Back up or restore data on your Pixel device

You can back up data and settings from your phone to your Google Account. Before you transfer data to a new phone, or reset your phone to fix issues, back up your data. You can get your saved data to a new phone or after a reset. Your photos, videos and contacts are synced to their respective services and are separate to device backups.

If you're on a new Pixel phone, click here for support:

Learn how to transfer data and restore from a backup with our step-by-step tutorial.

Important: You can’t back up photos and videos to Drive. They’re backed up separately through the Google Photos app.

To back up files from your device's Downloads folder to Google Drive:

1. Open your device's Settings app.
2. Tap System Backup Downloads.
3. Turn on Back up downloads.

Tips:

• In your Google Drive, you’ll find a device-specific folder which contains a copy of the structure of your Downloads folder.
• If you edit a file in either your Downloads folder or Google Drive, the changes won’t update in the other location.

You can check what data and which apps are included in your backup.

1. Open your device's Settings app.
2. Tap Google services Backup.
3. Under “Backup details,” review what data is backed up on your device.

You can check when and how many backups you have from Google Drive.

1. Go to Google Drive.
2. On the left, click Storage.
3. Click Backups next to the icon.
4. You'll find a list of backups from devices and when it's last modified.

1. Open your device's Settings app.
2. Tap System Backup.
3. Tap Account storage.
4. Tap the Google Account you want to use for backups. If the account you want to use isn't there, tap Add account.

After you back up, you can reset your device by erasing everything on it. Learn how to reset your device to factory settings.

You can restore all or chosen data categories from a cloud backup during initial setup.

Pixel 9 and later: If you prefer to do the rest later, or experienced issues during initial setup, then you can restore after initial setup.

Step 1: Sign in to your Google Account

1. On the "Set up Using Another Device" screen, tap Skip.
2. Connect to a Wi-Fi network.
3. Sign in to your Google Account.
   • Follow the on-screen instructions.
   • Make sure to agree to Terms of Service.
   • If you've inserted a physical sim, you’ll automatically connect to a mobile network. If not, you’ll have the option to add an e-sim or skip.

Step 2: Set up security features for your device

1. Set up a pin.
2. Set up Fingerprint Unlock.
3. Set up Face Unlock.

Step 3: Restore your data

1. When asked to "Restore data from an old device," tap the device you want to restore your data from.
2. On the "Confirm your old Pixel screen lock” screen, tap Next.
3. Choose what data you want to copy.
4. Tap Restore.

Important: You can only restore data from one previous device. If you want to restore from a different device, first reset your Pixel phone.

1. Open your device’s Settings app.
2. Tap Back up or copy data Copy data using Android Switch Start.
3. If you used another device to transfer data, scan the QR code through the old device.
   • If you didn’t use another device to transfer data, you can choose a device to copy data from.
4. Choose the data you want to transfer over.
5. Tap Copy.

Tips:

• If errors occur during data transfer, try again to retrieve missing data types. Learn what does and doesn’t transfer during post-setup data transfer.
• If you haven't set up your backup, learn how to back up data on your Pixel phone.

You can back up your previously restored data when you either:

• Set up a new device.
• Add additional data from your back up at any time from Settings.