Lockwell

Back up, and be ready to lose a device

Phones get lost, stolen and broken. With a backup and a plan, you lose the device, not your photos and accounts.

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A lost, stolen or broken phone costs you money. Without a backup it can also cost you years of photos, your contacts and the codes that let you into your accounts. This guide sets up backups and a plan for the day it happens. The four Essential items take about twenty minutes; the last of them is a list to keep for an emergency.

Essential

Your phone can copy itself to the cloud every night. If you lose it, a new phone can be set up from that copy. Free storage is limited: 5 GB on iCloud, 15 GB shared across your Google Account. If the backup is too big, you may need to pay for more space or leave large things out.

iPhone

  1. Open Settings, tap your name, then iCloud → iCloud Backup, and turn on Back Up This iPhone.
  2. The phone backs up by itself when it is charging, on Wi-Fi and locked.
  3. To check it worked, look under Back Up Now: it shows the date and time of the last backup.

Android

  1. Open Settings → Google → All services (it may say Google services), then Backup, and turn on Backup by Google One.
  2. Choose what to include: Photos & videos, Device data, or both. The first backup can take up to 24 hours.
  3. On a Samsung, Settings → Accounts and backup → Samsung Cloud is a separate backup. Samsung's list of what it includes doesn't mention photos, so keep Google's photo backup on as well.
Essential

A phone backup doesn't hold everything you would miss. Check these three things now, while you still have the phone.

All devices

  1. Login codes. If you use an authenticator app, make sure the codes are synced to your account or can be moved. In Google Authenticator, codes are only on the phone if you chose to use it without an account. Also keep your backup codes.
  2. Chats. WhatsApp, Viber and Signal keep their own backups, separate from the phone's: see Protect your chat backups.
  3. Anything that matters only to you. The rule from the UK's National Cyber Security Centre: back up anything you would miss if you could no longer open it.
Essential

A few minutes of preparation make the first hour after a loss much easier. Without Find My or Find Hub turned on beforehand, you can't lock or erase the phone at all.

iPhone

  1. Turn on Find My: see Turn on Find My or Find Hub.
  2. Note your phone's serial number and IMEI: Settings → General → About. You can also see them later at account.apple.com, under Devices. The police may ask for them.
  3. Save your mobile operator's phone number somewhere other than the phone.

Android

  1. Turn on Find Hub: see Turn on Find My or Find Hub.
  2. Note your phone's IMEI. Your operator can use it to block the phone. You can also see it later in Find Hub at android.com/find: select the phone, then Settings.
  3. Save your mobile operator's phone number somewhere other than the phone, and keep your Google backup codes where you can reach them.
Essential

Keep this list for the day you need it. Do the steps in this order, and erase the phone last: erasing can't be undone.

iPhone

  1. On any device, open icloud.com/find, sign in with the Find Devices button, select the phone and turn on Lost Mode. It locks the phone and suspends Apple Pay.
  2. Call your mobile operator to block the SIM, then get a replacement SIM for your number.
  3. Report the theft to the police. They may ask for the serial number.
  4. Change your Apple Account password: on another Apple device signed in to your account (Settings, your name, Sign-In & Security), or at account.apple.com (Sign-In and Security → Password). Call your bank about any cards that were on the phone.
  5. Erase the phone only when you have tried everything else to find it. Never remove it from Find My: that removes Activation Lock.

Android

  1. On any device, open android.com/find, select the phone and choose Mark as lost. A locked phone can't be used to pay in shops.
  2. Change your Google password from another device.
  3. Call your mobile operator to block the SIM, then get a replacement SIM for your number.
  4. Report the theft to the police with the phone's IMEI.
  5. Erase the phone only when you have given up on getting it back: after a factory reset, it disappears from Find Hub.
  6. Then open your Google Account, go to Security & sign-in → Your devices → Manage all devices, select the phone and sign out of it. Don't do this earlier: Find Hub can reach the phone only while it is signed in.
Recommended

A computer backup protects your documents and photos from a broken disk, a theft or a mistake. An external drive works on both Windows and Mac.

Windows

  1. Windows Backup (type backup in Start) copies your Desktop, Documents, Pictures and other folders to OneDrive. It needs a personal Microsoft account; 5 GB of OneDrive storage is free. It keeps your folders in sync rather than making a separate copy.
  2. For a copy on your own external drive, connect it, open Control Panel → System and Security → Save backup copies of your files with File History, and select Turn on.

Mac

  1. Connect an external drive at least twice the size of your Mac's storage.
  2. Choose Apple menu → System Settings → General → Time Machine, click Add Backup Disk, select the drive and click Set Up Disk.
  3. Turn on Encrypt Backup and keep the backup password in your password manager: you need it to restore.
Recommended

One backup can fail too, or be wiped together with the computer if harmful software gets in. The usual rule is three copies of what matters, on two kinds of storage, with one somewhere else. Keep at least one copy unplugged: a drive that stays connected can be infected or encrypted along with the computer.

All devices

  1. For photos and documents you can't replace, keep one copy in the cloud and one on an external drive. A synced folder is not a separate copy: a deleted or damaged file disappears there too.
  2. Unplug the drive when the backup is done, and keep it somewhere other than next to the computer.
  3. Protect the cloud account with a strong password and two-step verification: anyone who gets in can see your backups.
Recommended

A backup you have never opened may not hold what you think. Check now and then that it is recent and contains your latest photos and files.

iPhone

  1. Open Settings, tap your name, then iCloud → iCloud Backup, and check the date of the last backup.
  2. Open iCloud on another device or at icloud.com and look for photos you took recently.

Android

  1. In Settings → Google → All services → Backup, look under Backup details: the data types you chose should say On.
  2. Open Google Photos on another device and look for photos you took recently.

Windows

  1. Open the Windows Backup app to see the state of your backup.
  2. In File Explorer, right-click a folder, choose Restore previous versions, then Open in File History to look at an old version without restoring it.

Mac

  1. The Time Machine menu shows the date and time of the latest backup.
  2. Open the backup and find a file you changed recently.
Advanced

Your cloud backups are encrypted, but on iCloud the keys to most of them are kept by Apple, which can open them. Advanced Data Protection makes your iCloud Backup, Photos, Notes and more end-to-end encrypted: only your devices can open them. The cost: Apple can no longer help you recover that data, so you must set up a recovery contact or a recovery key first.

iPhone

  1. Set up a recovery contact or a recovery key: see Make sure you can get back in.
  2. Open Settings, tap your name, then iCloud → Advanced Data Protection → Turn on Advanced Data Protection, and follow the steps.
  3. All your Apple devices need recent software. Access to your data at iCloud.com in a browser is turned off; you can allow it again from a trusted device. Shared Albums keep working but are not end-to-end encrypted.

Android

  1. Google says part of your Android backup is end-to-end encrypted with your screen lock. Google Photos is not.
  2. Use a PIN, pattern or password as your screen lock, not a swipe: see Set a strong screen lock.