Have you ever lost or broken your phone, bought a new phone, and then didn’t have any contacts? Not fun. However, there are a number of ways that your contacts can be backed up so that you can retrieve them later. It’s easy and takes minutes to set up. Here are a number of different methods to keep your contacts safe.

1. Use Google Contacts.

If you have an Android phone and you are logged in to your Google account, you can sync your contacts to your Google account. When you are in your Contacts/People app, you’ll have to go into the settings and choose “Merge with Google.” This will upload all your phone’s contacts to Google’s servers, and new contacts will automatically be synced with your Gmail address book. If you lose or break your phone, when you log into your Google account on a new Android device, your contacts will be there as well.

2. Transfer contacts to a new phone via Bluetooth.

Sometimes you’ll get a new phone and need to transfer contacts from an old phone that doesn’t have a method to sync contacts to the Internet. In this case, Bluetooth can be used to transfer contacts between phones. First, pair the phones with Bluetooth. You can do this from your Bluetooth settings menu. Then, in your contacts application on your old phone, look for a setting to send contacts via Bluetooth. Select all your contacts, and press send. On your new phone, you should see a notification to accept the new contacts. Once that is done, you should have all your contacts on your new phone.

3. Sync to iCloud (Apple)

If you have an Apple device, you can sync your contacts to the Internet with iCloud. Look for an enable this option in your settings. Contacts will be backed up to your iCloud account.

Back up your photos too!

Options also exist to back up other things on your devices, such as Photos. On your Android device, open the Google+ Photos app and go to settings and turn on “Google+ Auto Backup”. This will automatically backup all photos on your device, though you can choose certain folders to be backed up if you so desire. Photos backed up online are only visible to you.

On your Apple device, iCloud can be used to back up your photos. Photos backed up are only visible to you.