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Help New phone--Google can't find my old phone's data backup

Yumfoods

Lurker
I've just bought a new phone (Moto 5G Plus) and during the initial setup, when I signed into my Google account, Google doesn't show my previous phone's (Nexus 6P) backup data. I've had the 6P set up for automatic backup from Day 1. So I'm puzzled.

Oddly enough, Google does show the phone before that (a Galaxy Nexus) but with a last use date of yesterday. Is there any chance that Google was adding the backups under the Galaxy Nexus name?

If not, is there any way I can force the 6P to back itself up to Google, so that the Moto G5 Plus can pick up right where I've left off (the way that the 6P did, when I had set that up)?

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer!
 
Why not restore the GNex backup and see? You can always reset if it's not up to date. If it's dated yesterday I'd have thought it likely that its really your current account (the GNex is presumably not still in use with your same Google login?).
 
Thanks for your prompt reply.

I've thought about that and am saving that as a last resort. But since (I believe; please correct me if I'm wrong) this is a once-and-done sort of thing that I'd try to see if I could get it to setup properly. (When I migrated from the GNex to the 6P, it was a different, process.)

Google did give me the option to restore either all of the apps or to pick and choose. As part of the pick-and-choose option, I was able to see which apps were in that backup set. Sadly, that backup set doesn't include some 40 new apps I'm using now. I'd like to be able to restore those apps(some of which are paid versions) and their data from the 6P.

Thanks again for your help!
 
An update: This time after doing a hard reset (I had done a few of them yesterday to see if starting fresh might "jog" Google's memory.), I was given the option to set up the G5 Plus from my old phone (N6P) via Bluetooth. (BTW, if anyone tries this and you use Bluetooth devices with your old phone, make sure they are off first, because they can commandeer the Bluetooth connection to the new phone. Other than that, it was pretty easy.) This was the first time that the G5 Plus had shown me this option.

The 2 phones connected and the G5 Plus took all my Google account credentials from the N6P and was able to sign into my account. Then I was asked to set up some Google Services settings (Backup, Location services, etc.).

However, when it got to the point where it was time to set up apps and their data, once again, all I was shown was the old GNex backup set.
 
I'm not yet able to get into the Settings (because I haven't yet fully set up the phone) but the documentation says that the phone ships with Nougat.
 
It looks like it ships with 7.0. I'm guessing your 6P is on 7.1.1 or 7.1.2?

I haven't seen any official guidance on it, but it kind of seems like restoring a backup from a newer version of Nougat is not available on an older version of the OS. I've noticed this with my own devices - and backups made while my 6P was running the 7.1.2 beta were not available once I downgraded back to the 7.1.1 release version.

I don't remember seeing this issue with Android versions prior to 7. I'll see if I can find out what's up.
 
Thanks for that!

You're correct. My 6P is on 7.1.2. The G5 ships with some flavor of 7 but then probably does OTA to get it up to speed. (It's supposed to have Google Assistant integrated into it, so I'm guessing that's probably 7.1.2, but probably not out of the box.)

Thanks for checking! I appreciate that.
 
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