Symbian-Guru’s Ultimate Guide To Switching Devices
How many times have you bought a new mobile just to notice that you a have a full day ahead, if not more, just to make it your own, by transferring information, adjusting the settings, personalizing the experience? Well if you’re nodding along, then you need to read this guide. It won’t provide an answer to all of these problems, but it will help you get your calendar, contacts, messages and also your map data, Sports Tracker logs, T9 dictionary added words, and applications. Have I hit your interest? Well then, let’s kick it!
Contacts, Calendar, Notes, Messages, Logs, Bookmarks, Media…
The absolute FIRST thing you need to do when you get a new phone is to fire the menu and look for Switch on it. Once you find it, launch it and scroll right to hit the “start retrieving” button. Click it, then turn Bluetooth on in your old handset. Now pair the two together, select which items you’d like to transfer to your new handset and start it. This application is a work of genie as it will transfer basically all your information to your new handset. All you need is for your old device to be bluetooth enabled and you’re good to go. For a detailed review, you can read Viabhav’s.
Tip 1 : If you have a memory card on your old handset, simply take it off and put it in your new one, and de-select the images and gallery from the Switch retrieval process, that’ll speed things up a lot.
Tip 2 : Don’t be afraid to use Switch between an old S40 and a new S60 phone. I recently used it between a Nokia 6300 and an E90. The Messages weren’t transferred which is a shame, but Calendar, Notes and Contacts did. This is awesome because it negates the need to use PC Suite’s Sync to get your information back.
Applications, Games, Themes
Whenever I get a new handset, I always fear the application installation process. If you have more than 50 apps, games or themes installed on your handset like me, then you’re in deep trouble. But if you have less, then there is a way that might be helpful to you. Put all of your applications in one Zip file on your computer. That way, whenever you get a new phone, you just transfer that file, unzip it on the handset, and install the applications. Normally, I keep the apps uninstalled at first, and install them when I need them.
Tip 1 : I honestly don’t remember who told me this one, but credits go wherever credits are due. If you want, you can mail yourself the Zip file. That way, using your phone browser, you can download it wherever whenever on your new handset. Sweet, eh?
Tip 2 : There’s an application called InstFast that can be used to install batches of applications at the same time… yet it needs to be signed and I haven’t yet managed to make it install anything. Vaibhav has also a detailed post about it.
Map Favorites
If you are the lucky owner of an E66 or an E71, then your Switch application should be able to handle Landmarks amongst the transferable options. If not, then the application Landmarks on your old phone is your friend. Fire it, you will see a list of all your favorite locations that you added using Nokia Maps. Now press Options and move down to Mark/Unmark. Select Mark All, then press Options again and Send. Choose the name you want (or just keep it to Landmarks) then select Bluetooth as a transfer method. Pick your new device, pair the two, and send.
You will then receive these landmarks as a message in your inbox with a .lmx extension. Open it and you will see them all. Now you can either select a few landmarks, either just press Options and Save, then All Landmarks. Pretty sweet, eh?
Tip : If you solely use Google Maps, then the last version of the software automatically syncs Favorites with Nokia Maps, so you should be able to find your Google Maps locations in Landmarks on your old handset. Transfer them the same way and save them, then install Google Maps on your new handset, and it should sync back from Landmarks to Google Maps.
Sports Tracker & Step Counter
This tip comes to you courtesy of the Diva, Darla Mack, who posted it a while back. If you regularly use Sports Tracker or Step Counter, monitor your results and are afraid of losing data when you switch handsets, then you can use your built-in File Manager on your old handset, navigate to the Memory Card, look for the Sports Tracker or Step Counter folders, and select the .dat files (except the config.dat) as well as the log.txt file. Transfer them over Bluetooth to your new handset.
Now you need to install Sports Tracker or Step Counter on your new handset, as well as Y-Browser or X-plore which will allow you to see the files you sent over bluetooth in your Inbox and move them to the correct location (Memory Card > Sports Tracker or Step Counter).
Tip : If you have taken pictures or videos during the exercise on Sports Tracker, don’t forget to transfer them too (this is made easy if you have a memory card).
T9 Dictionary learned words
Many of us know that T9 isn’t perfect, and in some instances it is plain ridiculous. A lot of words are missing, and as a good example my name, Rita, isn’t supported. Neither is Ewan, something Ewan MacLeod has ranted about a while ago. If you have spent valuable time teaching T9 some words you frequently use, and switched to a new handset to find out that you have to go through with it again, then you know how much of a hassle this is. In order to get your dictionary from your old handset to your new one, you need to have Y-Browser or X-plore installed on both.
Using one of these, go to the C drive (internal memory) on your old handset and look for the Predic folder. It contains one file named 101F8615_F.dat which is the dictionary file. Select it, and send it over bluetooth to your new handset. Now using Y-Browser or X-Plore on your new handset, go to the Messages, select the file and move it to C > Predic. It will ask you to overwrite. Simply say yes. Now you can go to whatever text entry box and write down your personal taught words with T9 on and you will see that your new device will handle them like a charm.
Tip : just to make sure your T9 got transfered, before the transfer, you can simply add a very odd word to T9 on your old handset like “sooooooooo” or “veryyyyyyy”, and after the transfer try typing it using T9 on your new device. It should be remembered.
The Missing Parts
I realize this guide isn’t complete, and not even close to be. There are still a lot of other information for which I still I haven’t found a transfer way at all. I believe that there should be one, but even after one week of ridiculous search, I still haven’t found it. For example Access Point settings, Email settings, Browser Cookies, Profiles, and all the other Settings (date & time, font size, light time-out, power-saver timeout, positioning methods,…). I hope Nokia implements these in their Switch application, like they did with Landmarks on the E66 and E71.
Most of all, I wish for all Cookies transfer to be implemented. How cool would it be to pick up a new handset, just use Switch, then go to the Browser and check your Flickr or Share on Ovi, or go to the Music Store or N-Gage, or go to Messaging and check your email without having to teach it your username or your password on every single service once again? Now that’d be seamless switching!
Have you ever used any of these methods before, or did you just try one of them now? Do you have any other tips for us to make good use of? And what other data do you wish was easily transferable between handsets? Maybe we can look into it.
[Photo courtesy of DayLife]
The only thing I’m really missing from the Switch application is custom detail tags in the contacts application.
I regularly set up my contacts using the set tags, then edit the names slightly. For example I’ve got one person who spends every Thursday out of the country and on another number so I renamed the detail to Roaming. Whenever I use Switch, or even reload a back up of contacts from the mass memory those custom details are back to their default form.
There’s something I have noticed about Contacts transfer when switching devices: on S60 phones it is possible to edit the labels of each detail (name, last name, mobile, telephone…) a contact may have, but unfortunately the edited details are not synced/transferred in the process.
I recently bought an E71 and when I retrieved my contacts (from an E50) using the Switch application, I noticed that the edited details and the default numbers I may have assigned were not taken into account during the sync. I was forced to re-edit many labels and re-assign the default numbers, thus partially negating the use of the Switch application, as far as Contacts transfer is concerned.
Do you know a way to sync/transfer your contacts along with all the customized details and default numbers ?
Nokia should really look I this one and improve Switch. What’s the point of having your own syncing application built in your devices if it does not even sync (the contacts) correctly ?!!
InstFast is working if you set your phone’s clock to the end of 2007. nice article!
I’m with the rest of the guys here. The very first thing I look for in the menu is the switch app. And like the others have mentioned, I wish it saves and transfers my cutomized detail labels. I normally go contact per contact, line by line to make sure it matches. I have a few contacts that have more than one cel number and I like either for work or personal use.
I also email myself the applications Although I have to look into doing the zip method. For now, I have a gmail label/folder called Phone Apps. I normally categories my emails and archive what doesn’t need to be in the inbox. i subscribe to all labels/folders in the built-in email app.
Rita, I’ve written a post on how to backup the things you listed as missing.
Thanks for the info about locations as I haven’t been using that function on my phone much.
You can use the same trick in the Podcasting applications.
Mark all the podcasts and then send via bluetooh.
You’ll get a file containing all the podcasts.
When it comes to applications I’ve got a folder named Essentials which all the install files (Applications, games, themes etc. resides) If I want the same applications I just copy that folder to the memory card of the new phone.
There’s one important thing though and that is to keep SMS / MMS messages, in additions to the email messages from the inbuilt email client (That isn’t that important as most people use IMAP)
Here’s an excerpt from a .txt file I have written some backup folders in.
These are based on the assumption that you’ve installed things / uses the memory card.
I’m not 100% sure, but I think that the emails from the inbuilt email client resides in the Mail folder too. (If not this folder contains the SMS / MMS messages)
E:\Private\10207114 - Themes
E:\Private\102033E6 - Java appz
E:\Private\1000484b - Mail folder
C:\Private\20007801 - Download!
c:\Private\100012a5\dbs_100065ff_contacts.cdb - Contacts
The last two I think you have to have hacked your phone to access I don’t remember.
(I got a problem with Download! listing things I downloaded but didn’t install with an icon which I didn’t like. So I deleted that folder and the registry for Download! was reset)
Ops forgot to mention that InstFast has been updated / replaced with LFile which works better (I couldn’t get InstFast to work even after turning back the date)
Unfortunately the new version is unsigned and therefore not available for everyone.
More info below:
http://www.symbian-freak.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=198478#198478
The most useful piece I’ve read in a long while. Kudos!
I never paid attention to Contact Labels as I don’t usually edit labels. But I have to agree that they should be remembered, along with Groups and Defaults. Nokia take notes.
Mr-X,
Yeah after looking into it for days, I figured that I needed to hack my phone to access the other stuff. I am still anti-hacking at heart, will see if that changes over time.
Vlad,
Thx
This is great, Rita. Having just moved from my N75 to my N82 I see some things i did right, and some places I could have done quite a bit better.
Future article ideas:
- wiping your old phone to give to a friend, sell on eBay, send back to the manufacturer.
- switching back and forth between two (or more) phones and keeping them and your files in sync (or as closely as possible)
Well its a very good post. Switch is simply amazing application that can do most of the stuff. About cookies of your web browser, i remember a file called cookies.dat somewhere inside the private folder. Transfering that file may do the stuff i think. Please try it but you know it should be hacked.
hey. Tell me one thing. If i have got licenced softwares on my cell like handy taskman, quickoffice 5 etc. How do i get the licences registered with the new phone if i switch
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