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Help Manual Application Copying

N

Nakatsu Hime

Lurker
A bit of background:

On my older phone (Sony Xperia-J), I had a Nyan Cat application. Not the game, but an endless-loop animation, and not YouTube, but locally held. I upgraded (Sony Z3), but when I went to download it from the Google Play Store, the app had been pulled down.

I had the idea of manually pulling the android exec file off of the old phone and onto my PC (via USB), and then from the PC, plopping it onto my new phone, again, via USB.

I learnt from Mr Google that android .exe files are .apk files, and the executable could be held in one of the following locations:
- system/app
- data/app
- data/app_private

So away I went with Explorer, but couldn't get the phone to show me any system directory.
A full search for *.apk resulted in zero hits.

Are these directories hidden to external file-managers, and is there anything I can do to manually find this exec file?
 
Wow, quick response. Thank you.
But Boo on Android for not allowing me to liberate poor Nyan Cat.

Then I assume what I require is beyond the ken of normal mortals?
 
There's an app called Helium Backup available on Play which you can use to copy apps and their associated data from one device to another.

I'm not entirely sure it works on older Sony phones though, but there's no harm in giving it a go.
 
Not sure if this is possible. I'm using a different SIM now in my new phone, and am unsure if just transferring it back to the old one will work. It may do, but I'm a bit nervous of screwing things up for my phone contract. My husband would kill me.

I can see your logic. Put new SIM into old phone - Download Helium - copy app to... somewhere - replace SIM in current phone...
Does Helium allow me to export an app to a PC for transfer back to another device?

I wish things were easier in the 21st century. I know you lot are knowledgeable, and can give me necessary pointers as to what I can / cannot do.

Please forgive me with these noobish idiotic questions.
 
You don't need to mess about with the SIM cards at all. As long as you've got a PC that will detect both phones, it should work without taking anything out of either phone.

Edit - BTW, apps are tied to your Google account, are you linking both phones to the same google account?

Apps that have been pulled should still be installable as long as the devices are linked to the same google account.
 
My PC does talk to both phones.
So, I can install Helium on my existing phone and - possibly - it will extract the data from the old phone, whilst both are connected to the PC?

I shall get hold of Helium and see what it can do.
I see a chink of light for Nyan Cat.
 
It's a little more involved than that, but there are instructions on the helium website. :)

Like I say, it might not work on older Sony devices, but worth a punt.
 
I think it's a non-starter, as it seems the old phone is no longer recognised by my new SIM. Therefore, I cannot download or install Helium onto it.
Google Store is inaccessible on it.
 
Nakatsu Hime said:
I think it's a non-starter, as it seems the old phone is no longer recognised by my new SIM. Therefore, I cannot download or install Helium onto it.
Google Store is inaccessible on it.
Click to expand...
What???

I have inactive phones on wifi where the Store works just fine.

And if all you need is the app itself, you can use a simple on-phone backup app.
 
So what? It only needs WiFi, which shouldn't require a SIM (unless some carrier has done something very screwy and control-freaky with the firmware).

The real question is what Android version?if it's not at least 4.0 then Helium won't work.
 
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ext.ui
You can download this, inside that app extract it's own apk "apk extractor" and send it to your old phone. Since play store doesn't work on your old phone for whatever reason, install that apk extractor on your old phone and extract the apk of the app you want on your new phone and send the apk you want to your new phone and install it.
 
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