Backup Android Contacts without an App

As technology comes close to our lives, importance and amount of data both are increasing from a rapid pace. Take our contact list as an example – 10 years ago a contact entry in most mobile phones used to be a collection of mobile numbers and email addresses only. Today it combines a person’s several social networking profiles and sometimes more than that. If we lose our contacts today, we’re likely to lose more data and information than ever. And sometimes such data loss can be seriously hazardous to your personal and professional life, especially if it’s irreversible.

Fortunately, backing up your contacts isn’t difficult if you’ve got an Android smartphone. There’re many backup apps available in Play Store to do that. However, some users like me don’t like using an app for taking a backup. The reason may be anything, but the good news is that Android OS itself provides enough ways of backing up our contacts and data that we don’t need those backup apps. In this article I’m gonna talk about two such ways that can be used easily and effectively to take backup of contacts without using any third party apps.

Method 1: Connecting your Gmail account to your smartphone

The Android OS has been built on such a strong foundation that if you connect your Google account with it, all your data will be automatically synced to Google’s servers in cloud and will be tied closely to your Google account. However, it doesn’t take a bite out of your privacy because it requires your permission to do that. Yep, you need to enable its function in your phone otherwise it won’t sync and backup your data. You can enable that function by following the steps outlined below:

• Go to your phone’s settings.
• Scroll down to ‘Backup and Reset’ category and tap its option.
• Now in the Backup and Reset options ensure that the checkbox of ‘Backup my data’ option is checked.
• The last thing you need to ensure is that the option of syncing your contacts to Google account is turned on. In order to do that, navigate to ‘Accounts and Sync’ category in Settings app interface.
• Tap the account email address to which you want your contacts to be synced.
• Ensure that the check box of ‘Sync Contacts’ option is checked.

Method 2: Taking manual backup

Don’t want to sync your data to Google’s servers? Cool, then you can take a manual backup of your contacts by navigating to Contacts app of your phone. Given below are the steps of this manual backup process:

• Launch the Contacts app by navigating to app drawer.
• Hit menu button inside the app interface.
• Now tap the Import/Export option.
• Now you’ll get a list of import and export options to choose from. Since you want to take a backup, you need to choose an export option. You can export contacts either to SD card or to SIM card.
• Once you select your desired option your data will be exported according to your choice. After that you can import it anywhere you wish – in a new device, in a new Google account, anywhere!

So these were two simple backup methods that anyone can use with ease to take backup of his/her phone’s contacts without messing up with a third party application. Do let me know what you think about these methods in comments section. And if you face any problems during backup, please sound them too in the comments and I’ll try my best to help you out!

This is a guest post written by Kuldeep, He writes about Android Tips, Android News, Android Tutorials, rooting Guides for android devices such as Kindle Fire HD 8.9, HTC Desire 501 etc. on his blog DroidCular.