Chicago
Track Your Order
0
Android backs up way more to Google Cloud than it should
Google is deeply integrated into Android. Most phone brands rely heavily on their services to power everything, especially apps and syncing. One of the key functions Google handles on your phone is backup, which can end up sending more of your data to your Google account than you realize.
If you’re not comfortable sharing that data with Google, or just want to see what’s being backed up, it’s worth taking a closer look at the settings.
What Android automatically backs up to your Google account
There's more information being stored than most realize
If I were to ask you what information Google backs up from your phone, you'd probably guess photos and contacts. And you'd be correct, as those are two of the most obvious examples of data tied to your Google account.
However, Google actually stores a lot more than that.
Alongside contacts, Google also backs up your call history, SMS and MMS text messages, and RCS chats from Google Messages.
Certain device settings are backed up as well. Exactly what gets stored varies from phone to phone, but Google typically saves things like Wi-Fi networks and passwords, wallpapers, date and time preferences, and other system settings.
Apps and some app data can also be backed up. More specifically, Google stores a list of the apps installed on your phone and, depending on how the app was developed, certain user preferences and settings. You can generally expect settings from Google apps like Google Maps and Google Calendar to sync properly, while many third-party apps either store very little or nothing at all.
Google Photos doesn't back up your photos and videos by default, but since the app regularly prompts users to enable the feature, many Android users end up using it anyway. More on that shortly.
How to stop Google from backing up data from your phone
At the end of the day, it's your phone and your data
To be fair to Google, most of the data the company collects is fairly reasonable. Outside of photos and videos, the data doesn't take up much storage, and it's genuinely useful for restoring your phone or switching to a new device.
Also, Google has a strong track record when it comes to protecting user data from hackers, so if security is your only concern, disabling backups isn't a great idea. However, what Google does with the collected data is an entirely different matter.
If you want to disable it, open your phone's Settings and scroll down to Google (on Pixel phones, tap your profile icon at the top of Settings instead). Then go to Manage backup >Other device data and disable Back up other device data.
Keep in mind that this will also delete the existing backup data stored in the cloud, so make a manual backup of anything important first. Some information, like contacts, can still be stored on your SIM card, while things like Wi-Fi passwords and system settings are harder to preserve without root access. Third-party tools like Shizuku paired with Swift Backup may help work around some of those limitations.
Depending on your phone and when you're reading this, you may also see a newer feature above Other device data that backs up your phone's Downloads folder.
I asked a few colleagues at How-To Geek to check, and they confirmed that the feature isn't currently available on their devices. If you do have it, you may want to consider disabling it, especially if you're worried about your cloud storage getting cluttered with large files or simply don't want sensitive data ending up in the cloud.
If you just want to stop contact syncing, you don't have to disable every backup feature
Turn off contact syncing while keeping everything else
Google's automatic contacts backup has saved me on several occasions in the past, but if you think about it, there's a legitimate privacy dilemma around uploading phone numbers entrusted to you by other people to the cloud. Although uploading a list of names, phone numbers, birthdays, and other contact details may not seem too harmful on its own, Google can still infer quite a lot about you and the people in your contacts.
In any case, the good news is that you can disable contact syncing while still keeping the rest of Android's backup features enabled. To do this, head over to Settings >Google >All services. Scroll down until you find Google Contactssync, tap it, then tap Status and disable Google Contacts sync.
Keep in mind that doing this may remove synced contacts from your device, not just from the cloud. Before disabling the feature, make sure your contacts are backed up elsewhere, such as your SIM card or local storage. If your phone's native Contacts app doesn't have an option to create copies of your contacts on the SIM or export them as a file, you can use a third-party app that you trust for the job.
You can then head over to Google Contacts and manually delete the cloud-stored contacts if you want them fully removed from your Google account.
Google Photos is probably using more cloud storage than anything else
Automatic photo and video backups can eat through your free storage plan
While most of the stuff that Google stores in the cloud isn’t particularly privacy-invasive, there’s one notable exception: Google Photos. The app is popular because it gives you 15GB of free cloud storage for your photos and videos that automatically syncs with your phone, giving you remote access and protecting them in case something happens to your original copies.
As much as I appreciate the feature—since it helped me preserve my only copies of old family photos of people who are no longer around—I’m now aware that Google Photos is far from the most private solution for storing images.
I now use a self-hosted alternative called Immich on my NAS to keep my photos and videos offline. If you already have a backup solution or don’t want to pay for a Google One subscription to unlock more cloud storage, it may be worth disabling automatic backups to Google Photos—you can still upload individual photos manually if needed.
To stop Google Photos from backing up your photos and videos, go to your phone's Settings >Google >Manage backup >Photos & videos. From there, you can turn backups off completely at the top, or scroll down to choose which device folders get backed up.
Google's backup system is solid, but it's not your only option
You can keep your data safe without relying on Google's services
Although Google's deep integration with Android makes backing up your data incredibly convenient, it's far from your only option. There are plenty of alternatives that don't rely on the cloud, such as backing up photos and videos to your NAS or storing contacts locally on your device or SIM card.
That being said, perhaps the best approach is to be selective about what data you allow Google to back up while keeping more sensitive information offline.
