One of the most important things you can do for your own sanity and the livelihood of those around you is to back up your data on your phone. It never fails, every week I have a customer approach me at work asking, “My phone was wiped, is there any way I can restore my data?”My answer, “No.” Of course, if the customer had done the responsible thing and backed up their data, they would never have to worry about that situation.  This is usually not the customer’s fault though. There is no mention of backing up data in the manuals. When they buy the phone, the associate who sold the phone usually never mentions it. If you never tell a child to make their bed, are they going to? In most cases, no. Learn how to backup your precious data after the jump!

In order for you to never have this problem again, I’m going to give the quick rundown on how to back up most of your data on your BlackBerry. The first thing you will need to do is to download and install BlackBerry Desktop Manager. There are versions available for Mac and PC here. There was a CD that came in the box when you bought your BlackBerry but Desktop Manager is updated so frequently now, it’s simply better to download it from BlackBerry’s site.

After you have Desktop Manager installed on your computer, you will need to plug in your BlackBerry. If it is the first time you have plugged your BlackBerry into this computer it will begin installing the drivers for your phone. Open Desktop Manager and if you have a password on your device, it will ask you to enter it. Then it will do the first time check of the device and applications. Don’t worry, it won’t do anything without your consent. The next thing it will do is check for any available updates from your carrier for your specific device. If you want to, you can go ahead and do this. My recommendation would be to hold off on this until you get your first backup created.

Option #1: Normal Backup

To begin, you will first click the Backup and Restore tab. Once the next page loads, you will want to click the Backup tab to the far left of the window. A pop-up asking you where you would like to save the backup file will appear. Choose a place that you will easily remember. I made a folder in My Documents name BlackBerry specifically for backups. I would suggest doing something similar to this. When you click save, the backup will begin. This should take no longer than 2-3 minutes. If it does hang for a minute or two, don’t jump the gun and freak out. Sometimes, if you have a lot of contacts, messages, or calendar entries the backup can take much longer. Once the backup process finishes, it will prompt you telling that the process was successful or that it was not successful. If the process fails, try the next option below.

Option #2: Advanced Backup

Don’t be deterred by the word “advanced.” By advanced, the application means you simply have more control over what you’re backing up. I would suggest using Advanced Backup for backing up specific things separately. This is what I use to back up solely my contacts away from everything else. It’s much quicker and easier than backing up and restoring a whole image of your phone. In Advanced Backup you can pick and choose what you would like to backup. You can choose one at a time, or you can hold the ctrl key and click on each individual backup item. (Note: Be careful! I have accidentally clicked on delete rather than the “move over” button multiple times. If you do this before creating a backup, you WILL lose everything you had highlighted and will not be able to recover it.) When you have moved everything over to the left-side window that you want to backup, click the File dropdown menu and select “Save As…” Once again, save this file somewhere you can remember easily.

Restoring

Since I’ve told you how to back up your data on your phone, you might want to know how you can restore it, no? The first way to restore is just as simple and very similar to the automated backup process. Within the Backup and Restore tab, you will have an option in the middle that says Restore. Click the restore button and a pop-up will open. This pop-up is asking you to select the location of the backup file you want to restore to your device. Select the backup that you want and click open. A prompt will appear asking you if you want to restore all of this data back to your device. Click “Ok” and the restore will proceed. Just like the backup process, it will notify you when the restore process is finished.

The second way to restore data is to click on the Advanced tab again. This time, in the File dropdown menu, you will click Open and select the backup file you have created. This backup file can be one you created within the Advanced tab or a regular backup file from the automated backup. You can select exactly what you want to restore to the device. It will prompt you making sure you agree to restore all the data, and the restore process will begin. Both restore processes are very simple and very quick.

Applications

If you have done any of this before, you should know that this will not back up your applications. Unfortunately, with Desktop Manager, the only way to do it is a not-so-simple workaround. I will explain it below, but it may not be the easiest thing to follow. For a more simple way to back up all of your applications for you BlackBerry is to download a program for your computer called BlackBerry Swiss Army Knife (BBSAK). You can get it here.

(Screen shot from RIMGeeks.com)

When you install BBSAK onto your computer, you will need to connect your device, and enter your password (if any). Once the connection is verified, there will be a button on the left hand side that will allow you to back up your applications. It’s very simple. To restore these applications, you can either do it with BBSAK or with Desktop Manager. The easier way is with BBSAK, but if you want to do it with Desktop Manager, it will be the same restoration process as below.

To back up your applications via Desktop Manager, you will have to use the Device Switch Wizard tab. Click the button below Switch BlackBerry devices. It should verify a connection with your currently plugged-in device. On the far right of the window you will see come check boxes. Uncheck everything except for “Third-party applications”. It gives you the option to backup your data, but since we’ve already covered that, this one is pretty much useless. You will need to click next and let it run through its process. It will tell you to unplug your device and that it is finished. Do not unplug your device just yet. If you do, you will have to start over. Once the process is finished, you will need to open up a file browser to do a search. Start with your C drive, this is the default drive where everything is saved. You will need to search your computer for your device PIN. The file and folder you are looking for will be hidden within a folder called AppData. In order to find this, you will have to do an advanced search and search within hidden folders and indexes. There will be a .alx file and a folder that will both be named with your device PIN. You need to copy them both (keep them together and do not save them in separate locations) and paste them somewhere you can remember easily. To restore these applications to your device, you will need to go back to the main menu of Desktop Manager. Click the Application Loader tab and click start underneath Add/Remove applications. Click “Broswe…” and you will need to locate the [Device PIN].alx file. This will load all of the backed up applications into Desktop Manager that were on your device before. You can choose which ones to restore from this point. Like I said, it isn’t extremely difficult, but you have to know what you’re doing in order for it to work.

I hope this helps you all! Now you have no excuse if your data gets mysteriously erased. You now know how to backup and restore your apps and all of your data.

If you have any questions regarding how to do any of this, or any general questions not related to this post, you can contact any member of the BBerryDog team at BBerryDogTeam[at]gmail[dot]com.