There used to be some services that would try to back up your phone in the sense that they would store your contacts, documents, pictures and even clone the APKs installed on your phone but most of them have either stopped working properly with newer versions of Android or require you to install custom firmware (If you are interested in this you could check out Team Win Recovery Project but I haven't tried it personally). Your best bet is honestly the Google backup. As for the file things you mentioned it wouldn't work with system files if I'm not mistaken, only service that more or less does that is the Samsung Smart Switch service that flawlessly copies files between two phones, secure folders and everything, but you would need two working phones around the same age

If you mean an image backup, only with full root access. Is TWRP still around?

The Google ♥♥♥♥♥ are even worse than Microsoft in trying to force people to use an account they can monitor and monetize.

all you can really do is backup the contacts and apps saved data (not the os or apps themselves)

ex explorer, can browse all files on the device if you can give it root access
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ace.ex.file.manager&hl=en_US

save them to a network pc or nas, or sd card if the phone supports one
or maybe usb storage device

to save contacts, open contacts and export to vdf, save that to a documents folder that can be backed up elsewhere

So would there be a way to obtain the Android 14 again? Or would a factory reset restore it to Android 14? Or would I be locked into 15?

I remember one of my old phones had an irreversible update that people weren't a fan of. You had to root it and flash it or something and even then that didn't always work.

once upgrade to newer android version it cannot be downgraded

I don’t think you need to root the phone for twrp to do a full backup/image. You need to unlock the bootloader so you can install twrp though. If you restore the backup it also restores the recovery.

It can put your phone back to exactly the way it was when you started the backup. I think ‘system image’ was the one to choose.

In terms of rolling back to android 14, you could do a reset on your phone and do a twrp backup. You could then play around as much as you want and easily go back to the way it came out the factory. Far better than downloading a ‘stock rom’ from xda or somewhere.

Phones are mobile adverts. You might as well give in and let them take data. Just lie about everything to confuse them.

Most manufacturers and of course Google offer free accounts and backup services with those accounts. Choose your least evil.

I think trying to protect your data on a phone is almost impossible. Just try to avoid giving it any in the first place.

I will say this; YOU WILL NOT be able to revert the OS. Your backup will be a user backup only.

Yea don't put real info on anything. Your true friends and family already know what they need to know. When it's for a job, government, taxes; that's different. But all this sharing every little detail on Facebook and giving Google and everyone your real identity is stupid. I've never done that and I can't see why anyone would ever do that. Back in the days of AOL, Yahoo and MySpace; people thought it was cool to start having a realistic profile and share it; like we all some sort of celebrity. It's stupid and ridiculous. And dangerous. All those early years fueled people such as Mark Zuckerberg and his protégé, who is now CEO of DeepSeek.... now your data keeps leaking out onto the black web, to which anyone can buy for $50.

Be safe / Be smart

Try something like swift backup, Titanium backup used to be my go to backup tool but that's not been updated in a long time.

Originally posted by DevaVictrix:

I don’t think you need to root the phone for twrp to do a full backup/image. You need to unlock the bootloader so you can install twrp though. If you restore the backup it also restores the recovery.

It can put your phone back to exactly the way it was when you started the backup. I think ‘system image’ was the one to choose.

In terms of rolling back to android 14, you could do a reset on your phone and do a twrp backup. You could then play around as much as you want and easily go back to the way it came out the factory. Far better than downloading a ‘stock rom’ from xda or somewhere.

you expect to re-write system files while the os is running?

and how can any of that be done without root access?
thats basically how android/linux prevent users from accessing system files

It’s done from recovery, not the os.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_recovery_mode

Yea without a proper phone to begin with and some rooting and jail-breaking it will never work like you think. Best bet if on the fence about a OS overhaul update that brings a whole new OS to your phone or tablet is just go check that out on YouTube or something before doing it. If you want a safer means of doing this kind of upgrade just ensure you sync important things you feel you need like perhaps syncing with Samsung and Google anything those allow for you deem important. For photos and videos however I would simply get those off the phone and backup not in any Cloud storage but on a local PC instead. This will help free up space not lose precious media items and then after you are done and update your device or factory reset if needed you can then always connect it back to a PC and just copy over to the phone certain media items you feel are a need to have on that Phone or Tablet.

Once you do an OS update or security update normally without any rooting you can't revert those changes. They will suggest this is for OS wide and user wide security purposes.

If you've been getting your apps through Apple or Samsung Galaxy Store or Google PlayStore, as long as you log back in with the same account you used before then it has a apps history you can always go to in order to easily locate and reinstall any apps you've used before on that given store front with said account where such apps have been installed through in the past.

If you want to do an OS update but would like the phone or tablet to feel more "like new" again afterwards then maybe do a factory reset first. Then do the available "Software Updates" in order to update the OS on said device.

Most of your apps will have been server side data anyways so again as long as you log into the same accounts again you should be fine. Some games do save local saved game files but most if not all would have had some sort of in-game option to sync save those into the cloud for that particular game to make coming back to it later or on a different device is made easy. Most apps and games may of course have local side configs that could potentially be backed up and then restored manually via a Mac or Win10/11 PC but those often are not going to be a huge need to backup/restore as it's usually fairly easy and doesn't take long to configure settings for most apps and games when fresh installed again.

Double check anything on your device that requires some email or username and pw to get into it and ensure you know all of those for obvious reasons.

The trick is the same as a PC. Don't store anything important/valuable on it. You don't have to back up anything, and can reinstall/factory reset any time something goes wrong. It also stops the vulture big tech companies stealing your data, as there's no data to steal.

Yes all you really need to ensure you know are all your logins. Backup any files onto a PC hard drive and if that important on to multiple external HDDs that aren't always connected to a PC.

If unsure of a login go and test it out on your PC. In case 2-step verification is used and you need to reset a pw you want to do that before you factory reset your phone

The rest lf your phone/tablet is easy to get back to how you like it. Like I said your apps stores keep a history of apps you've used before in there so you can easily go back and install them when needed.