How do I clone my Android 4.4 phone's files, apps, games (and their progress on them) to a newer Android phone?
Many Android apps
offer backing up and transfer phone data over the Internet. Some of these include custom launchers (such as Microsoft Launcher over Microsoft OneDrive and Nova Launcher over Google Drive), games (especially with Facebook and/or Google logins), instant messaging (including WhatsApp which allows backing up via Google Drive) and more.
(1) However, the
first step I would recommend is by
signing up to the same Google account with your old device. With this, most data from your old device’s Google apps will be automatically synced and transferred (but please make sure that the sync feature is on via Settings > Google on your old device. In addition to that, your contacts, calendars, photos (via Google Photos) as well as apps which uses Google accounts are also likely to be synced and transferred.
(2) At the same time,
save or upload your Google (and/or Facebook) account-linked apps and game progress when available. Many games have their own auto-save mechanism, so if you do not see any options to save prpgress you are most likely to be fine.
(3) Next, I would recommend to
download a device transfer tool in both devices, from Google Play or another app store. Make sure that this is compatible for both of your devices, especially the phone brand of your new device. Some of the examples (and found in Google Play) are the
Samsung Smart Switch, LG Mobile Switch, HTC Transfer Tool as well as
BlackBerry Content Transfer (which is still an official BlackBerry app even though this is made by another developer). Some Chinese phone brands including
Lenovo and
Oppo may have
SHAREIT preinstalled, which is also good in transferring files.
(4) When your Google data have been copied to your new Android phone,
remove your Google account in
Settings > Google > Remove Account. This will be useful in Step (7)
(5) Next,
move your documents, images, videos, downloaded files as well as other important files from your device’s storage to an SD card, if available and if both of your devices have SD card slots.
Your old device’s storage have folder names which are self explanatory, including “Downloads” and “Music”, with the exception of “DCIM” which contains pictures taken from your camera app. If you ever had set up a custom ringtone and/or notification tones by placing audio files inside “Ringtones” and “Notifications” folder. In addition to that, you may also copy some app-related folders, such as folders containing edited videos from your video editing app. Please note I recommend you to
move instead of copy files as this will be useful in Step (7).
(6) Once done,
safely remove (eject) your SD card, which you can found in
Settings > Storage. You may transfer your SD card data to the new phone first to save time while performing Step (7).
(7) Now, use your
device transfer tool on both of your devices. Transfer instructions may vary on different device transfer apps, while they are more likely to use Bluetooth and Wi-Fi Direct to transfer files.
In previous steps, I asked you to remove your Google account. This means that your old phone’s contacts no longer store contact details which have been saved to your Google account, and there will be less, remaining contacts that can be transferred through the device transfer tool, which completely saves transfer time while removing possibility of contact duplicates after transfer.
Then, I asked you to move some your device’s data to your SD card as well as remove the SD card after. This means that there will be less, remaining files on your phone that can be transferred through the device transfer tool, which also saves transfer time and remove file duplicates, which also saves your new phone’s storage.
Once done, most of your data have been transferred to your new device! But there will be more questions after doing all of these steps.
How to transfer WhatsApp data without Google Drive?
If you do not choose to back up your WhatsApp data without Google Drive, you can move your WhatsApp folder on your old device to your new phone. If you have used an SD card for this, make sure that the WhatsApp folder is copied to your new phone’s internal storage
before logging in to WhatsApp. If you have done that in your new device before, remove the app data from Settings > Apps (or Application Manager) > (Installed Apps) > WhatsApp > (Storage) > Clear App Data and repeat the login procedure.
24. 8. 2022 21:00:14