Backing up your Mobile Phone Data

The advice I give to all mobile phone users I encounter most often, which is also the most often ignored advice, is to back up their phones. To me, it is an obvious, if tedious and boring, thing to do.

Let’s just consider for a few moments, what we have stored on our mobile phones. Firstly, almost everyone stores names and numbers on their phone. It makes sense, after all, to keep phone numbers on your phone, so they are with you when you need them. Most phones offer advanced phonebook features, so you can store multiple numbers for one contact, also email addresses, work details, postal address, a company or personal website address, information on how I even know that person and even their birthday!

Many users also take PIM (Personal Information Management) usage further, by utilising their handset’s calendar feature. By using an electronic diary, you can keep up-to-date with all the appointments in your busy schedule, whether you use the phone for personal or business use. Meeting with the MD, contract signing next week with your biggest client, visit to the dentist, Auntie Edna’s birthday, all set into your calendar, all with easy to set early reminders, so you can keep on top of your life and not forget the important dates.

With most mobile phones now sporting cameras, it is so easy to take a snap of the kids having fun at the park, to take pictures at family gatherings, weddings, to take holiday snaps, etc. And you have the benefit of keeping the pictures with you, to show friends, to look through and reminisce and that is just a few of the things we use our phones to store.

So, what happens if you lose your phone? What If your phone is stolen?  And if it goes faulty, and needs to go away for repair? Along with your phone, goes your life, it seems. Even when a handset goes away for a simple repair, very often it will be flashed with the latest handset firmware. So although your fault may be a simple problem with the keypad, when you get the phone back, everything will have been wiped from the memory.

What you should do, to avoid losing it all, is to back up your phone. Let’s take a look at a few of the options available.

Firstly, for your names and numbers, you can back up to the SIM card. Most modern SIM’s offer space to store up to 200 names and numbers. Sounds a lot, but in reality it is very easy to use that up. Think of how many contacts you have stored on your phone that have more than one number, for example you can easily have a work landline, home landline, mobile number, possibly a work mobile too, all for one contact. Just 50 contacts with four numbers each and you will fill the SIM to capacity, because the SIM can only store one number to a name, so each contact number is going to be listed individually,  200 doesn’t seem quite so many now. Any extra information you have stored for that contact, like email address, birthday, postal address, etc, won’t be saved as these cannot be stored on a SIM card, backing up details to a SIM card is definitely an emergency option, and not the best, at that.

If you own a phone that has a memory card expansion slot, you could back up all your details to the memory card. You could back up the full phonebook, calendar, and ensure your pictures are stored to the memory card too. So, if the phone goes faulty, you can at least retrieve your details from the memory card. This isn’t so helpful if you have lost your phone or had it stolen – lost/stolen phone means lost/stolen memory card too!

A third way is to back up to a PC. More useful than the previous two options, you can easily attach most mobile phones to a PC via a data cable or Bluetooth, and use the software that came on the CD with the phone to store all your details from the handset. Not only ideal for saving contacts, pictures and calendar appointments, but also text messages too. And whether your phone is lost or stolen, or gone for a repair, you have a full copy of all your details on your home PC, ready to restore to the new phone. This is the most common way of backing up a mobile phone, but even this is not without its drawbacks. The main problem is the software you use for backing up your phone is manufacturer specific, so you cannot backup details from one manufacturer and transfer them to another, i.e. from Nokia to Sony Ericsson, or vice-versa.

The last option I’ll suggest is probably the best all round option for saving your details and that is to back everything up to an online service. Usually you need to go to the website of the service provider first, to register with a username and password. Then, select the model of phone you use from those listed, and settings will be sent to your phone via SMS, to allow you to synchronise your phone Over The Air, direct to the online service. Once you have the synchronise settings on your phone, all you need to do is select synchronisation, usually phone in the connectivity folder, then highlight the service provider name, and select. And that is it.

All the information you chose to save when registering online is backed up to the online servers, safe and protected, ready for whenever you need it. And, if you lose your phone, if it is stolen, or even if you buy a replacement, all you need to do is get the settings sent to your new handset, and you can download all the information you previously saved. It doesn’t even matter what handset you originally used, and what you have changed to, just select the new handset from the phones listed with your online back-up service provider, and you can download all your saved data.

Very often, pictures can be important for sentimental reasons, as can messages received.

Don’t run the risk of losing it all, back up your mobile phone data today.