Moving in

I don't know why it doesn't work, but I can tell you what is happening.

It suggests connecting the two phones with a cable and comes with an adapter to make this possible. If I go into the app on the new phone and select to receive and then choose the cable mode and put the cable between the two phones, nothing happens. It is waiting for my old phone to be put into MTP mode. The instant I put the old phone into MTP mode a message pops up on the new phone saying "Can't connect" and telling me to put the old phone into MTP mode - which I'd just done.
I went through this process a number of times and tried variations that I thought might help, but it doesn't work. I found an online "help" thing that tells how it should work but offers no actual help in case it doesn't work.

But Smart Switch also has a wireless mode. So I tried that. To use the wireless mode you must get the Samsung Smart Switch app on the old phone. The new phone produces a QR code. You point the old phone at that QR code and it takes you to the Google Play page for the app. And when I get there it says that my phone is incompatible with the app. My phone is Android 6.0.1 and the message on the phone says it should work with Android 4 and above.

Looking around I saw a bunch of other apps that were also called Smart Switch and with very similar logos. Veerrry similar logos. So I thought I'd try one of those, thinking maybe it was from the same developer and would somehow talk to the Smart Switch on my new phone. But nope. No luck there, either.

I really had high hopes that I could actually transfer my apps and data and not have to spend two weeks re-creating everything and still losing half of it. I'm already down a day and the clock is ticking on my return window.

Funny aside: I just noticed it says Newbie under my username. I'm retired and have been using cell phones since 1989. I guess everything is relative.

The cable is not reversible. The S10e is USB-C and the old one is micro USB. Hence, the adapter.
I'm not sure that I can pre-set the MTP mode on the old phone. I'll take a look at that. Normally the selection becomes available when you plug in a cable.
I've never used the backup on my old phone. I don't remember why. I think I remember using it when I moved into this old phone and it moved so little of what I needed that it was a waste of time.
I did turn on the automatic backup this afternoon, but there isn't a "backup now" button, so I'm not sure what's going on with it. Maybe it will all be backed up in the morning.
But does the backup also back up the apps? Or just the app data?
I don't use the cloud. Everyone's got a cloud and it's just too much overhead figuring it all out. Plus, I've been involved with computers since the 8080 days and what will happen to my data when the cloud goes away? It will, you know. Everything changes.

lunatic59 said:

The Smart Switch app you want is https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sec.android.easyMover

Click to expand...

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sec.android.easyMover
This is the same app that I've already tried and says it is not allowed on my device.

lunatic59 said:

It's been a while since I saw Android 6 so I might not remember all the setting locations perfectly, but they are there. I do thing the option to make connection mode MTP mode permanent is under developer options. If you don't see that, open up system settings>about and tap on the build number 12 (or more) times to enable developer options. Then, I would try connecting the old phone to a PC and verify the MTP mode actually works. It might be something as simple as a dirty USB port.

Click to expand...

I use MTP all the time with my PC and have never had any problems with it (as long as I remember to select that mode.) I used your method to lock it into MTP mode and that did occur. But it is still not seen by the new phone. I also tried it with two different cables. Still no good.

Android's backup option is a bit of a misnomer, IMHO. It doesn't save any app data. All it does is save Android settings and a list of installed apps. When you "restore" it will put back only the OS settings and then reinstall apps from the play store.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I couldn't remember why, but I knew it was some sort of uselessness like this that caused me to ignore it.

I also tried using Smart Switch on my PC to bring everything up from the old phone and then put it onto the new phone. When the old phone is plugged into the PC (and is in MTP mode - I can see the file structure in Windows Explorer) Smart Switch acts as if there is no phone attached. When I clicked it's troubleshooting link I found this: "Smart Switch only supports the Galaxy S3 or later devices with Android OS 4.3 (Jelly Bean) or later installed."

Apparently nobody told Samsung's marketing people about this extremely bad engineering decision. It would seem to me that they would want to make it easy to switch from another brand to Samsung.

Anyway, so far I have a useless new Samsung phone sitting on my desk. I'll keep trying...

Somewhere in my rambling search for information I came across two different ways to ask for help with Smart Switch. One of them worked, though I'm not sure exactly where I found it anymore. It may have been that link that ocnbrze provide, above.

Apparently the app page in Google Play checks the type of phone against a list and if your phone isn't on it, it won't let you download the app. They hadn't tested my phone with the app so it wasn't on the list. The person who was helping me added it to the list, the app downloaded and the data transfer was smooth and easy after that.

Some of the apps will need more work to get back to full working order. My email program, K9, for example came across, but none of the accounts are setup. But this transfer has really given me a big leg-up on the switch to the new phone.

If anyone finds themselves in a similar situation, here is the email address of the tech who helped me out:

sswitch.cs@samsung.com