Here’s the latest on Google’s work to enhance Android backups

With the new year coming up, this is the perfect time to make some resolutions. As you think about all the wellness goals you want to prioritize, here’s a resolution that should definitely go on your list if it’s not already a part of your routine: backing up your data. And as you get to know how backups work in Android, we’ve got a little preview for you a few changes coming down the pike.

We’ve already been tracking a number of new features Google’s developing for Android backups, like backing up file downloads and individual per-app backup settings. We’re still waiting for all of that to go live, but as we look into the changes Google’s made in version 25.50.33 beta of Play Services, we’re uncovering some further tweaks to how both these additions will work.

First up, we’re getting a little clarification about how backups will work for your downloads folder. When we first spotted this in development, Google didn’t offer much detail about how backups here would operate.

We’re now able to see a new version of this screen that adds some further clarification: While you’ll be able to store a backup copy of files in your downloads folder, Android won’t continuously sync changes made to any of these files — on either end. Honestly, that makes a fair amount of sense, as many people actively editing files are probably doing so with cloud copies. We also get this new storage overview, and there’s a link to your Drive assets at the bottom.

How about those per-app settings? For starters, we’ve spotted a new message that will appear when you toggle backups for an app off:

Now when disabling backups for a specific app, we see Google informing us that our backup copy will be purged, as well. Considering that’s how other backup data is also treated, this is no surprise, but it’s still good to see Google explicitly telling users as much.

We’re also seeing a new division in how apps are presented here, with the screen distinguishing between normal user apps and system processes. This one feels especially like a work in progress, as the split between the two lists is a little wonky at the moment, with some clearly system apps still appearing in the first list.

To reiterate, none of this is currently visible, and with Google still actively working on it, we could see things further evolve before they’re finally ready to go live. Google’s also still got a lot of cleaning up to do (notice how the new message about downloads backups doesn’t quite fit, getting clipped on the left), but we’ll keep tracking its progress here, and let you know about any further changes we’re able to identify.