Pajama: I've had my android (non rooted) phone for quite a while and it's set up exactly how I like it. Now the problem is I need to get another phone and I'd like to be able to take a snapshot of everything that is on my phone and how it is set up now and just transfer it all across to the new phone so that when it starts up it is exactly the same as my old phone. Wallpapers, installed apps, the whole works.
I've looked online and from what I can gather the back up/clone apps only back up the usual things like contacts, photos, etc., but I'm unclear if they do what I'd like. Does anyone know if what I want is possible? Thanks.
Basically, yes. It's commonly called a "NANDroid backup". I use
TWRP (Team Win Recovery Project), a replacement for the stock Android recovery, which allows me to create and restore entire backups of the internal storage of a device to a micro SD card. Depending on the specific device, Android system recovery is usually accessed by powering on your device while holding power+volup, power+voldown, some other button combination or by enabling advanced reboot options in Android (if available). It's a good idea to check the recovery software that is on your device first because it may already provide the ability to make full device backups, however most stock recoveries don't.
Here is a video that shows a TWRP Nandroid backup in action. Depending on the state of your device, in order to install TWRP or similar system recovery replacement, you will need a device with an unlocked bootloader (ADB method) or an OS with root access (ROM manager method). I recommend checking or asking around the
XDA Developers forum for directions on your particular device.
Another benefit to installing TWRP is that it allows you to easily flash new firmwares to your device. Don't like that stock ROM? You can change it to one that you do like (ie.
LineageOS) or, if you have lots of time, motivation and patience, even put together your own from the sources of another ROM or directly from
AOSP.