Have you ever lost your SMS/MMS messages restoring or installing new ROMs?
If you're like me, when you restore a Nandroid backup you do not want to have to lose your SMS/MMS, Phone Log, Contacts, etc.
I have bought or downloaded so many MMS backup stuff it ain't funny! All of them either Jumble up the chronologic order or miss a whole bunch of items and just don't work!
I have finally (for the better part of a year now) found a perfect solution, No Root Required, but if you're rooted, it still works fine.
Before I change roms, restore roms or anything that might alter the text messaging stuff, I do a backup of my sms/mms, phone log and contacts. (there are others to choose from as well) using MY BACKUP PRO, I first used My Backup Free, but since it worked so well, I bought the Pro version to support the author.
After I restore any previous nandroid, I reboot and go to the native Messaging app and DELETE ALL THE MESSAGES.
With a new rom, just install the rom, go to market and install Backup pro..
Then I simply open My Backup and restore the last backup I did and reboot. Simple, FAST, and I have never had any problems.
ALL THE MESSAGES are in the EXACT order and all the pictures in the MMS restorations are just like they were before I recovered the Nandroid. It's like I never changed anything! That is how I want it to work, and it does. (I have over 2,500 messages)
If you find yourself needing/wanting to save the stuff you have and want to reload a different ROM or Nandroid backup, You might just want to try this way of doing it. You just might be surprised as to how easy and fast this is.
I have configured My Backup to use the ExtSDcard as the repository for my backups, so that it makes things workable.
if you don't have an external SDcard, just do the backup, and copy the backup file to your PC so you can do the recovery after reinstalling The My backup app. If you cannot connect to the PC you can use AirDroid or even Gmail it to yourself.
Just my 2 cents ... For anyone that tinkers with their phone.
Aloha and Good Luck!!
Related
Hi all. Well I've not rooted yet (just not had the time), and have a stock orange UK ROM with the default stuff! I have searched around and can't seem to find the answer to simple backup questions!
I am having the reboot issues (well documented in another thread), and it's getting worse and worse. even to the extent now that it's rebooting after calls (started out when charging using games, then now I cant run navigation for more than 2 minutes).
I have been told to do a factory reset (not a bad idea TBH). But backups is my main concern.
I have my contacts and calendar fine (not an issue), what I am concerned about mainly is my paid for apps. I have just synced with AppBrain, but will this get my paid for apps back?
Also SMS is the other thing I want to backup, I have installed SMS Backup which backs up to an XML file, which I can read. But read that some people have had problems with restoring, is this true? Or can someone recommend a better app? I am not too concerned with settings, as happy to do things slightly differently this time round, so mainly paiud for apps! Also what happens when orange eventaulyl send me a new phone (which seems to be the resoltuion of the paid for apps?)
I will take the SD card out when I factory reset, but what else should I worry about?
Regards, Martin
I have used SMS Backup and it seems to work fine with me. Not sure if it backs up MMS though, but there is a seperate free tool to save the MMS to SDcard available on the market.
As for your paid for apps, they will show up in the Market once you have perfromed a factory reset and you will be able to re-install without having to pay again. Just make sure that you log in using the same credentials.
The backups I perfored prior to rooting were as follows:
1) export contacts to SDCard
2) backup SMS using SMS Backup & Restore
3) Backup call logs using Call Logs Backup and Restore - I wanted to keep these.
A factory reset should not wipe what is currently on your SDCard, but I cannot hurt to copy the contents to your PC/Laptop before doing the reset.
dcnice said:
I have used SMS Backup and it seems to work fine with me. Not sure if it backs up MMS though, but there is a seperate free tool to save the MMS to SDcard available on the market.
As for your paid for apps, they will show up in the Market once you have perfromed a factory reset and you will be able to re-install without having to pay again. Just make sure that you log in using the same credentials.
The backups I perfored prior to rooting were as follows:
1) export contacts to SDCard
2) backup SMS using SMS Backup & Restore
3) Backup call logs using Call Logs Backup and Restore - I wanted to keep these.
A factory reset should not wipe what is currently on your SDCard, but I cannot hurt to copy the contents to your PC/Laptop before doing the reset.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for this, yes call logs would be cool too! I'm not too fussed with regards to the settings of the phone, gives me a chance to start over! Im not even that fussed on SMS's nice to have a history they're currently backing up to the google mail thing!
It was the apps I've paid for most concerned for, and yeah sounds good that it's tied to the google account, guess that means if/when I get a new phone they'll just get copied over to the new phone, when orange realise that it needs to be replaced... Pffftt...
Many thanks makes sence now (used to the iTunes/iPhone system! WHich shilst walled, does make some things easy! I PREFER DROID THO!)
Have been testing the new CoolBliss 3.5 ROM the past few days, but after getting a few sudden FCs, I decided to revert to a nandroid of RCMix for daily use. I had made Titanium backups before I started, in an attempt to preserve my sms conversations.
Before I could restore my messages, I received an sms from an important friend. Now what I have, is half a conversation stored as a TB, with the remainder from last night showing on my phone...essentially, I am unable to see three days of this convo. For personal reasons, I want to keep this conversation intact and complete...
I have a spare SD, so my hope is that I can make a TB of my messages as they are now and upload that to my PC. I would then also upload the backup I made early last night, find the appropriate files from both backups and mesh them into one, to be restored to my phone.
Is this possible, and more importantly, which files would I be wanting to extract and combine? Is there an easier way?
If I'm the one on your position, I would download SMS Backup Restore app on the market. Create a backup of the recent sms conversation. Then once I am sure that a backup file has been created on the sd card I would copy that same file on a PC just to be sure. I would then run TB to get the earlier messages and create another backup using SMS Backup Restore.
Then once you have both old and new sms backup files created using the SMS Backup app, I would do a restore. I believe it has an ability to restore several backup files into one continuous conversation.
I would suggest to check the options on the SMS backup app as it gives you an option to save all sms under one file or as individual files based on the time the back up was performed.
I haven't tried the thing you want to do in all honesty so there...
Good luck.
I'd be wary of SMS Backup & Restore because twice now it's wiped my SMS backup. I think it's basically corrupted the files when trying to restore. I know others who have had the same problem, though it's not the case for every user.
OMO.
Hi guys, sorry for the lame question. I feel bad asking because I've done dozens of different ROM installs on all kinds of different phones down the years, but there's always something I've never got.
How do I back up all my SMS's, installed apps etc and restore them after I've done a FULL WIPE and installed a new ROM? (SMS is the main one, I hate losing all those)
spireite_uk said:
Hi guys, sorry for the lame question. I feel bad asking because I've done dozens of different ROM installs on all kinds of different phones down the years, but there's always something I've never got.
How do I back up all my SMS's, installed apps etc and restore them after I've done a FULL WIPE and installed a new ROM? (SMS is the main one, I hate losing all those)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The process I'd suggest you for transferring your data when switching ROMs is:
1. Back up
For SMS's, use SMS Backup & Restore. It creates a backup XML which will be used to restore your SMS's after wiping.
For apps and their data, use Titanium Backup (Requires root).
For calls, Call Logs Backup and Restore. It also creates a backup XML like SMS Backup and Restore.
For contacts, I personally sync them using my Google account. If you don't like this you can use MyPhoneExplorer or any contacts backup app.
2. Full Wipe & ROM install
2b. Root your ROM if it is not rooted already.
3. Install Titanium Backup from an APK or Play Store.
4. Use Titanium Backup to restore user apps and their data. I suggest restoring ONLY user apps, unless you know what you are doing. Now it is also a good time to check which apps you really need to restore, since you may have back ups of applications that you don't need anymore.
5. Restore your SMS's and call logs from their backup XMLs using their respective applications.
6. Restore your contacts by syncing or by using the app you chose to back them up.
I've found some that backup to XML won't work if you have pictures in your messages. So either, save the pictures off, or you can use this app:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=backup.email.inapp&hl=en
It uses your Google account to backup and store your MMS/SMS messages. It works great.
How about using LG backup. It can backup both apps and data so I think it can both backup sms and call logs...
II have around 23k messages and it tooks hours just to backup and to restore SMS after flashing rom everytime when I am using backup applications from playstore. Is there a faster way to backup like maybe a single file from /system or anything like that?
Probably not if you insist on keeping that many stored, which is a ridiculous amount of messages to keep on a Phone, I get sentimentality but still.
Titanium Backup is faster than sms backup app
Is TB accurate? When I first tried it, it lost a lot of my messages. I've stuck with SMS Backup and Restore which also has MMS backup now.
if rooted you can also get the database directly in :
data/data/com.android.providers.telephony/databases/mmssms.db
Check out permissions and reapply same when restoring ...:highfive:
Hello everyone,
I have been running the 4.3 stock ATT ROM, rooted, for the last few years, and I recently decided to try out a custom ROM. I ran CyanogenMod on my last Android phone (Aria) and as pretty happy with it, so I decided to try it first. I synced everything with Kies, backed up my OS with CM, and used the CyanogenMod installer to install CyanogenMod 11.0. Everything went well, but when I tried to connect to Kies to restore my contacts, I discovered that it's not compatible with CyanogenMod. Not too surprising, but annoying nonetheless. I also discovered that my backup disappeared; apparently CM was set to backup to internal memory and I failed to move the backup off before installing CyanogenMod. I'm wondering if anyone knows any way to get my data, especially my contacts, back. I'm sure I could flash back to a stock ROM and sync with Kies, but then I'm unsure how to best export the data and import it into CyanogenMod. What I'd really prefer is some way to extract the data from Kies and import it to CyanogenMod without having to go back to stock ROM. Any suggestions or solutions?
Thanks
I've never tried this tool (or kies at all for that matter), but it sounds promising for your situation. http://www.mobile-phone-transfer.com/extract-data-from-kies-backup-sbu-file.html
Thanks for the suggestion. I downloaded the program and tried the free trial version. It found multiple backup files with text messages and call logs in them, but said there were no contacts in any of them. I guess I'm going to flash stock rom to see if the contacts are really in the backups or not. Any suggestions for how to export and transfer them if I get everything restored to the stock rom?
falec_illmore said:
Thanks for the suggestion. I downloaded the program and tried the free trial version. It found multiple backup files with text messages and call logs in them, but said there were no contacts in any of them. I guess I'm going to flash stock rom to see if the contacts are really in the backups or not. Any suggestions for how to export and transfer them if I get everything restored to the stock rom?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The contacts app on the phone should be able to export them to a .vcf file. You can keep the file as a backup and use it for import/export from contacts on other ROMs. I don't remember exactly how to get there on touchwiz, but if you poke around contacts settings a little bit I don't think it will be too hard to find.
jason2678 said:
The contacts app on the phone should be able to export them to a .vcf file. You can keep the file as a backup and use it for import/export from contacts on other ROMs. I don't remember exactly how to get there on touchwiz, but if you poke around contacts settings a little bit I don't think it will be too hard to find.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks again. For anyone who finds themselves in a similar situation, here's what happened. I did find how to export contacts to vcf file; it's pretty easy to find in the menu of the contacts app. I wanted to take my text messages and other settings, so I looked into programs to do that. I tried GO backup, but the upgrade process to the pro version is broken and support not responding, so I went with Titanium Backup. I flashed back to the stock 4.3 rom as described in a thread here (sorry I can't post links yet), restored all my data with Samsung Kies, but made the mistake of letting the phone install a software update. This put me at 4.4.2 with Knox active, and Titanium Backup needs root access. I regained root access by installing CWM using Odin 3.07 in dl mode as described elsewhere, pulling the battery after install to prevent stock recovery from reinstalling, booting to CWM recovery, and installing supersu binary. Then I installed supersu from the store and allowed it to update itself and block Knox, and disabled Knox as follows: (this is quoted from elsewhere, I can't post links yet)
"I installed Android Terminal Emulator from the Play store - granted it SuperSU access - and proceeded to type the following command(s):
su [enter]
pm disable com.sec.knox.seandroid
*NOTE - the above to lines require you to go to a new line after typing "su", the [enter] is only a reminder, DO NOT type [enter] after su"
At this point, I had stable root access, so I installed Titanium Backup Pro to backup by data. Unfortunately, I discovered that 4.4.2 has problems with permissions; Titanium Backup couldn't write to any location on my phone. After some more research, I installed SDCard Fix from the store and let it fix my permissions. This let me access my SD card with Titanium Backup, and I backed up everything I wanted. Then I installed my backup zip of CyanogenMod that I made before returning to 4.3 stock from CWM recovery and was back to CM and able to restore my data and apps from Titanium Backup.
Hope this helps someone else, but I would strongly suggest that before trying out a new ROM you use Titanium Backup or similar, and save a nandroid backup off the phone. That would have saved me a lot of trouble, but things have changed a lot since I last played with custom ROMs about 5 years ago, and I didn't do enough research first.
Or you could just use a google account and have all your contacts sync with no hassle.
elatllat said:
Or you could just use a google account and have all your contacts sync with no hassle.
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Click to collapse
I do have a Google account, but when I switched to CM Rom and told it to sync with Google, I got a lot of my apps re-installed (not all of them), but no contacts, SMS or MMS, etc. Not sure why I didn't get any contacts, possibly the old OS wasn't set to sync contacts to Google. Just reinforces being thorough in research and preparation before trying to change ROMs.