How to back up your phone and computer (the simple 3-2-1 rule)
Backing up is the one piece of safety advice that feels boring right up until the moment it saves you. Phones get lost, laptops die, and ransomware can lock up every file you own. A good backup turns any of those from a disaster into an afternoon’s annoyance. The good news: once it’s set up, it runs itself.
The 3-2-1 rule, in plain English
It sounds technical but it’s just common sense:
- 3 copies of anything you’d hate to lose (the original counts as one).
- 2 different places or types of storage — say, your computer and an external drive.
- 1 copy kept somewhere else entirely — usually the cloud, or a drive you keep at another address.
The “somewhere else” copy is the part people skip, and it’s the part that matters most. A fire, a flood or a thief takes your laptop and the backup drive sitting next to it. A copy in the cloud or at your mum’s house doesn’t care.
Backing up your phone (the easy bit)
- iPhone: turn on iCloud Backup in Settings → [your name] → iCloud → iCloud Backup. The free 5GB fills up fast, so a small monthly plan is usually worth it. Photos can also go to Google Photos as a second copy.
- Android: Settings → Google → Backup saves your apps and settings, and Google Photos handles pictures. A Google One plan adds space cheaply.
Set it and forget it: switch on automatic backup so it happens overnight while you're charging on wifi. A backup you have to remember to do is a backup that won't happen.
Backing up your computer
- Windows: use File History to copy your files to an external drive, and add a cloud copy with OneDrive, Backblaze or iDrive. That’s your two-places-plus-off-site in one go.
- Mac: Time Machine to an external drive does the heavy lifting; add a cloud service for the off-site copy.
An external SSD is cheap now and takes minutes to set up. Pair it with any reputable cloud backup and you’ve covered the whole rule.
A quick word on ransomware
If malware ever encrypts your files and demands payment, a current backup is what lets you say no. You wipe the machine, restore your files, and move on. Without one, you’re stuck choosing between paying criminals and losing everything. This is also why good habits matter more than any single tool — see do you really need antivirus.
Test it occasionally: a backup you've never restored from is a guess, not a backup. Every few months, open a file or two from the backup to be sure it's actually working.
A backup pairs naturally with two other habits: knowing what to do if your phone is lost or stolen, and wiping a device properly before you sell it. More in our devices and accounts section.