It’s now been more than a week since the Google Pixel 9 series was revealed, but as these devices are finding their way to more and more people, we’re getting new revelations about previously unannounced features – including one related to Android upgrades.
As spotted by Android Authority, the Pixel 9 phones change upgrades in one important way. Before now, if you wanted to bring over data such as text messages and installed apps from an older Android phone, you had to do it right at the start of the setup process – there was no way to do it later on.
Now, that’s changed: even if you don’t transfer everything over while you’re setting up your new phone, you can go back and do it afterwards. It’s made possible through a new ‘Back up or copy data’ option that appears in Settings on the Pixel 9 series.
There’s one caveat in that no one has been able to test this just yet – but this very much looks like a tweak Google has made. It’s going to give users a lot more flexibility when it comes to moving between Android phones when it’s time to upgrade.
Something old, something new
To some extent, transferring data over from an older Android phone isn’t necessary when you upgrade: as soon as you sign into apps like Gmail and Google Photos with your Google account, everything will be synced over.
However, it can also be useful to move over app configurations, phone settings, text messages, and other data that isn’t automatically synced across the cloud. This can be done via a backup stored in Google Drive, or directly from an older phone if it’s nearby (which gets the data shifted over faster).
Taking this route means your new phone is essentially a clone of your old one, down to the home screens and wallpaper, and it’s the option to take for the smoothest upgrade. Now, it seems you’ll soon be able to do this any time you like.
Whether or not this feature will roll out to older Pixel phones remains to be seen – we’re still waiting for Android 15 to arrive in full – but it’s something that’s already available on other Android phones, including Samsung Galaxy devices.