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Yes, you NEED to back up your phone. Here's how to do it right now.

1 week 3 days ago


Your entire life lives on your phone — account logins, complex passwords, banking information, contact lists, notes. Everything. If you don’t have an up-to-date backup of your phone, you could lose some or even all of your data when you upgrade, or even worse, if it’s lost or stolen. Follow these easy steps now to make sure all your phone data is safe and encrypted in the cloud.How to back up an iPhone

Many folks have a love-hate relationship with Apple’s iCloud service. On one hand, the backup feature is great for capturing everything on your device. It basically makes a carbon copy of your phone, freezing your data, settings, files, and the rest in carbonite and leaving it there until you need it. It’s one of the most robust backup services available, in my humble opinion.

When it comes to phone backups, it’s not a matter of if you’ll need it but when.

On the other hand, iCloud backup can take a huge chunk out of the measly 5 GB of storage Apple has offered to customers since iCloud launched in 2011. If I was a betting man, I’d guess you either haven’t backed up your iPhone in ages because you ran out of cloud storage years ago, or like me, you begrudgingly pay Apple every month for enough storage to save everything in your precious device.

Wherever you stand, device backups are non-negotiable if you value all the information stored in your phone. Here’s how to enable iCloud backup now:

  1. Open the Settings app on your phone.
  2. Scroll down to the very bottom and tap “iCloud.”
  3. Select “iCloud Backup” after that.
  4. Finally, check the toggle beside “Back Up This iPhone” and then “Back Up Now.”

Screenshots by Zach Laidlaw

If you want to optimize your iCloud backup settings even further, there are a couple things you can do. First, find “This iPhone” under the “All Device Backups” section and tap on it. Once you’re inside, uncheck any app that you don’t want to save. This could slim down your device backup and free up bits of valuable storage.

You can also completely remove old devices from the “All Device Backups” section. Simply click on the device, scroll to the bottom, and select “Turn off and Delete from iCloud.” Congrats! Your iCloud storage is now several gigs lighter.

BONUS TIP: iCloud backup works on iPad, too, but it’ll count against your cloud storage limit, so keep this in mind.

How to back up most Android phones

Regardless of make and model, all Android phones sold in the USA come with Google’s built-in cloud backup service that’s designed to save your most important data, including photos, videos, messages, call history, apps and data, and device settings. You can enable Google backup on your Android by following the quick steps below.

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Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

Note: Depending on your device and Android version, these steps may look a little different, but as long as you get to the backup section within your device settings, you will be able to save the correct data. For reference, the following screenshots were taken on a Google Pixel running Android 16.

  1. Open the Settings app.
  2. Scroll down and tap on “System.”
  3. Then select “Backup.”
  4. Tap on “Photos & videos,” then check the backup toggle at the top.
  5. Go back one screen inside the backup section in the Settings app.
  6. Tap on “Other device data” and check the “back up other device data” toggle above your name.

Screenshots by Zach Laidlaw

Keep in mind that many of these saved pieces count against your 15 GB of free Google Drive storage, so if you run out, you won’t be able to back up your phone completely until you upgrade your cloud storage with a Google One plan.

While Google’s backup service keeps most of your data safe in the cloud, there are some holes in its system. For instance, Google backup may not save the settings on all of your apps; currently, developers have to opt in to allow this, and while many apps do support it, there are plenty of apps that don’t. Google’s backup solution also doesn’t save local files on your device, including documents in your Downloads folder or password-protected secure folders. Make sure you manually move these to another device or cloud service before you reset your old phone.

How to back up a Samsung Galaxy phone

Google backup works perfectly fine on Samsung phones, but Galaxy owners need to take some extra steps to back up Samsung’s first-party apps. In order to save your call logs, messages, alarm clocks, voice recordings, home screen layouts, and settings, you need to enable Samsung Cloud via the following steps:

  1. Open the Settings app.
  2. Scroll down and tap “Accounts and backup.”
  3. Under “Samsung Cloud,” tap “Back up data.”
  4. Check each item you want to save and then click “Back up now” at the bottom of the screen.
  5. Then go back one screen, tap on “Back up data” under the “Google Drive” section, and follow the steps above to make sure Google’s backup service is active too.

Screenshots by Zach Laidlaw

While Samsung Cloud backups do count against your 15 GB storage limit, there are no upgrade plans, so Samsung won’t prompt you to buy more. They also offer a 30-day temporary backup option that’s completely free. There are also limitations to what you can save. For example, Samsung can’t back up any files that are synced with other accounts (i.e., your Google contacts will sync to your Google account, not your Samsung account), and it won’t save any backup files larger than 1 GB.

A matter of when

When it comes to phone backups, it’s not a matter of if you’ll need it but when. For everyone who received a new phone for Christmas, a backup is vital to getting your new device running exactly like your old one. It doesn’t stop there, though. Your phone could fall to the bottom of a lake, or it could get swiped by a thief, or your favorite pet could mistake it for a chew toy. Whatever happens to your device, make sure your backups are on and set to save new data automatically every night. You’ll save yourself a lot of trouble in the future.

Zach Laidlaw

Government fraud meets its worst enemy: Some dude with a phone

1 week 3 days ago


Nick Shirley knocked on doors. That was all it took to crack Minnesota’s multibillion-dollar fraud scandal — and expose the failure of the institutions that were supposed to catch it.

Shirley visited Somali-run “businesses” that had received millions in taxpayer funds. His videos showed locked doors, covered windows, and empty buildings where thriving operations were supposed to exist.

When institutions feel threatened, they usually try to personalize the fight. That approach won’t work here.

Within days, the footage racked up more than 100 million views on X alone, triggered a flood of federal scrutiny, and helped force a political reckoning in a state where warnings had gone ignored for years.

Legacy media outlets initially dismissed the story as a “conspiracy theory” — until they couldn’t. Gov. Tim Walz (D) went from defending the programs to demanding crackdowns almost overnight. Federal authorities surged additional personnel and resources into Minnesota. What had been treated as untouchable suddenly became unavoidable.

What happened in Minnesota matters. But what happens next matters more.

You are about to see hundreds — perhaps thousands — of Nick Shirley imitators flood social media. Exposing government waste and fraud is no longer just journalism; it is an incentive structure and a business model.

Independent investigators armed with public records, smartphones, and social platforms will fan out across the country, documenting the gap between what government pays for and what actually exists. And the establishment has no effective way to stop them.

The old playbook no longer works.

When institutions feel threatened, they usually try to personalize the fight. Discredit the messenger. Destroy the movement by targeting its most visible figure. We saw this strategy deployed against the DOGE by turning government efficiency into a culture war about Elon Musk.

That approach won’t work here.

You can’t sue a thousand kids with iPhones. You can’t “fact-check” an empty building that’s supposed to be full of children. Calling something “misinformation” loses its power when the door is locked, the windows are covered, and fraud indictments follow months later.

RELATED: Fraud thrived under Democrats’ no-questions-asked rule

Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

What’s emerging isn’t a movement with a leader — it’s a decentralized ecosystem. Accountability no longer depends on a single newsroom or institution. It comes from a generation that has figured out that exposing corruption is vastly more rewarding than working a shift at Starbucks.

That should terrify every political leader who has relied on the assumption that no one is really watching.

A single viral video now generates more pressure than a year of congressional hearings. The Minnesota press corps had years to uncover what Shirley documented in an afternoon. They didn’t look — not because the evidence was hidden, but because looking wasn’t incentivized. Now it is.

This shift is part of the reason I created Rhetor, an AI-driven political strategy firm designed to track what people are actually saying and doing in real time. Using these tools, we’ve identified billions of dollars in questionable spending beyond Minnesota.

In New York City, for example, migrant-related spending is projected to reach $4.3 billion through 2027. Audits have flagged contractors billing the city for empty hotel rooms — charging $170 per night while paying hotels closer to $100 and pocketing the difference.

Chicago has paid at least $342 million to staffing firms charging $156 an hour for shelter workers. Illinois spent $2.5 billion in 2025 under emergency rules with minimal oversight.

These are not isolated incidents. They share the same ingredients as Minnesota’s scandal: emergency declarations, suspended procurement rules, inexperienced contractors, and little meaningful oversight.

And someone is going to knock on those doors too.

The old gatekeepers understand what this means — and they’re panicking. For decades, investigative journalism required institutional backing. Stories could be delayed, softened, or killed outright if they threatened the wrong people and interests.

That system is dead.

RELATED: ‘Without citing evidence’: NYT steps on a rake trying to attack Trump administration over fraud crackdown

Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images

The new investigative journalism runs on virality, not permission. The reporter is a 23-year-old with a ring light and a Substack. The editorial board is the algorithm. The feedback loop is brutal, immediate, and unforgiving. Get it wrong and the internet will tear you apart. Get it right and the story spreads faster than any newspaper ever could.

This isn’t replacing traditional journalism. It’s filling the void left when traditional journalism stopped doing its job.

Minnesota was the proof of concept. The data was public. The facilities were visitable. The fraud existed for years. Nobody looked — until looking became profitable.

Now it’s profitable everywhere.

The bureaucrats and contractors who built careers on the assumption that no one was watching are about to discover that everyone is. The politicians who treated emergency spending like free money are about to learn that the emergency is over — and the receipts are coming to light.

A generation that treats views like oxygen just learned that fraud is the best clickbait.

Good luck stopping that.

Jeremy Jones

PHOTO: Zohran Mamdani's Hypocritical Socialist 'Tenant Advocate' Cries When Asked About Mom's $1.6 Million Home

1 week 3 days ago

The leftist tenant advocate working for New York City's democratic socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani broke down Wednesday when asked about her mother's extremely expensive home and her hypocritical comments regarding gentrification.

The post PHOTO: Zohran Mamdani’s Hypocritical Socialist ‘Tenant Advocate’ Cries When Asked About Mom’s $1.6 Million Home appeared first on Breitbart.

Amy Furr