[Miyuri99]

Hi,

I'm trying to help my mother transfer her data from her super old phone (LG T310) to a somewhat "newer" phone (Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini), the issue being that the LG phone is not an Android one and there's no account that can be used to sync the data…
I downloaded LG PC Suite IV on her computer and was able to save some data. The pictures/videos/etc. were saved to a folder that I can access in her documents and they're working fine, but her contacts, call history and messages are in the program files and don't look compatible with Android.
Is there a way to transfer them to the Samsung phone? Or will she have to enter all her contacts manually (and lose her text messages)? We still have the LG phone, so if there's another program, I can still use the old one. The only solution I was able to find was to transfer the data from the computer to another LG phone with Android and then to sync with Google: unfortunately we do not have access to another LG phone…

Thank you for your help!

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! The messages probably aren't transferable, unless that phone came with some kind of PC program that allows you to back up or export them. For contacts, see if there's an export option in the Contacts section of the LG phone. If there is, then see if you can export the contacts to an SD card on the phone -- it will likely be in .vcf or .csv format. Then you can insert that SD card into a computer and import the contacts to her Google account: https://support.google.com/contacts/.../1069522?hl=en. Once the contacts are in her Google account, they should sync automatically to her S3 mini's Contacts app.

[Miyuri99]

Hi!

Thank you for your answer!
Well, most LG phones come with LG PC Suite to back up the data. It worked with this specific phone: contacts, call log and messages were saved to the PC, but I'm not sure if it's transferable to other non-LG phones…
On the PC, in Program Files > LG Electronics > LG PC Suite IV > Sync, I can find a few files (amongst others) with names that could match: lg_datastoreCallogCfg, lg_datastoreContactCfg, lg_datastoreGetMiniSMSCfg, lg_datastoreMiniSmsCfg and lg_datastoreSmsCfg, all of them being XML documents. No .vcf or .csv files. Can the .xml ones be used to transfer the info to the Samsung phone?

I'll check the Contacts' export option as well on the LG phone tonight, when my mother comes home, since she took it with her for the day.

[B. Diddy]

That's the problem with these kinds of manufacturer-specific backup programs -- they're not universal. It's like Samsung Kies or Smart Switch. I don't know for sure, but I would guess that the .xml files wouldn't be helpful.

[Miyuri99]

I found a "transfer via Bluetooth" option in the Contacts section! Once the 2 devices were connected, it transferred everything pretty quickly, so that's great!

As for the text messages, unfortunately there was no such option. I found out that "SMS Backup & Restore" does use XML files, but unfortunately it won't recognize the ones I found in the LG PC Suite folder and pasted to the SMSBackupRestore folder on the phone, maybe because "SMS Backup & Restore" seems to require XSL style sheets as well…
I'm still looking for now…!

[Miyuri99]

Hi!

Little bit of feedback in case someone has the same issues (although I'm sure there are less and less people transferring from dumb to smart phones ^^). Here is how I solved my problem, and it was actually not that complicated, I should have thought about it from the start… Only Bluetooth and SIM card required!

For the contacts, like I mentioned before, I used the "transfer via Bluetooth" option of the Contacts section on the original phone and it worked very well.

Messages took a bit longer, but I realized after transferring the SIM card to the new phone and going to Messages (which were empty) that if I tapped Menu and went to Settings, I then had "Manage SIM card", in which a bunch of messages were located. I copied them to the phone, but it was only part of the messages from the old phone, so I had to delete the ones on the SIM card, put the card back into the old phone and copy the messages to the SIM card one by one (the phone is so old that it didn't have any option to select all messages at once). Then move the card back to the new phone and copy to the device (this time, I was able to select all messages and copy, so the process was a bit faster). Delete on the SIM and then back and forth again between the 2 phones until everything was transferred (the SIM card's capacity is pretty limited). So yeah, a bit of a hassle, but if your messages are important, it's a solution!
The transfer messed up a bit some of the dates and times but I used the Android SMS Edit app to correct them

So there you have it!

PS: Since the original phone was not a smartphone, Samsung Smart Switch didn't recognize it, and I would have needed internet on the original phone to use a Cloud account…