How to Backup Windows Phone 8 and Restore it

Buying a new smartphone is exciting and before long, you have it stocked up with pictures, videos, documents, customizations, wallpapers, and settings. But over a period of time, your phone may start to give trouble or you may consider upgrading to a new device. Whether your phone is set for repair or for an upgrade, you may not want to customize it all over again. In such cases, it is wiser to know how to do a Windows Phone backup, so you can restore all your settings and customizations just like it was before. In this Windows Phone tutorial, we show you how to make a backup in Windows Phone 8.1. The process should be pretty much the same with any Windows 8 phone.

How to Backup Windows Phone 8

1. On your Windows Phone, navigate to Settings.

2. Scroll down and tap backup.

3. On the backup screen, you will notice options to backup your apps and settings, text messages, and photos and videos. Below each of the 3 options you will notice the status of the backup such as backup on or backup off.

4. Tap on each of the options and enable Backup on. Tap apps+settings. On the apps+settings screen, turn on the settings backup and app backup. Navigate back to the previous screen, tap on text messages and on the text screen turn on text messaging backup. Once again, navigate back to the previous screen and tap on photos+videos. Under photos choose an upload option. It is better to go for the best quality which requires a WiFi connection. The same goes for videos. In fact, that’s the only option you have.

The backup will happen automatically. However, if you need to do a quick backup right away, you can do it manually. Just head over the apps+settings screen and tap back up now.

How to Restore Windows Phone Backup

To restore Windows Phone backup:

1. Turn on the new device, choose the language settings and accept the terms of use. Next, connect to WiFi and choose your WiFi Sense options. Also set up the general phone settings as well as the time and region. Next sign in to your Microsoft account.

2. When you sign in, you will notice an option called Finding backups at the top of your screen. This will display a list of your recent backups with dates.

3. Tap the backup you want to restore and then tap Next. Your backup will start restoring and when its done you will get a message stating that your apps will be downloaded in the background.

Now that you know how to backup Windows Phone and restore it, go ahead and update your settings so that you will never lose your data and customizations when you run into problems.