Data Recovery Blog

As phones have become more sophisticated, the way we use them on a day-to-day basis has fundamentally changed. Not so long ago, the only valuable data stored on our phones was a list of contacts but times have changed: photos, videos, documents, games and more have now found a home in what are now basically handheld computers. At Fields Data Recovery, we now regularly recover data from smartphones, but we'd been trading for more than a decade before these devices became a common site in our lab. Previously, the most common flash data recovery tasks assigned to us involving portable media concerned USB drives. Now, smartphones are far and away the most common flash device we work with. 

With our phones now holding data that is valuable in both practical and sentimental terms, it’s a good idea to ensure that it’s being regularly backed up, particularly as you can ensure that it’s done automatically in just a few seconds, irrespective of whether you’re using an Android or iOS device.

Android

In order to setup automatic backups on your Android phone, simply go to Settings> Backup & Restore then tap ‘Back up my data’ and ‘Automatic restore’. Once this has been done, your contacts, apps and phone’s settings will all be backed up automatically at regular intervals.

In order to ensure your notes, photos, videos and other data are also backed up regularly, you’ll need to go to ‘Accounts’ and turn on the syncing options for everything you want kept safe and easily accessible.

iOS

If you’re using an iPhone, you can make a few simple changes to your settings and your device will be automatically backed up every day.

To do this, simply go to Settings > [your name] > iCloud > iCloud Backup (Settings > iCloud > Backup if you’re using iOS 10.2 or earlier) and ensure that iCloud Backup is turned on.

Next, make sure that you have enough storage available in your iCloud account. As standard, you’ll be given 5GB of space for free but you’ll need to purchase a plan if you need more. Apple’s current plans are as follows:

50GB - £0.79 p/m

200GB - £2.49 p/m

2TB - £6.99 p/m

Alternatives

In the event that you want to be doubly sure that your data is safe, we’d recommend considering purchasing a third-party app such as App Backup Restore.

It’s also worth remembering, whilst it may be ever so slightly inconvenient, that performing a manual backup to a device like a desktop or laptop is still worthwhile for added security. If you’re an iPhone user, it’ll mean that you can backup only your most precious data to the cloud and save money on a monthly subscription by performing a full backup manually.

If it’s already too late and you need data recovered from a smartphone, get in touch with Fields Data Recovery today.