SMS/MMS transfer

[AppleiPad]

So I took my phone in to the genius bar today to have it checked out for a faulty battery. The 'genius' plugged it in and ran a diagnostic that said the battery was performing normally. I expected this to be the result and I expected him to tell me exactly what he did. He told me to try a restore and set up as new phone since it's probably a software issue. I asked him if there was anyway to transfer only my SMS/MMS from my current phone since I cannot afford to lose those. He said that there are many 3rd party applications to backup texts to your computer, but currently there is no way to get those back on the phone.

Is this true? I am running iOS 5 (4S) by the way. Prefer to avoid jb.

I am aware of some solution that involves copying a single file from the iPhone's backup folder (file:3d0d7e5fb2ce288813306e4d4636395e047a3d28) into the backup of a clean-slate phone, but I believe this would just restore SMS and not MMS.

 

[guineapig]

I'm looking into this issue too.
If you want to, try the method I thought.
As soon as I get my 4S I'll try it myself.
By the way, where did you find the single file copy method?

 

[AppleiPad]

http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20090624022758268

http://osxdaily.com/2010/07/08/read-iphone-sms-backup/

 

[MastahRiz]

You can use something like iFunbox to backup your sms folder and upload it to your new phone.

 

[AppleiPad]

You can use something like iFunbox to backup your sms folder and upload it to your new phone.

Requires jailbreak, right? Even so, this may be the only feasible way. Could you give a quick tutorial how to do this for iOS 5? I think Apple changed around some of the folders (probably due to iMessages and messages syncing over the cloud to all devices).

 

[Small White Car]

I know that this will let you copy them TO a computer:

http://ecamm.com/mac/phoneview/

I don't know if you can then put them back on the phone. But at least you'd have them. And hey, maybe it can copy back. You should call or e-mail that company and ask. It may be worth the price if it works. (It does other stuff too.)

 

[AppleiPad]

I know that this will let you copy them TO a computer:

http://ecamm.com/mac/phoneview/

I don't know if you can then put them back on the phone. But at least you'd have them. And hey, maybe it can copy back. You should call or e-mail that company and ask. It may be worth the price if it works. (It does other stuff too.)

There's a bunch of such apps that let you copy the SMS to your computer. It's copying it back that's a problem. Apple doesn't seem to want you to circumvent iTunes/iCloud backup which annoyingly auto-selects everything to backup and doesn't allow you to restore only certain aspects of the phone.

 

[MastahRiz]

Requires jailbreak, right? Even so, this may be the only feasible way. Could you give a quick tutorial how to do this for iOS 5? I think Apple changed around some of the folders (probably due to iMessages and messages syncing over the cloud to all devices).

I don't think that requires a jailbreak. Just a USB cable.

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I think there are some tutorials already on youtube for it.

 

[AppleiPad]

I don't think that requires a jailbreak. Just a USB cable.

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I think there are some tutorials already on youtube for it.

To the best of my knowledge, iFunBox requires root access which means jailbreak. It'll work without jailbreak but I don't think it will give you access to the folders you need.