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iLoyal

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 18, 2010
175
1
Morning people, due to me going to be restoring my iP4 because I want it to be new so I can set everything, I was wondering if there's any ways I can backup my contacts/SMS. I don't care/want to backup anything else but SMS is a must and contacts follow. Basically I want to back them up and when I finish restoring the phone, I want to be able to input them back in my phone.

Sorry for any confusion and thanks for peeking. :p
 
You could sync your contacts to Google or something similar. Your texts are more difficult, but I think it would be possible to copy the database from one backup to the new backup and then sync/restore from it... I'm not sure though, but someone on here will!
 
PKGBackup

You can backup 8 of the default Apple Apps. I use mobileme so I haven't tested that portion, but I love PKGBackup. It puts my phone exactly how it was before I upgraded to the newest FW/JB.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8G4 Safari/6533.18.5)

Thanks for all the sulotions, but I really want to restore the phone to new and able to have my SMS at least; don't mind the contacts.
 
Thanks for the great responses; will take a look when I am home from work. Again, thanks fellas.
 
I use iPhone Backup Extractor, I pull them out of my latest backup and SSH them into my phone after it was restored. I just did it today.

Instructions(Mac) here:
http://www.iclarified.com/entry/index.php?enid=4974

If you are on Windows I'm sure it is very similar.

I think it has to do with permissions, but when you transfer the db file your old texts show up, but you can't send/receive new ones. So I hope this didn't screw you up, but this won't work without something else. Let me know if you figure it out.
 
PkgBackup has been getting better and better ever since the first release. I can honestly say this was the first time that I was able to backup and restore and not have to move a single icon when it restored. Springboard files put everything right where they were before the restore (did restore as new and reloaded all apps fresh from iTunes subsequently). If you follow the right sequence, it will all be there. The only issue I had was the new App store data library restore feature didn't work (i.e. for Angry Birds), but because I had the data libraries backed up via DropBox I was able to SSH the data files in and save my previous scores.

Just to be clear, here was my process with PkgBackup v4.3.5 (beginning after the iPhone has been upgraded to new firmware version):

Install PkgBackup & restore:
- Cydia Sources
- Jailbreak Applications
- Preferences files
- Springboard files
- Apple defaults apps.

Then reboot and:
- Restore App Store Apps (either from a fresh install or a restore from iTunes

Launch PKGBackup to:
- Restore App Store Data Libraries
- Springboard files (if iOS overwrote my SB icon layout)
 
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