Better Backups

Code Aspect

About this app

Better Backups copies folders on your Android phone to destinations you control — local storage, Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, or any WebDAV server (Synology NAS, Nextcloud, ownCloud). No accounts. No servers. No analytics. Just an Android app that does the boring copy job reliably.

WHY USE IT
• Pick the folder. Pick the destination. Pick the cadence. Walk away.
• Five destinations, side by side — back up the same folder to your NAS AND your Drive at the same time.
• Per-snapshot version history with daily / weekly / monthly retention buckets, pruned automatically.
• Built-in integrity checking — the app verifies that every file the manifest claims is on the cloud actually is, and flags missing or orphaned files.
• Restore any historical snapshot back to the phone in a few taps.

DESTINATIONS
• Local folder — anywhere Android's file picker can reach, including SD cards and USB-C drives.
• Google Drive — sign in with Google. The app sees only the files it has uploaded itself; the rest of your Drive, Gmail, and Photos stay invisible.
• Dropbox — backups land in a dedicated Apps/Better Backups folder.
• OneDrive — backups land in a dedicated app folder. Personal and (where admin permits) work accounts.
• WebDAV — for self-hosted setups. Trust-on-first-use TLS pinning means self-signed certificates work without disabling validation. Built-in folder browser to pick where backups go.

PROFILES — THE KEY IDEA
A profile pairs one source folder with one schedule, one retention policy, and one or more destinations. Run multiple profiles in parallel — daily morning sync of WhatsApp media to Synology, weekly Sunday push of Pictures to OneDrive, manual mirror of a working folder to Nextcloud. Each profile keeps its own history.

BACKUP TYPES
• Incremental — writes a Backup_/ folder per run. Restore picks a specific date.
• Mirror — keeps a single live copy at the destination. Optional sync-delete makes the destination match the source byte for byte.

WHAT GETS BACKED UP
Any folder you pick. For WhatsApp-shaped profiles (carried over from our WhatsApp variant), the app understands the per-kind layout: voice notes, images, video notes, videos, audio, documents, encrypted chat archives — opt in per destination. For generic Custom-folder profiles, the History tab shows a MIME-type breakdown of each snapshot.

PRIVACY & SECURITY
• No accounts. No backend. Code Aspect doesn't run a server for this app.
• Credentials live in the Android Keystore — Dropbox tokens, WebDAV passwords, OAuth tokens. Hardware-backed on supported phones.
• Cert pinning. WebDAV connections pin on the server's leaf-cert fingerprint after first use — MITM-safe even with self-signed certs.
• No storage permission. The app uses Android's Storage Access Framework, so you grant access folder by folder. There's no blanket disk read.
• Open about what the app does. Every upload, retention prune, integrity check, and credential change writes a line to a local activity log you can copy.

RELIABILITY
• Resilient DNS for WebDAV (retries + cached IPs survive transient lookup failures).
• Resumable / chunked uploads on every cloud backend.
• Wi-Fi-only / cellular / any per profile.
• Charging-only and thermal-throttle gates to keep big media syncs polite.
• Diagnostics report bundled into one copy-paste block for bug reports.

WHAT THIS APP IS NOT
• Not a cloud backup service — we don't host your data.
• Not a free unlimited cloud — destinations are whatever you already have.
• Not a contact / SMS / call-log backup tool — scope is folders.
• Not affiliated with any cloud provider it talks to.

ABOUT
Better Backups is built and maintained by Code Aspect. Sibling app: Better WhatsApp Backup (locked to WhatsApp specifically) is also available on the Play Store.

What’s new

• Cleaner activity log by default; detailed logging available when needed.
• Stuck uploads give up cleanly after a few retries.
• Retry shows immediate feedback when tapped.
• Failed backups explain why at the top of the details page.
• Old backups clean up automatically once a newer one is a day old.
• Background sync pauses cleanly when off the right network.