Any possible way to extract text messages?

[oryan_dunn]

I got my mother-in-law a new Lumia 640. Her old phone is a Lumia 620 with Amber ((lemondrop!) Cricket!). She didn't have text message backup turned on, so I turned it on. It only backed up the last month to the cloud.

I tried the Transfer My Data app, but WP8 can only transfer contacts via Bluetooth. Same story for exporting to the SD card.

Any ideas? With how (celery!) WP8 was, amazing anyone stuck around. As of now, it seems her texts are forever stuck on the old phone.

Edit: Well, I figured out part of it. The Messaging app on the new phone had an option set to only download one month of messages. I changed that to all time, which seems to have got all the messages, but it didn't get any of the MMS content.

Edit 2: Spoke too soon again. Their Wi-Fi was really slow. Disabled Wi-Fi, and in just a few minutes all MMS content downloaded.

Edit 3: I guess I'm still curious if there is a way to extract SMS/MMS from a WP8 phone. I think with WP8.1, the "Transfer My Data" app can pull them out via the "Export to SD card" option.

 

[Tumultus]

I am not sure if the TRANSFER MY DATA app would be of any use to you?

 

[oryan_dunn]

I am not sure if the TRANSFER MY DATA app would be of any use to you?

As I said, that app on WP8 can only transfer contacts, not SMS/MMS.

 

[Tumultus]

Transfer my Data copies your contacts from an old phone to your new Windows Phone via Bluetooth. Your old phone may also be capable of transferring text messages and pictures.

Sorry! I just went with the app description above.

 

[xandros9]

do that message backup thing and have it selected for All Time. Also give it a day.

also, watch your language, pseudo-censored or not.

EDIT: whoops I just saw you figured it out!

 

[oryan_dunn]

Yeah, I was at my mother-in-law's house for far too long and was getting very upset. Sorry about the language.

I guess my final question is more along the lines of, are text messages off limits for apps? Ie, could I write my own app to export the messages? I would assume not, since nothing like that exists in the WP8 store.

 

[Dan TheMan86]

so you just turn the text message backup on and hope it works? Why is there no progress bar showing that your messages are actually getting backed up?

 

[xandros9]

so you just turn the text message backup on and hope it works? Why is there no progress bar showing that your messages are actually getting backed up?

Because its done real-time and meant to be left on, updated as it happens. Yes, you give it a day or so at the most and it'll work.

It's more of a message sync actually.

 

[Dan TheMan86]

Because its done real-time and meant to be left on, updated as it happens. Yes, you give it a day or so at the most and it'll work.

It's more of a message sync actually.

That's bad news My 920 has this bad lockscreen glitch and I need to hard reset it very soon because it seems to happen every few hours. I guess I can try to wait until tomorrow to do a full reset

 

[oryan_dunn]

That's bad news My 920 has this bad lockscreen glitch and I need to hard reset it very soon because it seems to happen every few hours. I guess I can try to wait until tomorrow to do a full reset

I was gonna say with WP8.1 you could use the "Transfer My Data" app to export to SD card, but I just realized the 920 doesn't have an SD card slot. Lets hope the built-in sync works for you. I wonder if your phone keeps restarting, if it picks up where it left off. Seems like a good addition to that app would be an export to onedrive option.

Something you could try, if you have a spare WP, try setting it up with your account, and enable message backup and set download to all time. You should be able to tell if everything was backed up.

I also think there used to be a way to check message backup online via outlook.com, but I'm not sure those methods still work.

 

[Dan TheMan86]

I DO have a Lumia 820 that I use for a MP3 player....I should try that and see how it goes.