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In 2025, Google changed how backups work on Android devices, making it simpler than ever for users to manage their backups. Since then, the company has also introduced automatic backups to Android devices as well, which allow you to automatically clean up old data from your phone and put it into the cloud for safe keeping when you no longer need it. All of that is well and good, but there’s been one matter that Google had yet to address that it really needed to: giving users more control of what they want to backup. Well, it seems that time has finally come, as Google is now rolling out a per-app backup feature to Pixel devices, which will let users customize which apps they want to backup to their Google account.
According to reports shared by 9to5Google, the new feature appears in the backup device information found by navigating to Settings > Accounts and backup > Google Backup > Other device data. Google has added an updated App data section to this page. Previously the section simply listed Apps & app data with a total count and the amount of data that had been stored. However, Google now shows the top three apps that you have using space, new toggles next to each one that lets you disable or enable them, as well as a Show more option.
A feature Android users should have always had
The point of this additional control appears to be giving users more direct access to what is taking up their Google cloud space. While everything is toggled to the on position by default, you can easily toggle each app off as you see fit. This is useful if you have apps that you don’t need to keep backed up -– like those you’re just testing out or don’t need data to be saved for long-term.
Additionally, you can see how much data each of the apps has backed up by looking at the sizes listed beside them. As we noted above, the top three listed are those with the most data backed up, but if you continue down to the bottom it will show apps that do not currently have any data backed up. This allows you to turn off data backup for apps that you don’t need them for before they start taking up your precious Google cloud storage space.
Backups are an important part of any device, but it can be frustrating to be notified of full storage, giving you yet another option instead of uninstalling your apps. This depth of control is one thing that should have been in Android much earlier, although currently it looks like this feature is only available on Pixel devices. There are plenty of mistakes you can make to lose important data, but at least now you have a bit more control of what you do keep.
