Transferring messages from your old phone

The SMS backup format is a simple XML format,  independent of the Android version on the phone, so it can be easily used to transfer messages and calls from one Android phone to another.

There are multiple ways to transfer from one phone/device to another:

1. If you have pre-existing backups from either SMS Backup & Restore or Call Logs Backup & Restore apps (free or paid), you can restore any of those backups with the new app using the Restore button and workflow from the main page.
2. If both phones are working, you can use the new transfer feature to transfer over Wi-Fi Direct. Simply install SMS Backup & Restore on both phones, click Transfer on both phones, and continue. View more information on Transfer.
3. If you don’t have any backups yet, start by creating a backup from the phone you’d like to transfer FROM. Then use this app on your new phone to restore your backup(s).
4. You can also create a backup to your selected cloud (or email), and open it directly from there with our app to restore.
   
   These days a lot of newer phones come with inbuilt storage card and may or may not have an SD Card slot. The main issue that the app has with these type of phones is that the phone reports the internal storage card as the default storage card and the backup gets created on that instead of the external storage card. When moving to a newer phone, this becomes a bit of a problem since the old phone may not have created the backup on the removable storage card or the new phone may not look on that card when trying to restore. In such cases, make sure the backup is created on the external storage card by opening the app Preferences and then selecting “Backup Folder”. On that screen, select “External Storage” and then create a new backup.

Using a computer

Following are the steps suggested to make sure the backup can be transferred and restored on to a new phone if the previous method doesn’t work:

1. On the old phone, create a new backup and name it something like “my backup.xml”. Name the file so that it is easily to find later.
2. Connect the old Phone to a computer and in the drive of the Phone search for the backup file by name.
3. Once you’ve found the file, copy it to another folder on the computer.
4. On the new Phone, Create a new backup and name it something like “my new backup.xml”. Name the file so that it is easy to find later. This will also make sure that the required backup folder gets created.
5. Connect the new Phone to a computer and then search for the backup file by name.
6. Once you have found the folder containing the backup file, copy the file from the folder created in Step 3 into this folder.
7. Disconnect the new Phone from the computer.
8. Start the app again and Restore. It should find the backup file from the old phone.

Import SMS Messages from Windows Mobile

Many people have reported errors encountered with SMS Exporter however it is very difficult to fix because the application is using a third-party library to export the messages. If you are getting errors, please try the other ways below.

SMS Exporter:

Here is a simple tool to export messages from WinMo phones. Click here to download SMS Exporter. This is an experimental application and so any feedback about this app is highly appreciated.

Download the .CAB file from the link above and install it on your phone. Running it will present you with a simple form with an “Export” menu. It will export messages into a SMS.xml file which can be directly imported into any Android phone using the SMS Backup & Restore app.

If the SMS Exported does not work for you then you can always try the following third-party options:

Here is an excellent article explaining how to Import/Export/Move/Transfer SMS Messages from Windows Mobile to your Android Phone using PIM Backup and our App SMS Backup & Restore.

Here is another article for a tool which Exports from Windows Mobile. This process works without needing root access on the Android phone. Check it out!

Import SMS Messages from Nokia

Here are some other third part articles and tools:

• An excellent NbuExplorer application, starting v3.0, now supports exporting messages directly to the SMS Backup & Restore format.
• An article describing a process to convert SMS messages from Nokia Phones to a format which can be used to transfer them to an Android Phone using our SMS Backup & Restore app.
• A tool to transfer SMS messages from Nokia Ovi to Android via SMS Backup & Restore.

All these processes work without needing root access on the Android phone.

Import SMS Messages from Sony Ericsson

Here is a third-party converter application so that the messages exported or transferred from FJ Software’s MyPhoneExplorer can be restored on an Android Phone using our SMS Backup & Restore. app. This process works without needing root access on the Android phone.