. It’s not a huge battery drain, but naturally the more often your device has to wakeup to upload something, the more effect it’s going to have on your battery. If you don’t mind giving up a bit of battery for the extreme convenience Dropbox offers, though, it’s a great tool to use.

Obviously, Dropbox isn’t the only cloud storage solution for backing up your pictures, but in my opinion, it is easiest to access and effective way. Google offers photo backups through Google+, but they can’t be access in Google Drive the same way Dropbox allows you to from your desktop. Any other cloud service like Box or SkyDrive could also be theoretically used to backup your photos, but they won’t be as automatic as Dropbox.

As mentioned above,cloud storage is becoming the norm for keeping files stored, and Dropbox is at the front of that revolution. But in addition to keeping files stored and synced, you can also use it as a makeshift file transfer application, with or without WiFi. File transfers aren’t quite as fast as they would be with direct WiFi transfer, but it can be a little more flexible to work with.

The first step is moving whatever file you want to transfer to your Dropbox storage space. You can do this through a web browser or you can download the Dropbox application on a PC or Mac to have easy access to it. This is definitely the slowest part, as most people don’t have speedy upload speeds for their internet. Generally, though, for a few pictures or songs, it shouldn’t take more than a few minutes. After the files are moved onto Dropbox, you can access them through the Dropbox app on your Android phone. Download speeds vary here, and if you’re using 3G or 4G, it’ll eat a bit into your data cap, but this works extremely well if you’re at a friend’s house without your USB cable and you need to save a few files off of their computer. You can also favorite any files on your Android device that you want to store for offline access, including pictures, music, and documents. It’s also great for keeping folders synced between your phone and computer.

WiFi File Transfer

There are also options for simply moving files around your WiFi network for photo backups, too. For simplicity, though, Dropbox and the direct PC connection are your two best options.

WiFi File Transfer is a popular app that works very well for moving files around your home network. It’s not flashy, but it gets the job done. The app starts up a service and produces a URL that you can type into your computer’s web browser, and as long as that service is running, you can see your device’s internal memory and SD card. From here, you can download any files to your computer, or upload files onto the phone: music, pictures, movies, word documents, etc. The transfers are very quick, and depending on your router, are even faster than a USB connection.

The free version of WiFi File Transfer is fully functional but can only upload files less than 4 MB in size. That definitely rules out any movies, and most music, too. The Pro version removes this limit, and for only $1.40, it’s worth the convenience of never needing a USB cable for file transfers again.

Samba

Samba servers are a little more complex than what we’ve covered, but they’re also more convenient, with just one caveat; if you’re running Windows on your computer, your Android device is probably going to need root. If you’ve got a rooted device, this is easily the best option to use to get your files transferred. Essentially, installing a Samba server app on your device turns it into a network drive that you can see just like a regular USB stick on your computer as long as they’re connected to the same WiFi network. From here, you can drag and drop files to and from the phone, just like you would if it was connected to your computer via USB cable.

If you’ve got your device rooted, you’re already past the first step. If not, you can check out our guide to get you started. Next, you’ll just need a Samba server app, and in this case I’d recommend this simple Samba Filesharing application just because it’s straightforward to use. In the app, it’ll ask you to set a password before you can enable the server, and you can optionally change the name of your device on the network. After that’s out of the way, you simply enable the server and check for your device on your computer’s network, and you’ll have access to your files after you put in the password you set up. Just enable the server whenever you’re on WiFi to get to your files, and turn the server off when you’re done.

As always, there’s a few different ways you can move files around on your home network. These three just happen to be the most convenient and painless.

How to boot your Android phone or tablet into safe mode for troubleshooting

Android is a relatively stable mobile operating system, but every now and then, performance issues arise. Safe mode is a great tool that you can use to troubleshoot these issues. Safe mode boots your phone running only the apps that came with the phone – that means no third-party apps. Therefore, if your phone runs without an issue when you’re in safe mode, it’s a pretty good bet that the problem isn’t system related, and instead a third party app you downloaded.

Click through the break to see how you can enable safe mode to test if it’s a system problem or a third-party problem.

Unfortunately, not all phones have the same method to enter safe mode. Most Jelly Bean devices use the first method below, but some devices with older versions of Android and some newer devices (like the Galaxy S 4 and HTC One) use the alternate method further down the page.

Method 1 (most Jelly Bean devices)

1. Hold down the physical power button on your device.

2. Long-press the “Power off” option that appears.

3. A dialog box asking you if you want to reboot to safe mode may pop up. Tap OK.

(Note: If the box doesn’t appear, go on to the alternate method.)

4. When the phone reboots, you should see a “Safe Mode” watermark at the botom left of the screen, to let you know that you are in fact in safe mode.

Alternate Method (some older versions of Android and some Jelly Bean phones)

1. Turn off your phone.

2. Once your phone is off, turn it on by pressing the power button.

3. As your phone is booting, hold down both the volume up and volume down buttons (yes, both) and keep them held.

4. Once your phone has booted, you should see a “Safe Mode” watermark at the botom left of the screen, to let you know that you are in fact in safe mode.

Note: If the alternate method also doesn’t work, you can try holding down menu instead of volume up and down while booting.

In safe mode, while you can’t use third party apps, you can uninstall them. So if your phone is giving you problems as bad as freezing and not letting you uninstall apps, you can uninstall the problem app/apps in safe mode. In addition, if you need to, you can backup your data or factory reset your device in safe mode .

To exit safe mode, you just restart your device as you normally would.

Happy troubleshooting!

How to add password protection to your Google Play Store account to prevent unintentional purchases

If you’ve ever let a child play with your smartphone, then you know how worrisome that can be. A wrong tap here, another wrong tap there and your credit card might be charged for money that you’d rather keep in your account. Fortunately, Google has a hidden setting to enable password protection and prevent accidental purchases from the Google Play Store. All you need to do is follow the steps after the break and you’re golden.

1)Open the Google Play Store app.

2)Tap your menu button, and then tap settings.

3)Under “User Controls,” you’ll see an option and checkbox for “Password.” If that’s not checked, tap that option.

4)You will be asked to confirm your password. Type in your Google account’s password, and then tap OK.

And there you go! You will now be required to type in your Google password each and every time you make a purchase through the Play Store – and that includes in-app purchases. One thing to keep in mind is that once you enter your password to purchase an app, you won’t be required to re-enter your password for the next 30 minutes. After 30 minutes or more, you will be required to enter your password again to make any purchases.

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