Back up and restore your photos
Backup copies the photos and videos of your phone albums to a cloud or a network drive. It needs Premium or Prime.
The Secret Space is never backed up. To save it, export it: see Back up your Secret Space.
Set up a backup
- In the Albums tab, with the phone shown, tap ⋮ at the top right, then Backup, under PREMIUM OPTIONS.
- Tap ADD A NEW BACKUP, and choose a network drive or a cloud. You can also connect a new one under ADD A NEW ACCESS.
- Open the folder to back up into, and tap SELECT THIS FOLDER.
- Turn on the switch of each album to back up.
Piktures creates a Piktures folder in the folder you chose. The photos of an album go into Piktures/Phone/, followed by the album's folder, for example Piktures/Phone/DCIM/Camera. The albums of the SD card go into Piktures/SD/.
You can add several destinations: each album has its own switch for each of them. A USB drive can't be a backup destination.
From an album, ⋮ → Backup settings shows the same settings for this album. Adding a destination there turns the album's switch on right away.
Automatic backup
As soon as an album's switch is on, Piktures backs up this album in the background, on a regular basis. The first time, it sends the whole album. Then it only sends the photos and videos added since. It skips the files whose name already exists at the destination, and it never deletes anything there.
More → Settings → BACKUP sets when it runs:
| Setting | Choices | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Data usage | Wi-Fi only (default), Wi-Fi and mobile data | Wi-Fi only |
| Frequency | As soon as possible, Hourly, Daily, Weekly | As soon as possible |
| Battery saving | Backup always enabled, Backup when battery is not low, Backup when the device is charging | Backup always enabled |
| Device idle | Back up only when you're not using the phone | Off |
| Move to trash | Once a file is backed up, move it to the phone's trash | Off |
Android chooses the exact moment of each backup within these rules. With Move to trash on, the backed-up photos go to Deleted items, from where you can still restore them.
A network drive can only be reached on your Wi-Fi network: away from home, the backup waits for the next time.
Back up now
In the Albums tab, ⋮ → Backup, tap BACK-UP NOW. Piktures backs up every album that's switched on, right away, on any connection. Cancel stops it.
Follow and stop a backup
While a backup runs, a notification shows its progress. On Android 13 and later, Piktures asks for permission to show notifications the first time you open an album's Backup settings.
- To stop backing up an album, turn off its switch.
- To remove a destination, open More → Settings → BACKUP → Backup settings, tap the unlink icon of the destination, then OK. The files already backed up stay there.
When the destination has only about 5% of free space left, the backup stops and a notification asks you to free some space.
Restore photos to the phone
- In the Albums tab, with the phone shown, tap ⋮, then Restore.
- Choose the drive: the phone, a USB drive, a network drive, or a cloud.
- Open the folder to restore, and tap SELECT THIS FOLDER.
Piktures copies every photo and video of this folder and of its sub-folders into Pictures/Piktures Restore on the phone, and keeps the sub-folders. Files whose name already exists there are skipped, and the originals aren't changed. At the end, Go to album opens the restored photos.
To restore a backup, choose the Piktures folder at the destination. The photos don't go back into their original albums: they all go into Piktures Restore.