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Help Android 4.4 backup not working

B

Bill with old smartphone

Lurker
I've had an LG L34C (Optimus Fuel) phone, running Android 4.4, for a couple of years. Until now, I've never tried to do a backup or connect in any way to my Google account. I want to transfer my photos and especially my contacts to my new Motorola e5 phone, running Android 8.0. I've set up wifi and my Google account on both phones, and checked the permissions on my Google account. On the older phone, I turned on backups, and successfully (it says) synced my Contacts and People Details. That and other things like email and the Google store verify that the wifi is working. Also, I upgraded Google Drive on the older phone to the latest available. Yet, Google Drive on both phones is saying I have no backups, and my Google account when viewed from my desktop computer says I have zero storage used.

So, how can I transfer my photos and contacts to the new phone?

I really don't want to mess with the micro SD drive, but I'm aware that as a last resort, I can export to the SD card, physically pull it out and insert it in the new phone, then import from the SD card. I'm afraid I'll damage one or both phones if I try this, so I'm looking for a better way.
 
Hi Bill, welcome to Android Forums. :)

Bill with old smartphone said:
So, how can I transfer my photos and contacts to the new phone?
Click to expand...

On the old phone, install Google Photos and then turn on sync (it will probably ask you if you want it on the first time you open it) and make sure you set this to sync on WiFi only or you could use a good bit of mobile data. Give it time to complete and your photos will be in the cloud. On the new phone, once the old phone is done, repeat the process and you'll have access to all your photos and they'll be backed up.

I thought you said your contacts came over to the new phone?
 
No, my contacts have not been transferred, and they're the main thing I need to transfer. The photos are a side issue -- I just need the photos that are associated with the contacts to transfer with them.
 
Yes, I already did that. It's what I meant when I said I "checked the permissions on my Google account". And, when I did a manual sync on the old phone, it acknowledged by saying "last sync completed at <current time>". As I said, I did that for both Contacts and People Details. But I have no backups.
 
I looked at the link you suggested. Of course, I had no contacts there, since nothing has been uploaded from the old phone. What next? How do I transfer my contacts and their associated photos?
 
Just to be clear, we are talking about phone contacts, correct? or are you looking for your gmail address book?
 
Yes, phone contacts. I have no gmail account, nor do I want one. My prior lack of usage of my Google account was on purpose, and anything that gets uploaded in this process will be deleted, after the transfer occurs, as much as I'm able. I consider Google to be an agent of evil.

How do I transfer my phone contacts and their associated photos?
 
I'm not sure which contact app you have, but mine allows me to share all my contacts in .vcf format, then it's just a matter of access the vcard (saved them to DropBox).
 
I had already exported the contacts to the old phone's SD card, then copied the vcard file to my desktop. For some reason, I couldn't copy it to the new phone -- Windows File Explorer refused to access the new phone's file system. So, following up on your suggestion to use Google contacts, I imported from my desktop file to the cloud. And, magically, the contacts appeared on the new phone. Partial success -- the photos associated with the contacts didn't get imported, probably because they weren't included in the original export. But only a handful of the contacts had photos, and I can move those over by other means (Google photos or email), and (I assume) eventually re-associate them. The contacts were the problem I didn't know how to solve, and now I have (mostly).

Thanks for giving me the idea that worked.
 
Bill with old smartphone said:
Windows File Explorer refused to access the new phone's file system.
Click to expand...
I assume you mean with a USB cable. Many newer phones have a default "charge only" mode when you plug them in. You have to pull down the notification bar, tap on USB options and set it to MTP mode to access the files. Probably not helpful right now since you got your contacts moved, but if you need it in the future ...
 
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