Should I start from scratch?

July 21, 2023 9:57 AM

With a new phone, is it better to reinstall apps from scratch or to copy them over from my existing phone?

I mean, that's pretty much the whole question. I'm getting a new Android phone in the not-too-distant future (getting some variation of the Pixel 8 when it comes out). It's been several years since I've gotten a new phone, but as I understand it, new phones now are really good at "do you want to copy over your old phone" setup flows.

But my question is, would it be smarter/better for the setup for me to install apps manually? It seems like copying over from my existing phone would also bring over all the quirks and little unexplained bugs that I just sorta live with now, that have developed in my current setup, would it not? I get that reinstalling all the apps I need will be tedious. But given that I keep phones longer than many people tend to, I'm willing to put in the time up front if it means a more robust base to move forward from.

And I guess that brings up a subsequent question. I use Nova Launcher; should I rebuild THAT config from scratch on a new phone as well, or back up what I have now and download it to the new phone?

posted by pdb to Technology (5 answers total)

I just did this last week, going from a Pixel 2 to a Pixel 7a. (So, very old phone, out of date OS.)

Before the transfer, I went through the old phone, made sure I had a very current backup in the cloud, and looked through my apps and deleted anything I didn't want any longer.

Transferring was the whole connect the two cords and wait, which took about 45 minutes (Pixel 2 has 64gb).
Most of it was seamless, all the apps were there, all of my files (music, photos). Then I had to update all the apps, as the pixel 2 was running on an old android OS. That took another hour or so. Then the OS wanted to update. Another 8 minutes and a restart. Cool. It knew most of my google sign-ins, so that was pretty good.

However, a couple of little things happened. I couldn't sign into my primary medical provider's app. It would just hang on a blank screen, then reload the sign in page (didn't say wrong password or anything). After a day of trying that, I just uninstalled and reinstalled and it worked. My guess is that for some apps, when you copy from the old phone, the tokens are not compatible. So you may need to fiddle with a few apps.

My second issue is that I've lost my call logs and my text history. I thought they were backed up in the cloud, I'm on the verizon platform. I did a workaround on that by enabling the verizon branded messaging app, which synched my texting data for the past 90 days, then switched back to the native text app and it ported it over. I still don't have my call logs, my mistake was not installing the verizon cloud on the old phone first. I cannot seem to do it now that the service is shut off on that phone.

Those were the only two issues. I'm pretty miffed about my phone log, as I don't have a lot of stuff in my contacts and I would just search through previous calls (and use those as a calendar of when I did something last).

I don't have a lot of apps. Very few customizations. 1 game, several medical sign in things (because every doctor has a different one since Covid), a few library apps, an rss reader, plant & bird IDs, a car charger thing, an airline app, 2 transit apps, music tuning app, and then all the other stuff that came on the phone. So there wasn't much to get out of synch with. So I don't have any experience with Nova Launcher.

TL;DR - Depends on how much stuff you have/want to keep and if it's backed up properly.
posted by typetive at 10:31 AM on July 21, 2023

I have 3 phones I use regularly with two lines. All Android phones. The primary is a Pixel 6 pro. I am running Android beta 14. I generally unlock the boatloader and root my phones. I also do a factory reset often. I backup often and right before I do a reset or load a new OS like Lineage OS. Then, when I have the equivalent of a new phone, I just restore the backup. Admittedly, my phone logs are in Googel Voice so I never checked to see if they are backed up in the Android phone app. Also, most of my texts are using GV so the native messaging app restore has never been a thing I cared about.

One of the other phones I use is a Pixel 3. (Size matters.) It has a lot of freezes and app issues. I happen to think it is because of the old(er) OS and the lack of updates. I think a lot of the quirks of the apps on the old phone are not because of the app itself, but because of the older phone and older OS.

The thing that does not restore from a backup on the icons on my home pages. I take screen shots of them before I wipe so I can redo them as I see fit. That can be time consuming, but I am not sure of an alternative. While I have used Nova launcher, but not in a while. I am quite satisfied with the ANdroid standard launcher. It has come a long way since I got the Pixel 3. Maybe you can backup the Nova launcher configurations to a Nova server or to a desktop or Drive or...

I think you will find the new Pixel 8 (or Pro) so far superior to a Pixel 2 that the way you interact with the phone will change. Consider trying the Nova launcher and the Pixel launcher. Consider redoing your home page(s).

I have 300+ apps (slowly paring them down) so restoring them one by one is insane. When I restore a phone from backup, it does download the app anew from the Google Play Store. It does not backup the actual .apk.It backs up the data and the configurations associated with each app and knows which apps to download fresh.

Sorry for the stream of conscious response. The bottom line is I would restore from a backup of the phone not do each app individually.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 11:18 AM on July 21, 2023

For transfering call logs and text messages I've used an app called SMS backup and restore.
posted by yyz at 12:32 PM on July 21, 2023

I did this recently (Pixel 3 to Pixel 7, transfered during the initial setup process with a transfer cable) and it's fine, but it didn't blow me away either. Basically it installs all of the Google Play apps and transfers some local data like photos and SMS messages as well as data backed up to your Google account but it doesn't transfer sideloaded apps or other kinds of local data, so there was a fair amount of setup left to do to transfer things over. Work profiles didn't transfer at all, if you use them.

If you don't fully understand the consequences of running a phone with an unlocked bootloader or rooting your Android device, I would explicitly recommend against doing any sort of backup that requires that.

(The most seamless this process has ever been on Android that I've seen is with Samsung-to-Samsung device transfers, but that's obviously not an option for you.)
posted by Aleyn at 1:35 PM on July 21, 2023

My provider (Consumer Cellular) helped me do this through wifi and bluetooth. Worked perfect and speedy.
posted by charlesminus at 3:47 PM on July 22, 2023