{"id":5025,"date":"2013-10-18T00:51:21","date_gmt":"2013-10-17T23:51:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/?p=5025"},"modified":"2013-10-18T01:35:21","modified_gmt":"2013-10-18T00:35:21","slug":"migrating-sms-messages-from-ios-to-android","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2013\/10\/migrating-sms-messages-from-ios-to-android.htm","title":{"rendered":"Migrating SMS messages from iOS to Android"},"content":{"rendered":"

The iPhone 3GS that I use for work is now getting a little long in the tooth, no longer eligible for updates (read security risk) and the battery often runs out before the end of the day. \u00a0I still have a 4S that I use (with iOS 7) in my personal life but the company iPhone was replaced today with an Android handset (Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini). \u00a0This is my first Android phone – and will be an interesting experience because I want to see how this Google platform gets on with Microsoft Exchange (my previous experience with ActiveSync has been with iOS and Windows Phone 7).<\/p>\n

Initial impressions are mixed and it may take me some time to get used to Android (or maybe it’s the O2\/Samsung customisations) but I do have one observation:\u00a0Google Play seems much faster than iTunes for app downloads…<\/p>\n

The first apps installed on my phone were\u00a0iSMS2droid, Dropbox and Spotify.\u00a0Two of those apps seem pretty obvious, but “what’s iSMS2droid?”, you might ask. \u00a0It’s a handy app for importing SMS messages extracted from an iPhone backup to Android format.<\/p>\n

The mechanics of transferring SMS messages from iPhone to Android are described in a hongkiat.com blog post<\/a>\u00a0but, in short, the steps are:<\/p>\n

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  1. Backup the iPhone in iTunes<\/li>\n
  2. Locate the backup file in\u00a0%appdata%\/Apple Computer\/Mobile Sync\/Backup\/ on Windows or ~\/Library\/Application Support\/MobileSync\/Backup\/ on a Mac<\/li>\n
  3. Open the folder with the most recent timestamp (one per synced device, I think)<\/li>\n
  4. Search for the file called 3d0d7e5fb2ce288813306e4d4636395e047a3d28 and copy it to your Android phone (I did this via Dropbox)<\/li>\n
  5. Open iSMS2droid<\/a> and tap “Select iPhone SMS Database”, then point the app at the file you transferred from the iPhone backup. This will allow the message database to be converted and will save a file called iSMS2droid.xml (on my phone, it was in \/storage\/sdcard0\/SMSBackupRestore).<\/li>\n
  6. At this stage you’ll need another app, called\u00a0SMS Backup & Restore<\/a>, which can read the iSMS2droid.xml file\u00a0(on my phone, it was in \/storage\/sdcard0\/SMSBackupRestore) and import the messages. \u00a0All but one of my SMS messages were then restored and availble in the Android app.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Unfortunately, I did have a couple of issues to resolve along the way.<\/p>\n