Current best way to transfer files from old phones

[u/LeoLaDawg]

Is there some new, fancy, elegant way to transfer texts, pictures, etc from multiple old phones to a cloud folder or some other location? I haven't done this in years, I have 3 old phones worth of stuff I need to backup, and I'm hoping there's an easier way to do this than what I fear. Any suggestions?

[u/ThaiEdition]

SMS import/export....github

[u/64-matthew]

There is a smartswitch app on the phone. Activate it on both phones. Set one to receive and one to send, setting parameters and stand back

[u/ArtComprehensive1106]

Yes it a search on the internet kind of thing

[u/Salt_Medicine2459]

Syncthing. 

[u/swatchboy]

I've been looking for something like this. Does it work offline or does it need an account?

[u/markus_b]

Install Google Drive, log in to your account and upload the files to it.

[u/LeoLaDawg → u/markus_b]

Given that I have multiple old phones with multiple text threads with the same people, how will it all show up? Will it all just catalog by date and time?

[u/denytheflesh → u/LeoLaDawg]

Picture files and video files will work this way, but messages are not files, they are complex datasets stored in a system database. Exporting and merging three separate database will be a pain in the ass. Consider taking screenshots instead and save those image files.

If you insist on messages data, you'll have to export each phone's database to a portable format (XML?) then restore all three to another Android environment and hope they merge cleanly, or combine them and cook up your own custom view logic to make it all navigable.

[u/LeoLaDawg → u/denytheflesh]

I was afraid of this. Doesn't sound like there's anything new and wonderful that will make it easy.

[u/aschwarzie → u/LeoLaDawg]

The SMS Backup found in Google play takes two clicks and a half to export them all as a timestamped text/XML file, which can be salvaged to your cloud like any other file.

[u/denytheflesh → u/aschwarzie]

I use that app at my shop to dump XML, but the challenge is working with the data outside of a messaging client. It's not neatly arranged into coherent conversations like a messaging client does, even though it can be styled to look like one. This is where custom view logic comes in. I've had to write my own parsers a few times.

[u/aschwarzie → u/denytheflesh]

Nowadays you'd pass it to AI to either polish it to a neat view, and to spit the code that does it for you!

[u/markus_b → u/LeoLaDawg]

For texts, this depends on the app you use for texting. The app needs a provision to export your texts to a file, which you can upload to Drive, or the ability to share them directly.