How to Use Titanium Backup to Restore an Application Backup

Now that you have backed up your applications, you can follow these steps to learn how to restore from any of your previously created backups.

As mentioned yesterday, Titanium Backup is the best solution we have to making full backups of your applications and the data that they use. This should really be done from within Android but Google, and most OEMs have yet to create a tool that does this properly.

So while Titanium Backup does a great job and filling this role, it does require root access if you want to use it on your smartphone or tablet device. So just be aware of that.

Yesterday’s guide walked you through creating a backup of an application and the embedded video also showed you how to back up all of your applications. Today’s tutorial will focus on just restoring from a previously created backup. This is great for those times when an application gets updated with features or restrictions that you don’t like. But it can also be used for after you do a factory reset or if you want to transfer it onto a new device entirely.

So once you have created a backup of at least one application, you can follow these steps to restore from that backup.

Titanium Backup Restore

1. Launch the Titanium Backup application
2. Tap on the Backup/Restore tab at the top
3. Make sure you have a backup created for the app you want to restore (if it’s currently installed)
4. Tap on the Paper/Check Mark icon at the top right of the screen
5. Scroll down to the Restore section
6. Decide if you want to restore just apps with data, system data, or both
7. Tap the Run button next to the option you have chosen
8. Choose which applications you want to restore by putting a check mark next to it (or tapping the Select All button)
9. Tap on the Green Check Mark at the top right of the screen
10. Wait for Titanium Backup to complete the restore process

Explanation

Again, this guide assumes you followed yesterday’s tutorial and have backed up some applications or at least system data from the Titanium Backup application. This guide will walk you through doing a restore on the same device you made that backup on. Tomorrow, I will walk you through how to transfer these backups to a different device though and then restore to a secondary/new device. For today though, let’s just stick with the basic restore process.

So once you launch the application, you can tap on the Backup/Restore tab at the top of the page. This will list all of the applications you have installed, and it should give you details on the recent backup you made for the app you plan to restore. If the app is installed, you can simply tap on it and tap on the restore button. This method is used less often though and that’s why I didn’t cover it in the guide above. Instead, you likely don’t have the application installed.

So you’ll want to tap on the icon at the top right of the screen that looks like a piece of paper and a check mark in the corner. This will bring you to the batch execution screen and from here you’ll want to scroll down to the Restore section. From here, you’ll see a number of different options to choose from. Since we’re just dealing with restoring an individual application though, we’re going to leave out the system data stuff. But, if you had backed up system data information and want to restore from those, then choose the option that suits you.

In the video, I chose the Restore Missing Apps with Data option since I had uninstalled the Ally Bank application. This will bring up an additional selection screen where you get to choose which applications you want to restore. There’s a convenient Select All button if you want to pick that option, or you can go through the list and individually tap on the ones you want to restore. Once you have a check mark next to the apps you want to restore, simply tap on the green check mark at the the top right of the screen.

You’ll see a dialog box pop up and it will go through each of the apps you have selected so it can restore each of them. The amount of time this process takes will depend on how many apps you chose, and how much data each application has. This dialog will disappear once completed, but you also have a notification from Titanium Backup to tell you that the process has been completed. You should then see your newly restored applications appear in the App Drawer, and opening them will show you they’re exactly as they were when you backed them up (data and all).