Can anybody recommend an app or computer program that can copy the exact content and layout of an android phone to another of the same kind? I have a cracked screen and got so concerned about it I got myself another phone of exactly the same spec and want to get all my contacts and apps onto the newer phone.
You mean this one? mobiledit.com/phone-copier Does contacts only. I found this one and have tried it. softpedia.com/get/Internet/Telephony-SMS-GSM/91-PC-Suite-for-Windows-Mobile.shtml 91 PC Suite. Copies android apps too. Not to worry.
Root the phone and install Titanium Backup. If you can't root, try Helium from the Play Store (I don't have enough posts to link to it).
find a custom recovery for you device and use that to make a nandroid of the one phone and use the custom recovery to restore the nandroid to the second phone. easy as pie. or if you don't have a custom recovery use dd command. you can make a block level copy of the partitions that way and flash them from fastboot or terminal in recovery if you don't have a fastboot capable device. there's several ways that this can be done. finding an app or program to do it for you though (aside from a custom recovery) is not going to happen i'm afraid. android is very hands on when it comes to things like this and is not for the novice--but the only way to learn is to dive in lol. i've got over five years deep level android experience and hundreds and hundreds of builds from source under my belt. if you need a more detailed approach to getting this done let me know.
I realize this is probably considered to be an ancient thread - but the topic remains highly desirable. Since posting into this thread I have learned a great deal and have managed to 'clone' at least several LG L34C phones for use as other things besides what tracfone sold them for, BUT: Making nandroid backups and restoring them remains subject to too many exceptions UNLESS you have all the exact bits in order. Right now this subject concerns me because we got a very, very nice unlocked BLU phone - and I spent most of a couple of days de-bloating it and customizing it for my extremely less than technically competent partner... Only to find that it had a dead spot that is growing in the touch screen. Can I get another of the same model - sure. Do I want to spend all that time AGAIN doing all that stuff AGAIN - nope. I still say that there should be some sort of very easy method to take an image of an entire Android phone so as to simply plonk it into another of the same make & model and have the apps & settings duplicate. This has been possible with Linux & windows PCs for years already - and is utterly simple to do. Android devices need this functionality as well and I dearly hope that it will arrive sometime soon !! (If I were a clever & young enough man I would certainly try to make such a thing myself.)
I totally agree and have no idea why such device imaging applications do not exist. Before I upgraded to a smartphone, I was a long time user of those Windows Mobile Pocket PC devices, and I still occasionally use my Dell Axim X51v (WM6.1). I could clone that in minutes and redeploy it even quicker. Because it was so fast, it meant I could swap between installations very easily rather than have one bulky, sluggish install with everything in one image, e.g. I could have one install just for GPS Sat Nav stuff which helped it run faster.
I used Easus for years to copy and clone partitions and i am just a regular normal computer user . and i sure would love if i could do the same for android smartphones . please help . and another thing i could use help with . is that i have a smart phone that is Blocked by the original carrier . if there is any step by step tutorial on how to deblock it . that would be very nice
That there are no easy full backup/image methods must have something to do with protected/paid apps. I think I've tried every backup method & app in existence by now. NONE of them are able to make a full backup & restore things just as they were. The 2 biggies seem to be Titanium - which is OK, but not even close to being easy to use - and Helium - which IMO, just totally sucks. After all this time of Android devices being around it sure would be great if someone would make a friendly, easy solution for getting a 100% restorable full backup image somehow...easily !?!
I am familiar with Samsung devices concerning backups. It depends what you want to backup and one should know about the partitions. For instance there is a EFS partition holding all device specific IDs such as IMEI and MAC addresses. If you mess with it you probably can lose your IDs which makes the phone unusable...I myself made good experiences using 'nandroid' backups such as philz touch CWM and TWRP custom recoveries...they usually can backup/restore anything except primary and secondary bootloaders. I always would exclude EFS to restore, though. Except you'd have to restore your specific hardware IDs for some reason. Samsung devices can be updated via Odin keeping all personal data, though. There's usually no backup needed before. The internal and external SD cards can be backuped to PC via MTP by plugging in a USB cord... Also if one is willing to experiment I suggest to have a look at chainfires flashfire app...it's very powerful be careful..the app needs root access though...
Hi Yen, and thanks. My best/worst examples are the un-activated 'toy' phones that I goof around with... They are a couple of cheapies locked to tracfone that are rooted & used wifi-only - aside of those I also have a recent Android TV Box that I plan to use at my desk as a sort of Android PC. When I try new stuff on these sometimes it breaks them - with no simple way to get back to the 'before' place !! So I usually have to do a factory reset...re-root...de-bloat...re-install...yada, yada, yada. A huge & annoying waste of time. Flashfire may be a solution to this - it is the only thing I've found that I have not tried, and here's why: Not impressed by the 'timebomb' admittedly included...also, I have tried reaching out to Chainfire for support in the past and never gotten any reply except having to pass his spam protection. Using any app for backup that might just suddenly quit is not very reassuring to me ?!?
I've been with flashfire since it was a 'closed' beta. Chainfire is extending the timebomb in time by update of the app.... The 'worst' thing that might happen is that you need to buy the app in the future....for now the paid pro app and the free app are absolutely the same. I have paid for it though to support CF who is one of the major Android developer. He's very skilled, but to arrange a conversation with him is almost impossible. For your needs you could: -Try to get a custom recovery like TWRP or CWM (a custom recovery is by far the best for your needs). I did a lot of modifying and fiddling of the Android OS (framework and SystemUI). They both are able to bring back the original condition within 3-5 minutes by restoring major partitions...even after boot looping of the system... -Try flashfire (timebomb is no issue you just need to get it updated in time) -Backup the needed partitions via terminal and commands such as dd For the latter you'd need some knowledge about Linux commands...and how to get the partition layout. To me the difference of meaning is To clone: One creates a duplicate of at least one partition on RAW level. This means a 1:1 copy of the entire partition on physical (block) level. The digital signature of such is remained. To copy: One creates a duplicate of the contents of a partition (files)....restoring re-creates just the contents (files)
Thanks Yen. Thanks Again Yen. Please pardon my skittish-ness; I've had PC apps that were paid for AND had such time-bombs in them to force re-payment...and those have made me very careful. I am also somewhat uncomfortable with folks who make & sell stuff & offer a contact email address - but then ignore genuine requests for help. T'would be great to have such ease in doing this sort of stuff: Lately I was setting up several Kyocera phones for friends and though they are very good phones - I could find no recoveries for them a'tall, which was very disappointing.
Depends on a hell of a lot of factors. I do this with my device successfully. Sp flash tool its very dangerous, it can destroy your device if you make a single mistake. but MTK devices are safe wit this. you can clone your device with this & restore it in anther phone of same make & hardware model. but not like in the movies that allows you to receive parallel sms/calls, not that. you can restore & access all data stored from original device including MMC & flash on phone. Now for samsung i think its called as Odin flash. but you need to find all the info for you particular smartphone before you dive in. I don not have info for apple, but some will surely know how
Illustrating wonderfully well the difficulties in this idea: When I had a couple of MTK devices I tried it - without success. So really - Android has been around quite a while, and will likely be replaced by the big G at some point - and in all that time nobody has ever come up with even one really good (& easy to use) tool to satisfy this very real need. That's kind of sad, I think !!
@jimbo: Firstly, welcome to MDL. And yes. Odin is the ticket. The problem is the secure bootloader and KNOX. I have a Samsung Galaxy note 3 that it took me 2 weeks before I was able to root it and back it up. The only thing that made it possible was the fact that it was a Verizon phone, and Verizon has an arrangement with the FCC that forces them to leave the boot loader unlocked. Answers to many of these questions exist on the XDA forums.
We have no Samsung Android devices - so Odin is not an option for us, right ?? Aside of that, there was a reply here before mentioning Xender & a replicate feature...but now that reply seems missing ?? Has anyone tried that or is it irrelevant to this concept ?? Thanks.
@smallhagrid: That's true. Also, I noticed that the OP did not mention the brand of his/her smartphone. That would help as well.
Thanks for replying here Michaela Joy. I am not the OP, but I will add that our phone devices include some by LG, HTC, Kyocera and we also have a cranky Nexus 7 as well as a couple of cheapo generic tablets. After all this time it still surprises me that there seems to be no simple, quick & easy way of cloning identical devices much like Redo Backup will do for PCs. For example - I made an LG34C into a wifi only GPS & MP3 player; a friend saw it & wanted one JUST like it, so she picked up an identical phone - and I did all the setting up all over again just like I did for ours. There should be a way to just grab the whole thing into an image file then dump it right in, reboot, and...done. (But there ain't, I'm pretty sure ?!?)