San Francisco, Nov 10 (IANS): Google is rolling out the ability to initiate manual backups to Google Drive -- that does not need the usually recommended Wi-Fi -- on Android devices including the older ones, a media report said.

Previously, for backups, a smartphone had to be connected to a Wi-Fi network and the device would have to in the charging mode. Because of this, if a handset lost its ability to charge or could not connect to the Wi-Fi, users were unable to back their data up on Google Drive.

"According to Twitter user Alex Kruger who spotted the feature. it seems a new 'Back up now' button is beginning to appear in the Backup settings of devices of all kinds -- the feature is available on 'Pixel 2' and also on some older devices like a 'Droid Turbo' from 2014 running on Android Marshmallow," 9T05Google reported on Friday.

"The capability was always there, hiding in the depths of Android, with the possibility to manually trigger Google Drive backups from a command prompt," the report added. The release of the manual-backup feature was first speculated in August.