Re: transfer to a new smartphone

Wendelin Uez, 2025-01-05 14:18:

It's time to move to a new smartphone. I knwo when changing from one Android
smartphone to a newer one I can login to my Google account with the newer
smartphone and data are copied from backup to the new one.
 
Bit what exactly is copied? I have addtional apps installed having their own
data, f.e. WhatsApp, Firefox, Mail clients. Are these non-Google-apps and
their data also backuped and restored, or do I have to reinstall them
manually?

Mostly all apps with their data will be transferred when you use the
direct copy feature using Bluetooth. That means you power on both
devices and put them next to each other and then transfer the data using
the transfer function when you setup the new device. Using Google backup
and restore should work mostly identical, but I did not do a thourough
comparison of both methods yet.

One exception are apps which use the secure storage of the device since
this data can not be copied by design - it only exists in the secure
storage and can be used to verify the identity of the device or do
cryptographic signatures but it can not be read and copied to another
devices for security reasons. For example banking apps and Google Wallet
work this way.

Also some apps may not allow to backup and restore data - what also is
the case for most banking apps but also some apps which use DRM to
protect downloaded content.

--
Arno Welzel
https://arnowelzel.de