Data Hoarder

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We are digital librarians. Among us are represented the various reasons to keep data -- legal requirements, competitive requirements, uncertainty of permanence of cloud services, distaste for transmitting your data externally (e.g. government or corporate espionage), cultural and familial archivists, internet collapse preppers, and people who do it themselves so they're sure it's done right. Everyone has their reasons for curating the data they have decided to keep (either forever or For A Damn Long Time (tm) ). Along the way we have sought out like-minded individuals to exchange strategies, war stories, and cautionary tales of failures.

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Seeking Advice on Preserving an Old Android Phone with Sentimental Value (alien.top)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Recently, a beloved family member of mine passed away, and they left behind an Android phone that's approximately 4-5 years old. This device holds significant sentimental value to me, and I'm concerned about its longevity, fearing it may stop functioning in the future.

Currently, the phone operates on a prepaid plan, and I have been regularly topping up its balance. Additionally, I have access to the phone's PIN, allowing me to unlock and use it.

My main question is: Is there a way to effectively preserve this phone, including all its data, in a virtual environment? Essentially, I'm looking for a method to create a virtual replica of the phone that retains all its contents. I'm open to the idea of not using the physical SIM card if this facilitates the preservation process.

Any advice, tools, or methods that could assist in this endeavor would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance for your help and suggestions.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

There is no complete solution, not by a long shot.

You could save all files you can grab from everywhere, buy Google space and enable absolutely all possible backups, use the specific data transfer (to a new phone!) tool from the manufacturer (no matter if Google or Samsung or anyone else) and you'd STILL have tons of apps with tons of data you need to move with a specific workflow (best example Whatsapp, but this is a GOOD example, in the sense that people really want their data and have a process to move it). Repeat for anything similar, login (separately, sometimes via a rather complex process) to everything else and STILL you'll be having tons of things that weren't carried over, you need to configure by hand and so on. You'll be fighting with this for weeks, if not months if you have more than 2-3 apps.