I’ve just received my new Samsung Galaxy 24 Ultra from Verizon. My old phone is a Samsung Galaxy Note 9, which is on its last legs (it’s a periodic heating problem and I’ve been nursing it along, but it is getting really annoying).
And…Discourse is telling me I asked the same question in 2018 for a Note 4 to Note 9 transition. So consider this a request for any updates on how to make the smoothest transfer. I have some instructions from Verizon and I have heard of Samsung’s Smart Switch app, but I’m not sure what the best sequence is to make sure I have to do the least work to reconstruct (most) everything on my current phone.
I currently believe I’m backing my phone up to the Verizon cloud (something I need to check) and WhatsApp now has its own backup feature, but I’m still concerned with things like my Google Maps directions widgets (which I had to reconstruct last time IIRC) and my settings and data in some other apps (mostly travel oriented).
My understanding is that (unless you are rooted and use a specific root-backup app) the automated tools generally do not migrate over settings from apps directly, and that it depends on the apps themselves. Any app that can synchronize between devices (or their website) will transfer over. And many apps will provide some way to export and then later import your settings.
That is for Android in general, though. Samsung is the one OEM that has apps with a lower level access that can often let you do things that standard Android can’t. I’m not familiar enough with their transfer app to say for sure what it can transfer.
But, still, I’d look into whether or not the apps whose data you want to transfer over can automatically synchronize, and whether or not they have an Export and Import function.
Edit: from what I’ve read, Samsung Smart Switch does not seem to transfer app data. So it won’t backup your settings.
With iPhones, you just tell the new phone you are upgrading from an old phone, each phone reads a QR code on the other, then place them down next to each other, and wait. That’s it - everything comes across as was, except IIRC what’s in your Apple Wallet.
Is there not a similarly simple process in the Samsung world?
Its been about a year since I last did this. I had a Samsung Galaxy S20, and I got a Galaxy S22.
I do not use the Samsung accounts, I store everything on Google Cloud Platform / Google Drive / Google Pictures
I just logged into my Gmail account, and magic happened. All my apps were installed (took a while, of course), my data, photos, notes, etc was available, etc.
We just did this. More often than necessary. Smart Switch worked fine - it is not great about updating you on progress but it worked. The only issue I had was that my old phone had a memory card where I store music, and it glommed everthing into a directory on the new phone without the hierarchy by artist I had set up.
I’d go with that to start and see if you need to adjust anything afterwards.
We were going from S8s to S21s and S24s, so quite a gap - but it still worked.
I bit the bullet and just did it Sunday night. I’d say that between Verizon’s activation and Smart Switch, it was about 90% successful. It took about 3 hours before I called it a night.
I plan to go through my old phone’s apps and compare to what and where they are or aren’t on my new phone. A couple I checked Sunday were no longer in the Play Store, so I’ll be looking for substitutes.