A new statement on the Google Issue Tracker has been released on behalf of the Android development team that a future Android release will allow users to start a manual app data backup to Google Drive. The manual app data backup includes backing up the application data, call history, device settings and text messages. Backup data usually go straight to Google Drive under certain conditions like time, power status without the possibility of user intervention through normal means. But according to the statement, users will be able to trigger the backup themselves in a future Android release. However, it’s not like the users cannot trigger the backup manually now.
But an ADB needs to be set up first on the computer by enabling USB debugging on the Android smartphone. To trigger a manual backup of the files onto Google Drive, users need to switch on and off auto-backup by going to Settings> System> Backup & Reset on Android Pie device like the Google Pixel 2 XL. Once this new feature of uploading backups is added by Google on Android smartphones, the users would not have to rely on an obscure ADB command. This new feature is somewhat a redundant one and not very useful to most Android users. But Google is hoping that some users will obviously use it.
Apps which are backed up via the built-in Android backup manager do not use Google Drive’s storage quota. Application specific backups, however, do count against the storage space of Google Drive while backing up. WhatsApp’s backing up to use up some storage space on Google Drive though this is set to change for the hugely popular messaging client. This new feature is not yet launched and it is speculated that it may go live with the next iteration of Android Pie.