Hello, everyone. I just got a Murena phone for the first time today (CMF, model A015), and I’m trying to get everything set up. I’m not quite sure where to start or how to transfer everything, though. My old Android phone doesn’t work very well, but I still have a lot of photos and notes on it (not to mention game progress). I tried connecting the two phones with the included cable, following the guide about backing up files, but I couldn’t find a way to transfer any files; if the folders from the old phone appeared accessible from the filesystem on the new phone, I certainly didn’t see it. Does anyone have some good tips?
the doc page is Migrate to /e/OS - it’s not linear, as in not everything applies.
Your old Android supports .vcf export of the addresses out of the Contacts App, the doc page has an entry for that - that’s where I’d begin. I’d skip on the doc page advice and do it with the “localsend” App (with both devices in the same wifi). Create backup archives of your favourite messengers (they each have their own mechanism), transfer that and have it read when you first start up the App. On setup they do ask for such an archive (Signal and Whatsapp). Photos then is just another file transfer (you can do complete folders, no need to select individual files).
Well, I did the contacts manually, I managed to save my text files from my note app on my computer, and I think I got the photos transferred over, but I’m still having trouble with the text messages. The solution listed in the guide requires an app that’s old enough that my old phone won’t even download it, and the most promising one that I found elsewhere requires paid software. The old one is a Samsung Galaxy, if that matters.
this looks active: GitHub - jberkel/sms-backup-plus: Backup Android SMS, MMS and call log to Gmail / Gcal / IMAP - in the releases is an apk to download - or use Obtanium to use github regularly as source.
it pushes the sms backup via imap to an account (not gmail necessarily, just an imap account).
The guide suggests qksms it’s from 2021, weird that is shouldn’t work? it will see the sms messages of the system and create a backup that can be restored in the target device (default “Messages” App is in fact a qksms rebrand/fork)
Okay, I managed to find a newer version of qksms and got most of them, but for some reason, there’s a big gap between June 5, 2023 and today where it didn’t pick up any messages, even though they show up in both the default message app and QUIK on the old phone. Is there a way to do a backup starting from a specific date? Also, the release page for SMS Backup Plus doesn’t have anything newer than 2019, and I don’t know how to compile the code on a phone.
Edit: I tried SMS Backup and got an IO error after a while.
the qksms .json backup does timestamps in unix epoch, that’s not helpful for inspection by date unfortunately… but can you tell what you’re missing isn’t there or just isn’t imported?
Oh, another thing…I am trying to have the Notes app sync with the cloud, but every time I press OK after choosing my Murena account, it just goes back to the “choose one” screen.
that’s due to the murena outage, see Notes App can't open local or online - #2 by tcecyk - whatever other Notes app you choose, at best it is file based - the Notes default app isn’t really
Hm, that’s a bit annoying. Are there good recommended third-party note apps?
Also, is the phone supposed to take 6 hours to charge? The only USB plugs that I had were from my old phones, but neither the phone nor the cable that I bought with it came with a plug. Do I need to go buy a generic USB charger or something?
Obsidian is polished and only a 10MB install, can do a local markdown folder without upselling you - if you create this within Documents/ it will be uploaded to a tethered nextcloud (Murenas or any others), so you wouldn’t need Obsidians sync solution to continue working on Notes elsewhere.
Battery… I don’t own a CMF tetris, here are some numbers of other users with a 25W charger: https://old.reddit.com/r/CMFTech/comments/1g8087m/cmf_charger_help/ - you could try a usb-c laptop charger, more watts (but check specification if it can downscale)
Well, I sent an e-mail to the help deck about the battery. I don’t know what kind of charger my old Samsung Galaxy uses, but 6 hours is patently ridiculous. As for Obsidian, it doesn’t use AI, does it? The description mentions a “knowledge base” and a “second brain”, which don’t sound like things that would describe a simple notepad app.
Obsidian isn’t opensource, it’s only drawback - but hacker friendly, many (community) plugins, themes etc. If you want AI there’s probably a plugin, but not by default. It’s focused on files as interchangeable format, no lock-in.
I don’t want AI, so that’s fine. Is it safe to download apps from sources other than the App Lounge if they’re not available there? Discord, for instance, only seems to be downloadable from Google Play. Also, I keep getting text messages from 1000000000 that contain a bunch of markup text-like junk. I assume that it’s spam, but it does mention something about my password (including the length) in the jumble of characters, so is it something that I should be worried about or that I can safely block?
Edit: Hey, wait a minute! You didn’t tell me that Obsidian was paid software. Isn’t there a decent free one? I’m not paying all that money just for a notepad app.
Discord is in AppLounge - it’s a client to the Playstore, as in: it will fetch the installable file from Google.
Obsidian is pretty transparent about the sync function being the paid tier, if you use the local folder as written it stays free.
Text messages from 100000… an anonymized screenshot can tell if scam or error message? I’d think the latter.
Ah, I see. Huh. I could have sworn that last time, I tried the local version and it still directed me to the pair tier…well, no matter. I can’t get it to import my old messages, though, even though they’re just plain text files. And trying to open them from the file system prompts me to choose an app to open them with, and it doesn’t give me Obsidian as an option.
Here’s the screenshot of the message. I’m not sure if there’s anything else that I need to hide.
I’m also having trouble getting Dropbox to work. I downloaded and installed it, and I can access it from the browser just fine, but trying to use the desktop app gives me an error about Google Play for some reason.
Importing plain text files: we’re talking about Notes still as you wrote “old message”? if you put plaintext files in the folder that Obsidian is watching (it’s “vault”) and enable the settings switch “detect all file extensions” it should pick them.
Messages from 1000000: should be voicemail, not spam - vs_len
pw_len
smtp_pw
cmsgroup
parameters come up there - there’s a bit of technical discussion on it, sorry can’t help here, my carrier doesn’t have that feature
Dropbox: tried this - I can see the warning/error screen on the account, but can use the Dropbox App itself. If you have a subscription via playservices, you probably need to use that/your account with microG (that is a central component to /e/OS that does the Playstore compatibility). You can add this via accounts. microG can do to some degree verify bought licenses via the playstore if enabled (by default last I checked).
Thanks. The old messages were written in Samsung Notes and later exported as plain text files. Obsidian does show them with that option ticked, but it doesn’t seem to want to open them; trying just causes it to ask me what app I want to use to open it. As for Dropbox, I’ve had it on PC since 2012, but I don’t remember how I downloaded it on my previous phone. I have the free version, though.
Notes: you could (mass-)rename the plaintext files to .md as in Markdown, then they should be editable. I was unaware Obsidian won’t interact with .txt, sorry
Dropbox: as said, the version via AppLounge seemed functional to me (not dropbox.com via browser, the native App) - apart from the licensing message. I was confused a bit by you describing it as “desktop app”
Changing the file extension to .md did indeed work. That’s…something. I don’t know why it can’t handle .txt, but hey, if it works, it works. As it turns out, the Dropbox problem was because I already had 3 devices linked to it (desktop, laptop, and old phone). It seems to work now.
I suppose the next thing is to figure out what to do about Yahoo Mail…I’ve used the same e-mail address since I was 12, and I’ve occasionally needed to check it on my phone, but the privacy rating for the app is abysmal. I wonder if the PC version is any better…
Yahoo Mail: you can add the yahoo account to the default Mail App, it should work. It’s in the left sidebar, bottom Settings → Accounts → add Account