Nexus 6: How to Create a Nandroid Backup

Having a custom recovery can allow you to do lots of useful things. My favorite is the ability to backup partitions so today’s tutorial will cover how to create a Nexus 6 Nandroid backup.

As I mentioned yesterday, installing a custom recovery can open up a lot of doors for some very useful and much-needed tools. Creating a Nandroid backup of your Nexus 6 is one of the very first things that you should do after you gain root access and install a custom recovery. This will allow you to create 100% copies of the actual partitions of your Nexus 6 storage.

This way, if anything bad ever happens, you can simply boot into the Nexus 6 recovery mode and restore from the previous backup you have made.

Sometimes restoring from a backup is needed because of a modification that we install wasn’t setup correctly. Sometimes it’s from us experimenting with various kernel settings or root applications. Then again, there are times when the data in your Nexus 6 just becomes corrupt overtime. This has happened to be countless times with micro SD cards and it can happen to the data stored in the Nexus 6 storage as well. Whatever the case may be, let’s look at how you can create your very first Nandroid backup on the Nexus 6.

Nexus 6 Create Backup

1. Boot the Nexus 6 into Recovery Mode
2. Then Tap on the ‘Backup’ Option
3. Make Sure All Available Partitions are Checked
4. Tap on the ‘Backup Name’ Field at the Top
5. Create a Custom Name for this Backup(ROM name, current date, etc)
6. You Can Change the Storage Location if You Want
7. When Ready, Swipe the Arrow at the Bottom to the Right
8. Wait Until the Backup Process has Completed
9. Then Tap on the Home Button at the Bottom
10. Tap on the ‘Reboot’ Option
11. And Tap on the ‘System’ Option to Reboot into Android

Explanation

This whole process is rather easy but it can be daunting if you have never used TWRP before. As mentioned before, you will need to unlock the bootloader of the Nexus 6. You also need to root the Nexus 6 so that you can install a custom recovery onto the Nexus 6. Once all of those things have been completed, then we can proceed with this tutorial. When ready, you’ll need to boot the Nexus 6 into recovery mode and you can follow the tutorial linked in the guide above if you need assistance with this.

Once you are in the Nexus 6 TWRP recovery, tap on the ‘Backup’ option that you see in the TWRP main menu. From here, you’ll want to make sure all of the available partitions have been checked so that we are creating a complete backup. If you would like, you can create a custom name for this backup. I recommend something like the ROM name along with the date so it can help me to remember when I created the backup and what ROM has been backed up. This isn’t required though. You also have the option to change where the Nandroid backup is stored. By default, it is stored in the internal storage but you can change this to an OTG storage device if you would like.

When you are ready to create the backup, swipe the blue arrow(located at the bottom of the screen) all the way to the right. You’ll see some text start to scroll on the screen and you should just wait until this process is complete. When the backup process has finished, you’ll see some options/buttons pop up right below the text. You don’t need to do anything here since your Nandroid backup is complete. Just tap on the Home button at the bottom of the screen and then tap on the ‘Reboot’ option. This will take you to another menu with some various modes to reboot into. Simply tap on the ‘System’ option and it will reboot the Nexus 6 right back into the standard Android OS.

This is all you need to know about creating a Nandroid for the Nexus 6. I do recommend that you create a new backup before every single major modification that you do to your device. This means, before flashing a custom kernel, before flashing a custom ROM, before installing an app that is granted root access and before you make major changes to the Android OS from said root apps. You’ll get into the habit of when you’ll need to have a recent backup on hand and when you don’t. Just be prepared that if you don’t create a new backup often, you’ll have to restore from and older one with older data.

If you have any troubles with this tutorial, or if you have any questions about this tutorial at all, go ahead and leave a comment at the bottom of this post. TWRP is pretty straight forward but if you need help, I will try to answer all the questions that I can.