Reviews:
Where to find Titanium Backup:
If a MoDaCo ROM exists for your device then it's an easy way to have Titanium Backup up and running.
Please donate and get your license key file (turns the Free version into your Donate version):
Note to donators - Once your donation is sent, PayPal notifies me and I'll send your license ASAP. Keep an eye on your spam folder. Thank you !
Features of the Free version:
- No time limit
- Very fast app listing (~1 second for 300 apps)
- Sort apps by name / last backup / backup frequency
- Filter apps by name / type / status / Apps Organizer labels (also affects Batch operations)
- Backup/restore regular apps + their settings
- Backup/restore protected apps + their settings
- Backup/restore system settings (incl. Wi-Fi AP list)
- Restores the Market links when restoring apps
- Zero-click background batch backup
- Interactive batch restore
- Many batch scenarios (eg: if more than N days since last backup, etc)
- Zero-click app un-installer
- Zero-click system app un-installer
- Desktop widgets
- A single weekly or biweekly scheduled backup (beta)
Additional features of the Donate version:
- Branding to your name
- Multiple backups per app (history length can be chosen)
- Zero-click background batch restore
- Batch verification of all backups
- Ultra fast HyperShell (much faster for almost everything)
- Market Doctor can remake any broken Market links (only for apps that were backed up with the link in place)
- App freezer can disable an app (and make it invisible) without un-installing it
- Unlimited, independent scheduled backups (each of which can run 1 to 7 times a week)
- Dalvik cache cleaner can free up precious internal memory
Official support:
Support is provided free of charge for all Titanium Backup users by the LegenDroid Community. These guys are great. No obligation - but if you enjoy the service and you can afford it, please consider giving something to them, too.
If you don't have a Titanium Backup license yet, you can also buy it directly from them. It's best to donate above $3.99 so they will get their part, too.
Available languages:
- English
- Français
- Deutsch (thanks RinTinTigger)
- Norwegian (thanks Stian)
- Chinese Simp. (thanks Rollin & Dave Wong)
- Italian (thanks FabioS)
- Russian (thanks Dima / Android For Me & Arkady Marchenko)
- Danish (thanks Keld Daugaard)
- Spanish (thanks Pedro Arizmendi)
- Swedish - Work in progress
- Portuguese - Work in progress
- Danish - Work in progress
- Polish - Work in progress
- Czech - Work in progress
- Dutch - Work in progress
ChangeLog:
Click here to view the ChangeLog.
Helpful links:
Tips & Suggestions for using Titanium Backup:
- When you start Titanium Backup on a new ROM, if you have any doubt about your busybox version, it is highly recommended that you click the "Problems?" button before doing any backup or restore !
- Don't forget to verify your backups (Click MENU - Batch) to ensure that your backups are OK.
- You need to reboot after restoring system items (eg: Contacts, SMS, Settings, etc) for the changes to take effect. If you backup/restore across very different ROMs, I advise to be cautious and only include the system items you really need to preserve.
- You can easily create a custom apps list by creating a Label in Apps Organizer, then going back to Titanium Backup, clicking "MENU" and then "Filters" and finally, selecting the Label you want. Your apps list will then be filtered just the way you want :-)
- If you backup the same app several times, Titanium Backup will save SD card space by storing each apk version only once.
- After restoring your apps, you can run the Market Doctor to verify their Market links. If Market Doctor reports everything as okay, yet your apps are still not listed in "My Downloads", try to search for them in the Market. If they show as "Installed", it confirms that the links are okay, but your Market needs a refresh: just install any app from the Market, and the "My Downloads" section will be refreshed !
- If you want to remove a system app, first you can try to freeze it and see if everything still works fine. Once you've gained more confidence that you don't need it, just go ahead and un-install that system app.
How to make your first backup:
- Thanks seanowns / xda-developers
- Verify that Titanium Backup has started without warning and that your busybox is OK
- Click the Backup/Restore tab
- Click Menu (the button), Batch
- Click "Backup all user apps"
- Let it run, then go back
- Individually backup the system data you want. That is most green-colored items. This will be bookmarks, call log, calendar, launcher, WiFi, etc.
- Now your backups are in the "TitaniumBackup" directory on your SD card.
How to restore your backups after installing a ROM (if you wiped your phone):
- Download Titanium Backup from Market
- Click the Backup/Restore tab
- Click Menu (the button), Batch
- Click "Restore all missing apps + system data
- Reboot your phone
- It's done ! The only thing you may have to adjust is usually your wallpaper/widgets.
General FAQ:
-
#1: Why donations ? Why not a paid Titanium Backup on the Market ?
- Google limitation: paid apps are not possible from Switzerland yet.
- My solution: every donator receives a key to activate the free version.
- Your key brands the app with your own name, and it continues to upgrade from Market.
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#2: A real question from a user: "I would donate, but how do I know I'm going to get what I pay for ? You have no obligation to send anything to me if I donate"
- Good point. Please see the donating users' comments in the Market and on forums...
Donators FAQ:
-
#1: My license file does not work. How should I install it ?
- Save the ZIP file attachment to your computer.
- Unzip it. You will get a .txt file.
- Connect your phone through USB and enable "Mass storage" mode on it.
- Copy the .txt file directly onto your SD card (not in a sub-folder).
- Disable "Mass storage" mode on your phone.
- Un-install Titanium Backup and install it again from the Market.
Technical FAQ:
-
#1: What is root/rooting ?
- "root" is the UNIX system administrator.
- Rooting an Android phone means modifying your ROM (or installing a 3rd-party custom ROM) so that you can grant "root" privileges to certain programs.
- In our case, Titanium Backup uses these privileges to backup other applications' data, regardless of security restrictions. Without root privileges this would be impossible to do (except for some apps which share their data).
-
#2: Which Android phones (and devices) does Titanium Backup support ?
- It is designed to work on any rooted Android device.
- Android versions from 1.5 to 2.2 are tested and supported.
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#3: What can it back up ?
- All the applications you have installed, included protected ones,
- All the data and settings of these applications,
- Most (or all) of your phone's settings and data.
- NOTE: It will not backup the system applications from your ROM. Only their settings will be backed up.
-
#4: How do I restore my apps without having to do them one at a time ?
- Hit MENU (button on the phone) then "Batch",
- Scroll to the restore scenario you want to run,
- Hit the "RUN" button.
- NOTE: The applications will install in sequence, but will require user interaction (in the Free version). The Donate version will do unattended, background restores.
-
#5: Can it back up SMS, MMS and system settings ?
- YES. The most useful "system items" are green-colored and have a prefix such as [SMS/MMS/APN] in the list.
- Other system items (that are usually less useful to backup) are red-colored.
- Please note that if you backup and restore all system settings across very different ROMs, you are on your own.
-
#6: Can it back up and restore applications across different ROMs or even different phones ?
- YES, without restrictions.
-
#7: Are older backups compatible with newer Titanium Backup versions ?
- YES. The backups are in 100% standard unix formats and can also be unpacked on Linux machines.
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#8: Where are my backups stored ?
- In the TitaniumBackup folder on your SD card.
-
#9: Does "freezing" apps free space from phone memory ?
- No, it doesn't. The "frozen" app remains on the phone with its data, it's just that the app gets completely disabled until you "defrost" it.
-
#10: Why is the "Restore" button disabled for some system apps ?
- System apps are part of your ROM, so Titanium Backup will only backup their data (not the apps themselves). For this reason, if you backup a system app, and then switch to a ROM where that app is missing, Titanium Backup obviously cannot restore the data for it.
-
#11: What is affected when I apply a filter ?
- The applications list is filtered.
- The batch actions will operate on the filtered list.
- The scheduled actions are not subject to filtering.
- The widget actions are not subject to filtering.
-
#12: It hangs when I attempt to restore, un-install, move or freeze applications. What can I do ?
- Please open the Titanium Backup settings and scroll down to the "Troubleshooting" section. Set the "Apps processing mode" to "AUTO, Indirect".
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#13: I have Android 2.2/Froyo and it's unstable or even reboots when moving apps to/from SD. Why ?
- Yes I know, the Froyo "apps2sd" implementation is not perfect. Unfortunately there's not much that I can do, because the problem has nothing to do with Titanium Backup. Some custom ROMs (such as MoDaCo for Nexus One) are based on Froyo, yet offer the "old-style" apps2sd implementation. Go for it.
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#14: I have a Samsung and your app (free version) tells me to check the "Unknown sources" checkbox under Applications in Settings, but I can't find it ?
- Yes the setting exists but Samsung hides it from the UI.
- Here is how you can enable it. Be careful about single vs double quotes. Open a shell and then do:
- su
- First we can read the setting. A result of 0 means it's disabled:
- /data/data/com.keramidas.TitaniumBackup/files/sqlite3 /dbdata/databases/com.android.providers.settings/settings.db "SELECT value FROM secure WHERE name = 'install_non_market_apps'"
- Ok, so now let's enable the setting:
- /data/data/com.keramidas.TitaniumBackup/files/sqlite3 /dbdata/databases/com.android.providers.settings/settings.db "UPDATE secure SET value = 1 WHERE name = 'install_non_market_apps'"
- Done! Now it shall work, and (as a bonus) you can also install apps manually by opening ".apk" files ;-)
Troubleshooting:
First step: The "Problems?" button alone should resolve about 90% of problems !
If you have a "bad" backup for an app / "Parse error" on restore (will *not* happen if you have a good busybox version from the start):
- When you backup an app, the "old" backed up APK is reused in the new backup (if the app version did not change).
- For this reason: If you have a bad APK in a backup, you need to delete all backup(s) for that app.
- To keep your data: reinstall that app from Market, restore data-only with Titanium Backup, then delete all backups for it.
- On the next backup, the APK will be created again, and your backup will be (and remain) good.
If the "Problems?" button fails to work, you can still do it manually:
- Download busybox 1.15.3 or 1.16.0 and unzip it.
- Copy the "busybox" file to the root directory of your phone's SD card.
- Remount the SD card in the phone.
- Open a shell on the phone (using either "adb shell" or the free "ConnectBot" app) and do:
- su
- cd /data/data/com.keramidas.TitaniumBackup/files
- cat /sdcard/busybox > busybox
- chmod 755 busybox
- rm /sdcard/busybox
- Exit the shell and restart Titanium Backup. If it says "busybox from app" then it's a success !
Check if your phone is properly rooted:
- Open a shell on the phone and do:
- su
- whoami
- You must see "root" or "whoami: unknown uid 0". If you see something different, your phone is not properly rooted.
- busybox ls -l /data/data/ | busybox wc -l (for testing your system's busybox)
- cd /data/data/com.keramidas.TitaniumBackup/files/ ; ./busybox ls -l /data/data/ | ./busybox wc -l (for testing Titanium Backup's busybox)
- You must see a number. If you get "Permission denied", your phone is not properly rooted.
I'm not a rooting specialist - but users gave me these links which might help you:
