E SMS Sync: current status and how to deal with it today

Hello to all of you,

I have become an happy /e/ user a few weeks ago. I’d like to thank all the community for the work and the documentation available which really help to jump in /e/ with both feet!

E SMS Sync is the only default app which does not work on my Galaxy S7 since I have installed it in August 2021:

  • I constantly have a notification saying that E SMS Sync tries to sync with ecloud without (picture below);
  • Sometimes, the app simply crash

syncerror

I understood that E SMS Sync is still being tested by the development team and is only available to those who have subscribed a paid plan. Until the app is usable, i would like to de-activate those annoying notifications and crash messages. Any ideas? Also, any ideas when the app will be usable for anybody?

My /e/ version was 0.17 (installed with the easy-installer) until I updated to 0.18. I have been waiting until a new version of /e/ was published but this update does not fix the issue.

Any suggestion, guidance, info would be much appreciated.

Cheers

This has nothing to do with build, E SMS Sync is available since many releases (it’s been a while, I don’t remember when it was first available …).
To make it work, you must be authorized for the NextCloud app.
Meanwhile, the SMS synchronization can be deactivated in Account Settings (Sync).

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I have asked a couple of times, but was told that this feature is currently restricted to /e/ staff only :frowning: For now, I use both ‘SMS Backup and Restore’ app (from Aurora Store which will backup messages and call logs), and QKSMS message app from F-Droid (instead of /e/'s Message app) which supports local backup.

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As I can see on my old /e/ Cloud, SMS app is far from perfect for now : app name has to be changed, MMS support is missing, contact name retrieval is buggy, …
The big plus is : you can send SMS from the /e/ Cloud, like Microsoft’s “Your Phone Companion” :slight_smile:
Let’s hope the developers will find the time to work on it one of these days!

As local backup, I prefer SMS Backup and Restore (once the ads disabled :wink: ) : it relies directly on Android message database, therefore it does not depend on any messaging application.

I believe the same is true of QKSMS

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I agree :slight_smile:

Thank you all for your replies!

I do hope as well that developers will find time to work on this, sending SMS from the /e/ cloud would be an exciting feature.

In case this help anybody: the workaround I use to backup SMS is SMS Backup & Restore (local) + Nextcloud app. Nextcloud (client) syncs the local SMS Backup & Restore folder with the /e/ cloud. I believe this is safer than keeping only a local backup. I guess this solution is equivalent with the “Pro” version of SMS Backup & Restore.

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Standard /e/ Drive will also upload your backups, as long as you put them in a well-known location (I use Documents\Phone\Backups).

Also, please don’t forget to check & set the retention in your Backup Location Settings :wink:

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Thank you for the tip, @smu44 ! It’s indeed easy to make this work for SMS Backup & Restore, but this does not seem that simple for other apps e.g. Signal - apparently the local folder cannot be changed without uninstall / reinstall. The Nextcloud client app allow to specify what is a “well-known location”, which is not possible with the standard /e/ drive as far as I understand.