Full Android image backup in 2025?

Submitted ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com⁩ to ⁨askandroid@lemdro.id⁩

So I haven’t run a custom ROM for a long time and I’m thinking of trying out GrapheneOS. Before I do, is there a modern way to take a full disk image of a stock Pixel 8? The intent would be to factory restore to where I am in this moment if need be.

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Moonrise2473@feddit.it ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Without root: no

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- Atemu@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Even with root it’s not anywhere near trivial.
  
  You can’t, for instance, make a backup of the userdata partition block device and expect to be able to restore it because it must be decrypted by a key in the phone’s security module that gets wiped when you boot a new ROM.
  
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  - Moonrise2473@feddit.it ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    Right, forgot about automatic encryption
    
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Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Not unless you’re already bootloader unlocked, which requires a factory reset to do so.

The best you can do is try to backup apps using ADB (which is hit and miss, and restoring is very hit and miss).

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- fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Lineage was the last one I used, too. Is root the only reason you don’t use GrapheneOS?
  
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GenderNeutralBro@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Backups: No. Google does not grant you access to the full disk to make backups anymore (for many years now).

Factory reset: Yes. This will NOT restore your personal data. See developers.google.com/android/images for Google’s OS image downloads, and grapheneos.org/install/cli#replacing-grapheneos-w… for how to revert from Graphene.

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