If we spend the time to set up settings, providers, smart playlists in Symfonium, we should not risk losing it all to a lost/bricked phone. I know there are manual backups, but these should be automated. Not sure whether you can use the Google/Android backup framework so that the app settings are restored when the app is reinstalled. Of course, passwords must be filtered out, it is OK to just re-enter the passwords for providers on restore.
Alternatively, maybe the app can automatically take a daily backup that it can store in Google Drive and keep a configurable number of backups. It doesnât have to be fancy backup management, something like âkeep most recent 10 backupsâ.
For those who donât want to use Google Drive, well, just local (but still automated) backups then and itâs up to them to somehow sync them to another device of their choice.
Problem solved:
I donât want to lose my fancy setup
Brought benefits:
No remembering to manually back up things. Symfonium is just one app of many people use, users shouldnât remember to go to each up and manually back them up every time they change anything.
My solution of choice is Syncthing. I use it to automatically backup images, videos and gpx tracks I create on my smartphone.
One instance runs on my server and whenever my phone is connected to wifi and not in energy saving mode, it backs up a couple of folders to my server.
The neat thing with syncthing is that it doesnât rely on 3rd party servers (except for peer discovery I think). So once the connection is established the data is transmitted directly from my phone to my server. It also detects when both devices are in the same network, allowing for really quick backups.
On the server instance of syncthing I have configured that it keeps up to 3 copies of each file with a retention of 180 days. Even if I delete something on my phone I have half a year to undo that deletion should I choose to.
Which means, should automatic backups in Symfonium to a local directory become a thing, it would be trivial to set up syncthing to do the rest.
Or you could select a password for the backups. Password protected .zip for example would make for a neat backup in my opinion. Which is easier depends on the amount of providers you use I guess. If itâs just one it doesnât matter if you have to reenter the backup password or the provider password. However if you have 5 providers, having only 1 password for the backup might be quicker and more convenient.
As for passwords, hopefully you do not have 5 providers or restore from backups every day. For me the backup is more like oh $#it my phone is dead/lost, canât run a quick export and import to a new phone.
Iâd prefer the Android backup integration though, you can just reinstall the app and all the settings come back like magic.
