This week’s feature is pretty straightforward: Niagara Launcher now backs up all of its settings: your favorites, your apps swipe actions and which apps you blacklisted.

The backup procedure works automatically and makes use of Android’s backup system that uploads your app’s data regularly to your Google Drive Cloud.

This makes switching phones and ROMs a breeze. After restoring Android’s backup on your new phone, most apps from your old phone are not installed on your new one at this point. Before this update, Niagara Launcher couldn’t remember which of these apps were your favorites for example — now it does. It also offers you to reinstall missing apps after tapping on them:

Furthermore, Niagara Launcher keeps your configuration data of uninstalled apps for a few weeks (e.g. custom name, icon & usage data for Niagara’s app suggestion system) to let you perform reinstalls without a hassle.

Current Limitations

Right now, Niagara Launcher’s auto backup works only for apps. It doesn’t restore shortcuts or widgets. However, you can expect this to change in the near future.

I also want to stress that Niagara Launcher’s backup feature works automatically, no setup needed. If you want to manually save Niagara Launcher’s settings, please leave a reaction or comment here:

This feature was added in v0.16.0-alpha. If this version is not on Google Play (ETA: Feb 18) yet, you can download the alpha from GitHub:

I hope this update will come in handy when you decide to buy a new phone.

Have a great week!

Peter