Is there any way to restore backup to Galaxy S6?

[Jabrom]

I have my Samsung Galaxy S6 but I'm very dissapointed to find out that the S6 is not supported at all by Kies 3. I had an S3 before, and I backed up all the data onto my PC with Kies 3, then factory reset the device and sent to a family member in another country who wanted it. You can imagine my frustration upon trying to restore that data to my S6 with Kies 3 only to find it telling me to use Smart Switch. However, Smart Switch only will allow you to restore backups from Apple, Nokia, or Blackberry devices. A Samsung rep has told me that there is no way to restore data backups on PC from a Samsung device to the Galaxy S6. This seems like a massive oversight to me, as Kies 3 was an amazing support program to me, and the only way to remedy my problem is to purchase an older Samsung device compatible with Kies 3, restore the data to that device, then Smart Switch from the older device to the S6. That is a poor solution in my opinion. Can anyone think of another solution to allow me to restore the data from my old device now on my PC to my new S6 without buying another device?

Thank you in advance for any help.

 

[SpookDroid]

Actually, you kinda forgot to read the fine print on Kies. You can restore your backup... to the same device only. Even if the S6 was supported (and to the best of my knowledge, Smart Switch does support Samsung devices, but I could be wrong), the backup you have is for the S3 and could only be restored to an S3...and not just any S3, the very same S3 (so if you send it back for repairs and get a new replacement, you still wouldn't be able to restore the backup to another S3).

This is one thing that I hate about Android. No easy back up offering. There are 3rd party options like Titanium Backup or rooting and doing a complete back up image, but it's not as ease or straight forward.

 

[Jabrom]

Ah, well I guess I would be in this situation regardless then. Well, with that said, the main thing I would like to restore is my contact list. The rest I can do without. Is there a way for me to at the very least view the contacts file saved so I can manually re enter them? Or, I know google can restore a contact list on any android, so is there a way for me to save that contact list to google so I can have it? For some reason the contact list never synced with my google account properly on my s3 so it didnt restore when it tried to sync on my s6.

 

[SpookDroid]

I believe you can sync the Contact list from Kies to Outlook or export it as a file, BUT I'm not sure if you need the phone to be actually connected to Kies to do this or it can do so from a local backup...

 

[LynnL]

Smart Switch absolutely supports Android/Galaxy devices. I used my S4 to restore stuff to my S6 on Wednesday. Install it on both devices, turn on NFC, and hold them back to back. It worked perfectly.

Your other very good option (does the S3 have NFC? I don't remember) is Helium, which requires a little bit of setup the first time (you have to install a tiny desktop app and some drivers), but after that it will do a great job of backing up and restoring for you. You can back up to a computer or your SD card for free, and if you get the premium key you can backup to Drive, Box, or Dropbox.

 

[Jabrom]

Thank you for the replies. LynnL I understand that Smart Switch will handle an exchange between two samsung devices. But I only have one device. So that fix is just doing as I was advised by samsung which means just buying an entirely new device. Seems absurd to me. Why they removed all PC to/from S6 capability, and have restricted it to simply device to/from S6 is beyond me...

But thanks anyways. Off now to try and buy a cheap samsung s3 on kijiji or craigslist in order to access my contact list :-\

 

[LynnL]

I'm really confused. Do you still have your old phone?

If not, why don't you at least try to import your contacts into Google before spending money on a new phone?

 

[bogdaryl]

Helium worked perfectly for me.

Posted via Android Central App

 

[Jabrom]

No. As I said in my first post, I no longer have my old phone the S3. I ONLY have the new S6. Anything involving an old phone OR another device will not help me.

 

[SpookDroid]

Just remember that even if you have the backup in Kies, if I recall correctly, it won't let you restore to another S3, just THE SAME S3 the backup was performed on (which is stupid, IMHO).

 

[Android73]

I had the exact same problem. "Kies Extractor" (third party software) solves this. Not cheap though. You can get 5 of your contacts through the trial version to test that it works but you have to buy the full version for the rest and it's $40. Worth it to me to solve this issue though. If you look around, you may be able to find freeware that does the same thing but I didn't have the patience once I found this.

 

[Amanda Adrah]

To the person that stated the fine print.
That is incorrect. You absolutely can backup and restore on any device that is supported by kies3.
I hade the Galaxy s3, s4, s5 and note 4 and all my data was restored using kies. That is the only software I used for all 4 phones. But it stopped with the s6 as kies doesn't support s6

 

[Amanda Adrah]

Just remember that even if you have the backup in Kies, if I recall correctly, it won't let you restore to another S3, just THE SAME S3 the backup was performed on (which is stupid, IMHO).

It defiantly will restore to a different phone that kies3 supports. I've done it many times. The recent restore I've done was in January. Galaxy s5 data to my note 4

 

[erasat]

Use Smart Switch for PC (Look for it on Google) and it will do what kies3 before, I really don't know if the backup done with Kies3 can manually put in the Smart Switch Backup folder and maybe the Smart Switch program may detect it and use it, I say maybe, you can always try.

For future occasions, just download Helium, it's the easiest and more feature rich of all the Non-root solutions as you can backup almost 90% of the normal apps (there are some apps that doesn't allow this backups) and then you can restore them on any device, if you pay the full version, it will allow Cloud Backups to Drive, Box and Dropbox and very easy to restore from there, plus you can always sync between devices if you have more than 1 that you normally use as your daily drivers.

Also, you can look for a thread I created some days ago that explain how to do a Full Backup (Similar to the one that you can do with root and/or Custom Recoveries, Nandroid backups), but in this case it will only works with the same device, you can't restore to another device.

 

[mistyisland]

if you are on ATT they back up your contacts for you.

 

[TalhaK]

Hi Jabrom. You don't need to worry about your copy. I don't know i which Kies you used to copy your S3. But, in my case I used Kies3 to copy my note 4 for about 1 month back and sold it on to a friend. Meanwhile, I used an iPhone(crap), where I finally got my S6 today(hell yeah). I was very frustrated when I saw that I couldnt use S6 on Kies3. But I downloaded the new Smart Switch for PC. Totally unexpected Smart Switch reads your old backup you have from Kies3. Now I use the phone with my with backup from Note4 on Kies3. And it works!
Try it. I'm sure it will work gr8! ))

PS! Only thing I didnt get over to my S6 was the programs/apps and some settings..
And sorry for my english, tryin my best

 

[Frankie Mendez]

Jabrom I feel your pain, it angers me to know that all I've backed up from my S5 to the kies software can't be restored to my S6 edge. I lost everything I had on the S5.

 

[Megan Werts]

Actually You can restore to a different device. It will move over your text messages, pictures (even organize them into albums), wall paper, lock screen, alarms, call log, wifi addresses and passwords, and of course contacts. I can't remember anything else specifically though I may have missed only a couple of other things, those are what I focus on. I am in the same situation with my Galaxy s6 Edge. I bought my Father a Galaxy s5 after his s3 shattered and restored it with Kies. That is how I know this. If Kies supported the s6 then You would be able to restore it from your old phone. So disappointing. I really wanted my pictures and did not want to have to organize them all over again.

 

[Brad Davis2]

Thank you so much for this advice, this method worked!! I had done a similar thing by baking up my S5 using Kies and doing a factory reset before taking my S5 in for an upgrade.

I installed Smart Switch for PC and it automatically recognized my S6 Edge and the backup/restore file from my S5!

Whew!!!!

 

[victoriam81]

Please help!!!!
! I cannot get mine to recognize. I installed Smart Switch for PC and it only recognized my apple backup's.