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Samsung’s temporary cloud storage feature makes phone upgrades and repairs less stressful

Samsung’s temporary cloud storage feature makes phone upgrades and repairs less stressful

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The new feature will let you store and transfer an unlimited number of files for free for about a month.

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Samsung’s logo set in the middle of red, black, white, and yellow ovals.
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Samsung is starting to roll out a “Temporary Cloud Backup” feature to Samsung Galaxy smartphones and tablets running on One UI 6, the company announced on Thursday. It’ll allow users to back up and transfer an unlimited number of photos, videos, and other data for up to 30 days for free.

Giving customers a free place to store their data when they need to reset or transfer between devices and a month to recover it should make the process easier and reduce any “did I remember to transfer everything?” stress. It also brings Samsung up to par with Apple, which also offers temporary iCloud storage with new iPhones and iPads that give customers 21 days to transfer data but can be extended.

Samsung’s “Temporary Cloud Feature” additionally lets users restore their data when it’s convenient for them instead of when they’re first setting up their new phone as a part of Samsung’s Setup Wizard process.

While users can upload as many files to Samsung Cloud as they want via their Samsung account, each individual file size can’t exceed 100GB. Users must also restore their data and transfer it only over Wi-Fi within 30 days. After that time period, Samsung will delete all of their data, though the company will first send a warning a few days before.

Samsung says Temporary Cloud Backup will also be a part of Maintenance Mode, so users’ data should be kept safe. Maintenance Mode is a privacy feature rolled out last year that lets users block access to their data when their device is being repaired.

The news comes after California, one of the world’s largest economies, signed the Right to Repair Act into law earlier this month, which makes it easier for people to fix their own devices or take them to third-party repair stores. On Wednesday, Apple announced during a White House event that it’s making all the materials and information necessary to repair its devices easily accessible nationwide, not just in California.

Last week, Samsung also revealed that 35 Batteries Plus stories will have the Samsung Authorized Service Center tag, giving customers even more places to get in-warranty repairs for Galaxy phones done. The store locations were intentionally selected to reach areas that Samsung’s 2,000 or so service centers didn’t already cover.