How to extract/backup your phone contact list and browser bookmarks (stock browser, not chrome)

Question

Android - how to extract/backup your phone contact list and browser favorites (stock browser, not chrome) - a modern Samsung smartphone.

Hi, I am grateful for any replies (pls note that we always talk about a non-rooted device, and I have no desire to root it, & I have no desire to use the inherent google-backup methods):

1) How can I extract my entire contacts list in a way to be able to import it again to another similar Samsung phone? Any way to do it without using an App for it as workaround? If there is no way around an app, which app(s) would you suggest are considered to be very "safe" and 100% non-malicious?

2) The same question - this time for calendar items extraction?

3) Finallly the same question for my Android Stock Browser bookmarks (not chrome)? Both, the bookmarks which are available in the "Normal" browser mode, and the bookmarks which are separately stored in the "private" browser mode.

If you know also of a way to doing one of those 3 things but without the ability to import again to another phone, this is also very helpful. My prime interest is in backing up, and if I can import again to another Phone, even better.

Thanks for any technical explanations!

Answer 1

Depending on your intended recipient the Samsung SmartSwitch application can do everything you want.

It can back up contacts, calendars, applications and almost all other data.

It's primary use is in transferring files to a new phone, but it also has a mode to transfer data to a backup held on your MicroSD card.

In order to simply backup data in the current version you will see an icon representing a microSD card in the top right corner of the application when you launch it, next to the three dot "menu" icon.

On the next page you will see either a list of backups or "no backup" if this is your first. Tap the "Back up" button at the bottom of the page.

Tapping that will bring you to a screen that allows you to select contacts, applications and images (and so on) to back up.

Your Calendar and bookmarks are stored under those applications. If you connect to Google calendar and don't use the on-device calendars then you will have a warning telling you as much when you tap on the ">" icon next to "Applications".

You can then transfer the backup to a new phone and use Smart Switch to restore it, or you can simply keep the history.

It also has a Windows version, presumably primarily intended as a backup tool.

Answer 2

The apps i'm going to propose are available through F-Droid. The name F-Droid refers to both A.) a repository for open source android apps and to B.) an android app used to browse, download, install an manage those apps on your android device. You might want to check out this tutorial for information on how to install F-Droid or apk-files downloaded from F-Droid. If you don't want to use F-Droid or sideload apps on your device, maybe you can find some of these apps in the Play Store as well.

1)

The Contacts app in android normally has a feature to import or export the contacts to a text file (.vcf). If it doesn't you can install this open source contacts app that can definitely do it: https://f-droid.org/app/com.simplemobiletools.contacts.pro

2)

This depends on how you store your calendar events. In Android, it is common to store the events in a certain calendar, usually tied to an E-Mail account, this can also be your google account. In these cases, the calendar events are stored online with your E-Mail provider and should be accesible from any device with that Mail account properly set up for calendar syncing. If there is a website where you can log in and check your mail, chances are there is a calendar function on that site as well. If you can log into your Mail account using a normal browser and find your calendar events there, they are already backed up to the server of your Mail Provider.

If you want a local backup of these Events or keep them stored in a local calendar on your device, https://f-droid.org/app/org.sufficientlysecure.ical can export and import your calendar events to and from .ics files. Note that the Android Calendar backend might discard passed events, in which case they cannot be exported using this method. If your events are stored in your E-Mail account, chances are that these passed events that are no longer displayed/exportable on your Android device are still available online and stay stored on the server of your E-Mail provider - Android usually just stops syncing these events and removes them from your calendar view.

3)

For the default preinstalled browser in android it is also possible to back up and restore bookmarks. From F-Droid https://f-droid.org/app/de.shandschuh.slightbackup can do it. Though, it should be mentioned that this app hasn't been updated a long time and might thus not work too well with modern versions of android. Since i don't use the bookmark feature i can't attest how good it works but giving it a try shouldn't hurt either - as long as you don't try to restore data before testing that nothing gets deleted or overwritten on the device where you want to restore you shouldn't lose any data by trying.

As you stated that you are using a samsung phone the browser will likely be custom made by samsung, so your best bet would probably be finding an export function built into the browser.

If the same circumstances described here apply to your browser app, your chances don't look very good.