transferring apps from one phone to another?

[kenwen]

Hi all,

I just broke out the company credit card and ordered myelf an HTC Desire

My question is how do I transfer apps I purchased for my Hero to the Desire?

I'm sure I saw somewhere that it happens automagically but couldn't find any info

cheers,
Ken

 

[Rusty Shackelford]

Worst case scenario, download a file managing app and back up the programs to your sd card, then load them on to the desire from there.

 

[BrandonGoodman]

I believe you just need to log in to the new phone using the same google/gmail account that you purchased your applications with and all your settings and apps should magically and automatically re-download if you were allowing. I know first hand this worked when I move from one moto droid to a second. Seems likely it would work on other devices as long as they both sync.

File managing apps that back up to the SD card are nice and will help with free, un copy protected apps. But anything you paid money for is likely to be copy protected will not be backed up using these types of apps.

Additionally, I believe that when you restore an backed up app using an aforementioned 3rd party management tool, updates will not show up in the Android Market App since the restored backup was not directly installed from the market.

 

[bobstudent3]

I don't know about Titanium Backup or My Backup, but using Astro to back up your apps only works halfway.

If you restore from the Astro backup, the apps are there, but the Android Market doesn't know it, so you won't get any updates. When you re-install them, from the Market, you will get a warning you are re-installing them even though it doesn't recognize that it was ever installed in the first place.

This is a problem with paid programs, since you will never get any updates and you may or may not be able to use them. I paid for 2 programs before I changed from a Droid to the HTC Incredible. iReader worked, but doesn't show up as being installed. Documents To Go didn't work and took 1/2 hour on the phone with them to get it to work. Even after it was fixed, it still doesn't show up as being installed, so I will never get any updates for Documents To Go.

A tip with Documents To Go: call the sales department, not the technical support department. The technical support people will completely ignore this problem. Also, you need them to do 2 things: the first is to associate your unlock key with your new registration key. The second is that they have to make a change in their system that you have a "direct" version. Just associating the unlock key with the new registration number by itself doesn't work because the Market doesn't recognize that you've downloaded the program and Documents To Go unlocks through a Market process.

The Market does show that I've purchased iReader, but it's not installed and the Market will not prompt you to re-install the apps that it knows you've already purchased if you switch phones.

 

[NVR2ND]

So did we figure out if the paid apps will automatically be redownloaded. I have several that I paid for, and that would be a large factor for me in switching phones.

 

[terpitude71]

i believe the first time you open your downloads page in the marketplace on the new phone after you put in your gmail credentials, all of the apps you had downloaded on your other device, free or paid, will be on that list. i think if you do not download them right then though, the free ones will drop off of that page if you back out. my apologies if i am wrong, but i could have sworn i heard jerry mention this on the AC podcast once (cheap plug!)

 

[Trophias]

Another is appbrain.

Appbrain.com is the computer version of the Android Market. You can sync your device to the website and vise versa. You can backup and save the apps that you have downloaded and bought and then quickly download them again.

 

[cloak.n.dagger]

I am new to the Android community so I'm not sure how it works going from one phone to another. I have noticed in the app store there is a section called downloads. From here you can uninstall apps. When you do this it says that you can re-download the app for free at any time. If I had to guess, I would think that you could uninstall the app from the app store, log back in to the app store from your new phone, the reinstall it from the downloads section. Just a guess though...

 

[BADST39_Rattler]

I had to do a factory reset after the Froyo update. I have my apps backed up on App brain. What I can't see is how to restore from the web-site to my phone. Help!

 

[tony bag o donuts]

appbrain FTW!

 

[PvilleComp]

I had to do a factory reset after the Froyo update. I have my apps backed up on App brain. What I can't see is how to restore from the web-site to my phone. Help!

You need to download the AppBrain App Market and Appbrain Fast Web Installer from the market. Then login to AppBrain Market and launch the Fast Web Installer. This will associate your phone to the website and you can initiate downloads to your phone from the web.


Hope this helps.

 

[pmcnamara]

I have an EVO. I bought and downloaded the PRO version of PDANet. With Sprint killing the access to HotSpot yesterday I want to move my PDANet onto her Optimus S. I can't see to find the install file so that I can move it to her phone and install it.

 

[iluvmay]

I have a fascinate and had to do a factory reset and now all my music download apps are gone and the market will not let me re-download them...any suggestions for market deleted apps?

 

[Moscow Desire]

Titanium Backup, You won't have to look around for a wifi connection to re-download all the apps. It'll back them up to your sd, then you only need to download TB, and restore the apps.

 

[srkmagnus]

Yes, Titanium Backup or My Backup Pro is what you need to keep full backups of apps onto your phone. With the music downloads, unless they were stored in the app (which I don't see why they were) you may have a file on the sd card with the music downloads.

 

[Orion Pritchard]

I think this thread has evolved to answering a different question. The original question is how do you transfer apps. I just got a new android phone and wanted to transfer apps.

I went online to market.android.com. I selected my apps and displayed apps on my old phone. On each of those apps, I clicked "install" and it asked me which device I wanted to install it on. I selected my new phone and it worked fine.

O..

 

[Janet Schneier]

What about apps no longer available thru Play Store? There's an app on my old phone (Samsung Captivate Glide), that is an apk file. How do I transfer it to my new phone?

 

[blackveils]

What about apps no longer available thru Play Store? There's an app on my old phone (Samsung Captivate Glide), that is an apk file. How do I transfer it to my new phone?

there will probably be compatibility issues with the old app on new phone.

if you already have the file, just copy it to the new phone, there are many ways you could do this, a cloud storage service, or copy to computer then copy to new phone etc.

there are also many apps which can backup and install .apk files, ES file explorer is one of them. the general idea is you tap it, then it installs.

do this at your own risk, I don't know what that app is, and suspect it won't work on the new phone. you could cause conflicts in the system.

 

[non5equitur]

There are some apps that have been discontinued. For instance, the app we use to remotely view our security cameras is no longer in the Google Play store. We prefer it because it's ad-free and the images don't travel through 3rd party servers. I'd like to move it from an old phone to a new one. It's just personal choice.

 

[123playcard]

Back up apps using various available on the market then TRY first on the new phone to see which ones working best for you BEFORE you delete / format the old phone