Backup Your Pre or Pixi!

[milominderbinder]

See the Palm Pre and Pixi Tips and Tricks for many other tips.

Warning: The Pre or Pixi Backup does not backup your music, photos, ringtones, wallpaper, stored files, WiFi settings or passwords, SMS messages, speed dials, Web Bookmarks, Launcher customizations, or apps you did not obtain from the App Store.

Also, at this time, there seems to be no one program that will backup every file and setting on your Pre or Pixi to either Mac or PC automatically.

Your Palm phone will automatically backup contacts, calendar events, tasks, passwords, settings, and apps from the App Catalog every day. To verify that automatic back up is on, tap Launcher then Backup and make sure Backup is turned on. You can also "Backup now."

The webOS Synergy feature can synchronize contacts, calendar, and email with a Google account or Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync. These synchronized contacts, calendars, and email are not backed up by the Backup app. Third party apps provide additional capabilities:
• PocketMirror synchronizes Mac Outlook 2003 or 2007 contacts & calendar. Echo for PCs.
• The Missing Sync synchronizes Mac or PC Address Book, iTunes, iCal, iPhoto, ringtones, etc.
• CompanionLink can sync Outlook, Act, or GoldMine Contacts and Calendar but not ringtones, music, or photos.

You can manually just copy files from the the Pre or Pixi as a USB drive to a folder on your PC or from the PC to the phone. The problem is in determining if the files are different which you want to keep. That is where synchronization comes in. Automatic sychronization like SyncBack offers makes sure that it gets done on an ongoing basis.

SyncToy or SyncBack can backup your music, photos, ringtones, and other files not backed up by the webOS Backup feature.

These instructions are to set up SyncToy but also work for SyncBack.

1. Plug in the Pre or Pixi and select USB Drive.
2. Download SyncToy and install.
3. Right-click SyncToy (probably the last item under Start-Programs) and Send to Desktop as shortcut.
4. Click SyncToy on your desktop to run SyncToy for the first time.
5. Click Create New Folder Pair. For the Left Folder, Browse to the Pre's Drive (maybe E: or F.
5. For the right folder browse to your documents folder and create a new subdirectory such as PreBackup and select it.
6. Choose to Synchronize and name your folder pair something easy to remember like PreBackup.
7. Click Run.

From now on you can just click your SyncToy icon on your desktop to backup your Pre. If you want to add photos or other files to your phone the next time you backup, just drop them into their directory under that PreBackup subdirectory.

The first backup may take a while, especially if you have a lot of music or photos. But future backups will be incremental only synchronizing files that have changed or are new or deleted.

Note that SyncBack can also automatically backup your Pre or Pixi everyday at a certain time such as overnight if at home or during the day if the backup is at the office.

Also note that SyncBack also lets you control what happens if a file is in one folder but not in the other. For instance, if you deleted a file from the Pre, do you want the backup to force it back onto the Pre or to ask you what to do? If a file is newer on the Pre or backup, should the other file be updated to the new file or would you like it to ask you what to do? If you try SychBack consider upgrading to the SE version.

A number of other programs have been discussed that can also backup certain files on your Pre:
• DoubleTwist (Mac, PC) -Recommended by Dieter for music and photos.
• Foobar (PC)
• iTuneMy Walkman (Mac)
• iTunes Agent (If Apple blocks Pre syncing) (PC)
• MediaMonkey (PC)
• Rhythmbox (Linux)
• Salling (Mac, PC)
• SharePod (PC)
• Songbird (Mac, PC, Linux)
• SuperSync (Mac, PC)
• Winamp (PC)

For further information, please see:
Sync your Palm Pre (Backup Option)
Media Sync Alternatives

- Craig

[milominderbinder]

reserved for future use

[zna03]

Nice, but all of my apps/ringtones/vids/music is sideloaded so it's all sitting in a nice folder on my pc

[milominderbinder]

Originally Posted by zna03

Nice, but all of my apps/ringtones/vids/music is sideloaded so it's all sitting in a nice folder on my pc

That is a good point. I added a line to explain the difference between a manual backup and an automatic synchronization.

- Craig

[zna03]

Cool. Nice writeup.

[LupeValenz]

What can be done if your Pre doesn't back up? The last backup that was done was in 6/28 . I tried to do it manually but it stays stuck on preparing.

[milominderbinder]

Originally Posted by LupeValenz

What can be done if your Pre doesn't back up? The last backup that was done was in 6/28 . I tried to do it manually but it stays stuck on preparing.

Call Sprint Customer Support: 888-211-4727. DO the backups above first to back up all that you can.

- Craig

[ablazes]

very nice. thanks!

[LupeValenz]

Awesome and thanks for the info!

I think I'll be turning off the wireless backup and keep this instead since I like to have my information readily available.

EDIT: Oh and it seems to fix this, manually reset your Pre, afterwards perform a manual backup. That fixed it for me.

[subliminalfringe]

For some reason, when mounted as a USB drive, the pre is excluded from Time Machine's backup list and I can't undo. I was thinking this would be a great way for keeping things backed up. Does anyone know why it's excluded or if it's just some setting that I have enabled that's preventing me from adding it to the backup list.

Thanks!

-Sub

[martinrrrr]

Bookmarked. Good info in here.

Thanks

[IYE2]

Thanks for the great info!

[bulls96]

can someone confirm that you can backup AND restore your sms messages using SYncTOy? I think system files are hidden so i am skeptical.

RIght now i am only using SYnctoy to backup my CLassicApps.

[RanGT]

i did a partial reset the other day. backup is done daily and before the reset but when i restarted, it did NOT have my store apps, memos or tasks. how do you save those to backup?

[va2thadeath]

late. but thanx for the knowledge

[bulls96]

Originally Posted by RanGT

i did a partial reset the other day. backup is done daily and before the reset but when i restarted, it did NOT have my store apps, memos or tasks. how do you save those to backup?

are you talking about the Palm backup or the SyncToy backup discussed here?

[Stingray821]

I have yet to try these techniques, but am definitely bookmarking this to try later on. I am disappointed to find out how much is not natively backed-up, but still love everything about this phone.

[mike929]

thanks

[bulls96]

Originally Posted by Stingray821

I have yet to try these techniques, but am definitely bookmarking this to try later on. I am disappointed to find out how much is not natively backed-up, but still love everything about this phone.

will await your findings feel like my phone needs a partial erase but i dont want to do that until i can backup my sms
THanks!

[pomplun]

The Pre spec says 8GB, ~7GB user available. When I look at it as a USB drive, Properties matches this 7GB number. Presumably these two are the same physical memory. In my case about 1GB is used. So contacts, calendar, memos, etc must be in here someplace. Where? Why can't a disk image backup program (like Acronis TrueImage?) completely back up my Pre? [not syncing is OK with me; I'd make daily backups. I'm leery of letting outsiders be responsible for my data, especially when I never know if it's {not}working until I need it].