SMS restore possible? - Moto X Q&A

I apologize if this might have been covered, but using the search function didn't seem to net much in the way of results.
In my case, I came from a non-rooted Droid RAZR MAXX and decided to activate and use the Moto X (rooted with write protect disabled on 4.4).
So I tried with SMS Backup + by Jan Berkel (I've used this in the past with other phones to decent effect) to restore the sms messages onto my new Moto X but it didn't seem to work. It acted like it was processing like 33,000 messages, but after it completed, no messages were found.
1) Does this application not work on Kit Kat?
2) Do I have a bloated 33,000 message file I'll need to delete now on my Moto X?
3) What easy method of copy/pasting my old SMS messages to my Moto X can there be at this point?

Because of how Kit Kat/4.4 and 4.4.2 handles SMS (only one app can write to the "database" at a time), you can't use SMS Backup+ like you used to be able to, and restore SMS messages.
There is a BETA version, and instructions if you want to try it.. For more info see -> https://plus.google.com/communities/113290889178902750997
Another way to do it... use something like Go SMS Pro to back up the messages to a local file, copy that to your new phone, and restore them. (or if you have drop box, use Go SMS Pro and GO SMS Pro Dropbox Backup to backup/restore)

That's awesome! Thanks a bunch for that.
I just simply haven't kept up with the development changes enough, so that was a huge help!
edit:
Just had the thought though. Was my old SMS Backup+ writing to any particular file that I need to delete then?

Related

Backup/transfer settings, SMS, call log, etc from 'old' N1 to 'new' N1

Got a replacement N1 from HTC.
Like with the first replacement, the Google "Backup" to transfer installed apps and settings does not work at all.
How can I either FORCE the "back up my settings" feature to work or is there a (FREE) alternative backup program that I can use?
well i dont think there's a way for call log and sms messages unless you use titanium backup. but what i do is use sms backup app (free) and call track (free) which run as a service at all times in teh background. sms backup sends all your texts to your gmail account in real time, under its own label, and call track sends all your call log to your google calendar in real time.
this week i needed to refer to an old text message, so i open gmail, find the sms label, and there is my complete text history in individual threads by contact in an IM style conversation, shows received and my replies. its brilliant. its a permanent record of all your texts and calls ever made.
i find when bouncing between ROMs and whatnot, that the only thing you lose everytime is texts and call log. everything else gets reloaded, like all apps get redownloaded automatically, settings get saved, bookmarks get saved, etc. so using those 2 apps basically saves me from losing anything.
EDIT: if you still have your old nexus, just install those 2 apps, and you can do a backup of everything now. it will take a little while to upload it all, but then from here forward just let those apps run all the time and you never have to worry about it again.
Thanks - I have been using call tracker. will try sms backup.
So how do I backup all my other settings (eg exchange, wifi, ringtone, ...) and apps?
As I mentioned in the OP, I can enable and disable Google's back up my settings however I want ... it just doesn't seem to work!
RogerPodacter said:
well i dont think there's a way for call log and sms messages unless you use titanium backup. but what i do is use sms backup app (free) and call track (free) which run as a service at all times in teh background. sms backup sends all your texts to your gmail account in real time, under its own label, and call track sends all your call log to your google calendar in real time.
this week i needed to refer to an old text message, so i open gmail, find the sms label, and there is my complete text history in individual threads by contact in an IM style conversation, shows received and my replies. its brilliant. its a permanent record of all your texts and calls ever made.
i find when bouncing between ROMs and whatnot, that the only thing you lose everytime is texts and call log. everything else gets reloaded, like all apps get redownloaded automatically, settings get saved, bookmarks get saved, etc. so using those 2 apps basically saves me from losing anything.
EDIT: if you still have your old nexus, just install those 2 apps, and you can do a backup of everything now. it will take a little while to upload it all, but then from here forward just let those apps run all the time and you never have to worry about it again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is there any way to force Backup SMS to use names instead of [email protected] in the to/from (which is rather stupid)
SMS Backup & Restore app, as it says.
Call log Backup & Restore, as it says.
APN Backup & Restore, as it says.
All those back up the data to SD card.
All the rest is covered either by Google backup (if you check the "backup everything" on the old phone and don't check it when you setup a new one), or by Titanium backup.
nexusdue said:
Is there any way to force Backup SMS to use names instead of [email protected] in the to/from (which is rather stupid)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't understand. It does use the names for me. All my threads in gmail are sorted by caller name.
nexusdue said:
Thanks - I have been using call tracker. will try sms backup.
So how do I backup all my other settings (eg exchange, wifi, ringtone, ...) and apps?
As I mentioned in the OP, I can enable and disable Google's back up my settings however I want ... it just doesn't seem to work!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For me WiFi is backed up by Google's backup. Ring tones are on the memory card. I don't use exchange.

[Q] Xfer D1 texts to D3 w/ TB Pro

Hello,
I was wondering if anyone could help me transfer my sms and mms from my old droid 1 to my new droid 3. I have tried: SMS Backup and Restore, SMS Backup, My Backup Pro, and these did not work. Also, I have more than 200 texts with multiple people that I would like to keep, so some of the above apps didn't apply.
I tried to back up the [SMS/MMS/___] dialer storage with TB. Then, on my Droid 1, I navigated to the folder where the backup files were just saved. There were 3, and they were called data.data.android.providers.telephony, or something like that. I moved these 3 files to my droid 3 in the same folder, and tried to restore them using Titanium Backup on my droid 3.
After I restored them, I was able to see the that the texts were there in Handcent SMS, BUT any time I clicked on a contact to see all the texts, my phone would force close. I used root explorer to delete the mmssms.db and that fixed my phone, but I was wondering if anyone knew how to get this to work? I feel like it has to do with something regarding permissions?
jayjl3 said:
Hello,
I was wondering if anyone could help me transfer my sms and mms from my old droid 1 to my new droid 3. I have tried: SMS Backup and Restore, SMS Backup, My Backup Pro, and these did not work. Also, I have more than 200 texts with multiple people that I would like to keep, so some of the above apps didn't apply.
I tried to back up the [SMS/MMS/___] dialer storage with TB. Then, on my Droid 1, I navigated to the folder where the backup files were just saved. There were 3, and they were called data.data.android.providers.telephony, or something like that. I moved these 3 files to my droid 3 in the same folder, and tried to restore them using Titanium Backup on my droid 3.
After I restored them, I was able to see the that the texts were there in Handcent SMS, BUT any time I clicked on a contact to see all the texts, my phone would force close. I used root explorer to delete the mmssms.db and that fixed my phone, but I was wondering if anyone knew how to get this to work? I feel like it has to do with something regarding permissions?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Usigpng sms backup. Go into setting and change where it looks for the backup at. Its be something like /sdcard/smsbackup/
Add -ext after the sdcard. It looks like /sdcard-ext/smsbackup. Then it will find your backup and work
Sent from my DROID3 using XDA App
Is there any way to make it work with TB?
SMS Backup takes too long to upload, and gives an error after I try it. Finding the backup wasn't the problem, it just reports an error everytime
Anyone know?

[Q] SMS Backup tool that restores dates properly?

Anyone have the name of an app that does this correctly. Im using sms backup and restore but it does not restore the dates properly. And the messages are all out of order because of this.
Thanks
I am using the same and have the same problem
bump (10char)
"AppExctractor" can extract messages from previous clockwork mod recoveries.
The only flaw is that the backup has to have been made through ROM Manager.
SMS Backup+ has the same problem (basically, all messages are restored to the date and time that you restored them, not when they were sent or received). It never did on my old phone. I suspect that Motorola is doing something non-standard with the timestamp on messages.
Titanium Backup.
--
Sent from my CyanogenMod-powered TouchPad.
I had the same issue with SMS Backup and Backup to Gmail. I ended up switching to GoSMS and used its built in backup feature. The restore worked perfectly! All dates show correctly.
tetorocks said:
I had the same issue with SMS Backup and Backup to Gmail. I ended up switching to GoSMS and used its built in backup feature. The restore worked perfectly! All dates show correctly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I use GoSMS myself and I can confirm that in the GoSMS app itself, the dates restore correctly. However, the stock messaging app does not restore correctly (it puts the date/time of transfer/restore as the timestamp of all messages restored) using the GoSMS restore function any more. I'm not quite sure if it's an update thing or a phone thing as I went from an X2 to a Bionic but I believe it was broken in an update to the app itself.
Handcent backup took too long for me. Since then, I have used My Backup Pro, which has done a fantastic job of restoring my 6700 messages with time stamp intact. Try giving it a shot.
EDIT: Just kidding. Sorry kiddos. Next time I reflash, I'll see if Handcent restore works.
Sent from my DROID BIONIC
Diocat said:
I use GoSMS myself and I can confirm that in the GoSMS app itself, the dates restore correctly. However, the stock messaging app does not restore correctly (it puts the date/time of transfer/restore as the timestamp of all messages restored) using the GoSMS restore function any more. I'm not quite sure if it's an update thing or a phone thing as I went from an X2 to a Bionic but I believe it was broken in an update to the app itself.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
this is correct, i tried 3 different backup/restore apps before i realized that the problem is with the stock SMS app, not the backup/restore app. Handcent and ChompSMS do display the correct time even when the stock app does not. same problem on my Droid X too.
PhilDX said:
this is correct, i tried 3 different backup/restore apps before i realized that the problem is with the stock SMS app, not the backup/restore app. Handcent and ChompSMS do display the correct time even when the stock app does not. same problem on my Droid X too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Handcent doesn't display correct time and dates for me, I used sms backup to restore sms and call logs.
GoSMS is the best one when it comes to backing up and restoring the SMS.. I have 10,000+ Msgs and while it takes about 1.5 to 2 hours to restore it's well worth it..
Ritesh Sahu, dev of SMS B&R, recently released a new version that fixed his restore mismatch dates.
What's New
What's in this version:
v4.4:
Potential fix for the incorrect Date/Time problem after restore on some Motorola phones. Special thanks to Dominick Young for his endless testing. Also thanks to John L Galt for his help.
Fixed sorting of conversations on some phones.
Added yyyy-MM-dd_HH-mm-ss as file name format.
Added a label to display the last backup date.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It works for me so far (and yes that is me in the notes - although I wasn't able to test it nearly as much as Dominick)
Go SMS Pro is by far the best
I had a similar problem when restoring messages to my Droid X2. It looks like the stock text messaging app for Droid is looking for the date in a column named sort_index instead of the date column that all the other apps seem to look at. This also controls the sorting of the messages. When you're restoring messages sort_index gets set to the import date and time of when the message was restored which is what breaks the stock app. To fix the problem I used Root Explorer to download a copy of /data/data/com.android.providers.telephony/databases/mmssms.db. Then I used the command line version of SQLite to run queries to update the sort_index column to have the same value as the date column. The queries looked like this:
update pdu set sort_index = date * 1000
update sms set sort_index = date
update threads set sort_index = date
Then I put the file back in place, making sure permissions were correct and then rebooted the phone. Everything was back in the correct order at this point.

Proper SMS/MMS transfer from Nexus 5, still only TiBu it seems

well new phone, same issue, how to transfer SMS/MMS with media and group messages intact
i was really hoping that the new automated lollipop transfer would take care of these things, but I guess not as call logs and SMS/MMS were not carried over at all
tried helium but still only does SMS, apparently SMS backup and restore still fails to keep group messages intact
TiBu (titanium backup) with the xml backup option was the only method that worked properly from my s4 to my nexus 5, and it seems to still be the only proper solution again here
- TiBu MMS transfer works perfectly on lollipop as far as i can tell
- would be nice to have a reliable option that does not require root access, but that does not seem to be the case
Are there any other working options?
Still works perfectly: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.riteshsahu.SMSBackupRestore&hl=en

[Q] SMS's not restoring properly

Hi guys,
I am trying to restore my texts from my N5 to N6 and they restore fine but the timestamp for the received texts are all wrong, hence texts all over the place.
I have tried everything I know to fix this but nothing works, I have even tried to backup texts I received today and enabled the timezone options in the menu from the SMS Backup & Restore app but still does not work. It is reading today's received texts as yesterday. My sent texts are fine.
Anyone else had an issue like this?
Thanks
kendogc said:
Hi guys,
I am trying to restore my texts from my N5 to N6 and they restore fine but the timestamp for the received texts are all wrong, hence texts all over the place.
I have tried everything I know to fix this but nothing works, I have even tried to backup texts I received today and enabled the timezone options in the menu from the SMS Backup & Restore app but still does not work. It is reading today's received texts as yesterday. My sent texts are fine.
Anyone else had an issue like this?
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would try the Go SMS app to backup and restore your texts. I did this a while back on a different phone, and recall the phone apply a "time fix" after restoring the messages to make sure the times were correct. You can install Go SMS on your N5, do a backup, put the backup file on google drive, Dropbox, etc. Install Go SMS on N6, download the backup file, and restore it in the Go SMS app. Once restored, proceed to use any messaging app you like, and uninstall Go SMS.
OK. Will try that on Monday as a friend is borrowing my N5 this weekend
Navigate to /data/data/com.android.providers.telephony/databases where you'll find mmssms.db. Copy this over from your old phone to your new in in the same location and fix permissions so that both the owner and group have read/write permissions.
I've been using this method since Gingerbread and it's worked on every version of android since then.
You can also take telephony.db to transfer your call logs and blacklist.db for any blacklisted numbers.
Hope this helps.
You could always use titanium backup. Works for me
Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

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