How can I backup my Minecraft: Pocket Edition worlds?

Solution 1:

If you're looking to save your world, there are two methods:

• Wait 3 seconds - Minecraft PE, just like the PC version auto-saves every few seconds.^
• Open the pause menu and select "Save and Quit".
  This can be accessed by pressing the Back system button at the bottom of your screen.
  On some devices, there should be a pause button next to the chat button (top-right of the screen)

^ Note: This only applies to the player's inventory.

If you're looking to transfer your files between Android devices, you can find your world saves in the following location:

/sdcard0/games/com.mojang/minecraftWorlds/...

The following directory can only be accessed with a file explorer such as Explorer.
You do not need to have a rooted system.

Alternatively, simply plugging in your android device into a computer as an MTP device should allow you to access the files directly. Just go into the games/com.mojang/minecraftWorlds folder as your default root folder when accessing through USB is your sdcard0 folder, which can be found at:

/root/storage/sdcard0/...

Lastly, note that sometimes, that your sdcard0 folder may be called sdcard for devices without a Micro SD or SD card slot, or that your world folders may be in the sdcard1 (or higher numbers) if you have set your default (non-legacy) app data location to store to your SD cards (if any).

On iOS, you can access all add-on data (ie. world templates, texture/behavior packs) and world save data by accessing the Minecraft App's shared files via iTunes.

Alternatively, they can be found here:

./Documents/...

in Minecraft's app domain (sandboxed data allocation).

Solution 2:

It is possible to export worlds saved under "Application Storage" without rooting your device. You will need a Windows computer, a USB Cable and around 10 minutes, but overall it is quite easy. I have created a small program to make this even easier. The program works by using ADB's backup feature to copy all the Minecraft data from the device. The archived data is then extracted using AndroidBackupExtractor and the minecraftWorlds folder is moved from it.

More information and downloads can be found here.

(also, be sure to select External next time to avoid any problems)