Though you don't want to make a full backup, you might still wish to take a look at Full Backup of non-rooted devices to get an idea what is possible. That page also mentions some helpers for your issue:
- Simple Backup runs from your computer and, as the screenshots indicate, can also be used to backup a single app (so you could use it for each app you want to backup)
- Helium Backup (formerly known as Carbon Backup) is an app you can install to your device. Select the apps you want to backup, start the process – and it creates a separate backup file for each app. Which means, you can restore them separately/selectively.
- It's also possible to do this via the command-line, which might be a little non-intuitive.
- Not on that page, but making the latter a little more easy: Adebar is a tool I wrote (and am still on it – it's far from being complete yet). It creates you scripts for backup/restore (where you simply can comment-out/remove those apps you don't wish to take care for), plus more. Possible drawback: Adebar is written for Bash, so you will need an OS that has this (Linux, and possibly also Mac should do).
There's one thing all those have in common: they require ADB-tools to be available. For that part, you can take a look at Is there a minimal installation of ADB? to avoid installing too much with too much hassle ;)
EDIT: WARNING!
If you find another app promising easy backups without requiring root or ADB, be aware it might leave your apps' data out! To my knowledge, before Android 4.0 only root-apps were able to backup app data, and with 4.0 only the option via ADB became available. Make sure to read the description of such an app very carefully.
To pick an example (experience of the OP, sadly): There's an app called App Backup & Restore. On a quick view it sounds like a perfect match. But looking deeper into the description you will find:
App Backup cannot backup data or settings of apps for you, but it only backup the apk files.
Which means: It only cares for the apps themselves (which you always could re-install from their respective sources anyway – with the added work of looking them all up separately, and maybe some of them disappeared, or are no longer available in a specific version you might want for some reason – so this app still has a good reason to exist), but doesn't cover their data.
Answer from Izzy on Stack ExchangeVideos
Which Backup Is Best for Android?
IDrive is the best Android backup app for a swift backup of app data, photos and videos. It comes with an excellent UI and easily configurable automatic backups.
What Is the Best Way to Backup an Android Phone?
The best way to carry out a complete backup of an Android phone is to use a data backup app such as IDrive, pCloud or Sync.com.
How Do I Backup My Entire Android Phone to My Computer?
To back up your entire Android device to your computer, connect it to the computer using a USB cable, then copy all of the data you want to back up to your preferred location on your computer.
Though you don't want to make a full backup, you might still wish to take a look at Full Backup of non-rooted devices to get an idea what is possible. That page also mentions some helpers for your issue:
- Simple Backup runs from your computer and, as the screenshots indicate, can also be used to backup a single app (so you could use it for each app you want to backup)
- Helium Backup (formerly known as Carbon Backup) is an app you can install to your device. Select the apps you want to backup, start the process – and it creates a separate backup file for each app. Which means, you can restore them separately/selectively.
- It's also possible to do this via the command-line, which might be a little non-intuitive.
- Not on that page, but making the latter a little more easy: Adebar is a tool I wrote (and am still on it – it's far from being complete yet). It creates you scripts for backup/restore (where you simply can comment-out/remove those apps you don't wish to take care for), plus more. Possible drawback: Adebar is written for Bash, so you will need an OS that has this (Linux, and possibly also Mac should do).
There's one thing all those have in common: they require ADB-tools to be available. For that part, you can take a look at Is there a minimal installation of ADB? to avoid installing too much with too much hassle ;)
EDIT: WARNING!
If you find another app promising easy backups without requiring root or ADB, be aware it might leave your apps' data out! To my knowledge, before Android 4.0 only root-apps were able to backup app data, and with 4.0 only the option via ADB became available. Make sure to read the description of such an app very carefully.
To pick an example (experience of the OP, sadly): There's an app called App Backup & Restore. On a quick view it sounds like a perfect match. But looking deeper into the description you will find:
App Backup cannot backup data or settings of apps for you, but it only backup the apk files.
Which means: It only cares for the apps themselves (which you always could re-install from their respective sources anyway – with the added work of looking them all up separately, and maybe some of them disappeared, or are no longer available in a specific version you might want for some reason – so this app still has a good reason to exist), but doesn't cover their data.
Without root it's impossible, the quickest way is to root your device and use titanium backup.
I have a Galaxy S22 series phone and I need to perform a factory reset. Although I don't mind reinstalling and reconfiguring my apps, there are a couple for which I'd like to be able to keep the data because they are complex to reinstall. For example my bank app needs a code to be sent by mail to be activated, and it takes a few days. Another example, I have the SafeNet MobilePASS+ which gives me OTP codes for work, and I would need to the support of my company's IT to reactivate it.
I was wondering if it's possible to backup an app and restore it later with all its data? Maybe there is an app for that, or maybe it's a question of transferring some files to another device.
Please note that my phone is not rooted
MyPhoneExplorer for Windows, which I have been using for years, can do a full backup and restore. I used to do that in the past. After installing on desktop, see Extras Menu (Create backup, Restore backup). It also allows you to select which directories to backup etc.
These days, I just use it to sync between old Android phones and desktop (contacts, calender, sms, files etc). I disabled the google account, so no google upload...
There are multiple solutions available, depending on what you want to cover – and whether your device is rooted. Like you, I'm not a Google fan – and I'm running Linux, so I'll concentrate on what is possible there (I'm no MS fan either).
I understand that I can't just clone everything & restore
This is only partly true. With a custom recovery (the most wide-spread and recommendable, which I use, is TWRP) you can perform a full backup, either as a tarball (which is the default) or as a disk image. But then, you should only restore that to an identical device (you've mentioned the reasons), or use something that can extract pieces and restore them. The latter needs root access.
With root access, the non-plus-ultra app around for more than 10 years is Titanium Backup. I'm using that since I rooted my first device, there's nothing like it. TiBu let's you backup apps with their data, SMS/MMS, call logs etc.pp. – and of course lets you restore that to any new device (or the same one). Unfortunately, Joël seems to have stopped development; its last release was in 2019. Without root access, a full backup is nearly impossible; no app is allowed to access data of all other apps, so you could at best back up their *.apk files.
Then there's the Android Debug Bridge, ADB, with its adb backup and the corresponding adb restore command. While adb restore again is an all-or-nothing (it restores everything from the specified backup file), adb backup can be used very granular. I use to create separate backup files for each app so I can restore them separately. For shameless self-promotion: my little tool Adebar helps a lot with that, creating a script to have the commands for each app and much more (like complete device documentations). A little handicap: developers can opt-out their apps from this backup, and then you cannot use adb backup for those (if your device is rooted, Adebar has scripts to backup/restore those, too, but those are not much tested yet – at least I didn't receive much feedback on them yet). Also, it does not cover SMS, call logs etc.
There are many more solutions to this. You can find a bunch of backup apps for different purposes in my corresponding app listing, Backup & Co.. Also see on our Android sister site: How to fully backup non-rooted devices? and the other highly rated backup questions.
I am looking for something that I can run periodically that will backup all non-system data, and let me restore it later.
- Titanium Backup has an integrated scheduler and also can perform batch restore. This will need the paid version, though, which currently comes at EUR 6.5
- Adebar can be scheduled via Cron. As it can keep multiple generations of your generated documentation and scripts, it also provides a link to the latest generation, so your Cron job could trigger the backup script from there. Or you might grab that script from time to time and adjust it to your needs, so you can Cron that one. Note however that for the backup itself the device must be unlocked, and you might need to confirm the backup to be taken (on-device protection). Adebar is gratis and open-source, so it comes free of charge.