Google warns that ADB backup and restore may be removed in a future Android release

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Setting up a new Android phone has gotten a lot easier over the years. Android Oreo‘s Autofill feature has made it much easier to sign in to all your apps, and some apps even carry over all your preferences too. Switching between phones from the same OEM is especially easy as most have their own backup and restore tools. However, the experience is not perfect and switching between phones from different OEMs can be a pain. That’s where ADB backup and restore can come in handy.

ADB backup and restore is a handy tool that allows you to do more than some built-in backup options. You can save private data and installed applications without needing root, depending on whether or not the app allows it. Unfortunately, it looks like ADB backup and restore may be going away in a future Android release. A commit in AOSP is titled “Add deprecation warning to adb backup/restore.” A warning will be shown whenever the user runs the tool in the latest ADB tools release telling them that the feature might not stick around.

This would be a bummer for people who rely on this non-root solution for better backups. There are much more powerful options out there, like Titanium Backup, if you root your phone. This is just a warning at this point, so we don’t know exactly how long it will be until the tool becomes nonfunctional. We will continue to monitor this story to see when Google decides to move forward with it.

Thanks XDA Recognized Developer luca020400 for the tip!