A few weeks ago, my mom called me from my dad’s phone frustrated and on the edge of tears. Her Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge had completely died. No matter how many times she tried to charge it or turn it on, it was refusing to come back to life. I quickly reassured her that nothing was lost. Not her chats with family members and group messages with other retired colleagues, not the photos of the only international trip she ever went on, and not the voice messages from my late grandma. Not even the grocery delivery service’s phone number.
Let’s put aside the very shameful fact that I — someone who writes about phones for a living — had let my mother use a Galaxy S7 Edge until now. Instead, I’d like to focus on my genius foresight and the three very simple settings I’d enabled years ago that allowed me to recover everything for her.