Best practices for USB photo and video backup

Android uses the exFAT filesystem for USB drives, which can be sensitive to unexpected disconnects. Follow these three rules to keep everything running smoothly:

• Always eject your drive before unplugging
• Use at least one mirror backup for redundancy
• Connect drives one at a time

The video shows the ejection process. Drag down on the notification twice to expand it, tap Eject, then wait. You will see an intermediate state saying Ejecting — Don't remove. Only unplug once the toast at the bottom of the screen confirms safely ejected and the drive disappears from the dropdown.

User journey

Here is what to expect from first launch to your first backup.

First opening the app

On the first startup you will see a series of Android permission prompts. Below is what each one does and which option to choose.

• Permissions info prompt — An introductory dialog explaining that two Android system prompts will follow. Tap Ok.
• Notification permission — The app will never send you notifications. It uses this permission to post silent progress updates in the Android dropdown so you can monitor long backups from other apps. It also prevents Android from killing the app while a backup is running. Select Allow.
• Photo & video access — Needed to display your photos in the gallery and to delete them when you ask. Deletions always require a confirmation prompt — nothing is ever deleted silently. Select Allow all. Choosing "Allow limited access" works, but you will have to manually pick files and re-confirm on every app restart.

After granting permissions you will see the gallery, with your photos grouped by year and month. Every photo starts in the unsynced state, shown by the icon in the top-right corner. Tap and hold any photo to enter multi-selection mode.

Setting up a backup

You only need to do this once per drive. After setup, backups happen automatically whenever the drive is plugged in and the app is open.

• USB drive backup prompt — Appears when the app detects a new USB drive. Tap Select Folder.
• Folder picker — Opens at the root of the USB drive. Check that the drive name shown at the top matches your USB drive. If it does not, ask in the Discord server. Tap Use this folder.
• Folder permissions — Grants the app read/write access to the selected folder and its subfolders. If you prefer not to give access to the entire drive, create a dedicated folder first and select that instead. Tap Allow.
• Backup import dialog — If the drive already contains photos or videos you will see this dialog. It is useful when switching phones — the app scans existing files and matches them to what is on your device to avoid duplicates. If the drive is empty this step is skipped.
• New backup name — The name you enter here (plus an auto-generated random suffix) becomes the folder name where your backed-up files are stored.
• Imported backup state — Only shown when importing. Open means the app will continue backing up new files to this drive. Closed means the drive is full — the app will not add new files but will still track its contents to avoid duplicates on other drives.
• Mirror linking — Links two drives so the app keeps them in sync. If a file is accidentally deleted from one, the other restores it. Select Link to enable, or "Don't mirror" to skip.

App features

• Automatic backup — Once setup is complete, the app syncs your photos and videos automatically. Progress is shown in a ribbon above the gallery and in the Android notification dropdown. After syncing, each photo shows if it is on all managed drives, or if it is on at least one.
• Free up space — Use the slider to remove the oldest fully-synced photos from your phone. They remain on your USB drives and still appear in the gallery when a drive is connected.
• Period restore — The reverse of "Free up space". Use the slider to copy backup-only photos back to your phone, starting from the newest.
• Backups management screen — Tap Vaults to see all managed drives, the number of backed-up files, and mirror group membership. From here you can:
  • Rename — Change the user-chosen part of the backup folder name.
  • Remove — Make the app forget a backup. Files on the USB drive are not deleted.
  • Verify — Check every backed-up file against its MD5 hash to detect corruption.
  • Last verify status — View the result of the most recent verification.
  • Close — Mark a full drive as closed. The app stops writing to it but tracks its contents to avoid duplicating files on a new drive.

Manual photo & video management

Beyond automatic syncing, you can manage individual photos and videos by hand.

• Multi-selection — Long-press any photo to enter multi-select mode. Use the trash icon to delete or the cloud-download icon to restore backup-only items.
• Deletion (on-device photos) — You will be asked whether to delete from the phone only or from both phone and backup. Phone-only deletion keeps the photo accessible in the gallery whenever the drive is connected.
• Android confirmation — Regardless of which option you choose, Android will ask you to confirm before anything is removed.
• Backup-only browsing — Photos that exist only on a USB drive appear in the gallery when the drive is connected, marked with . A jump button at the bottom of the screen takes you to the newest backup-only photo.
• Restoring from backup — Select one or more backup-only photos and tap the cloud-download icon to copy them back to your phone.
• Deleting backup-only photos — When only backup-only items are selected, the delete button shows a separate confirmation prompt. This action is permanent and cannot be undone.