Move apps from SD card to new phone - how??

[Lulu11]

Can someone please give me a really basic, newbie, step-by-step guide on how to get apps off of my SD card and onto my new phone? I've tried searching the forum or looking elsewhere online for instructions, but I can't find anything that actually tells me *how* to move the apps from the SD card to the phone.

Here's what I'm trying to do: on my old Droid, I had a free app called SMS Backup & Restore. I wanted to use that to transfer all my old, backed up text messages to my new phone. So I moved the app to the SD card on my old phone, then transferred that file to my PC using USB connection. Then I connected my new phone to the PC via USB and moved the SMS Backup & Restore file onto my new SD card, directly into the D drive, not into any sub-folders. (I didn't simply swap out SD cards, cause there's a whole bunch of junk on the old SD card that I don't want on my new phone).

That's where I get stuck, what do I do next? How do I get the app to actually show up on my new phone? I tried using Apps2sd, but it says there are no moveable apps on my SD card.

I thought maybe I'd just done something wrong when I moved the file to the new SD card (if you can't tell, I'm not so great at this stuff!), so then I tried actually swapping the SD cards, using my original SD card in the new phone. But Apps2sd still told me there were no moveable apps on the SD card.

Did I do one of the steps wrong? Is there a better way to transfer my text messages other than thru this app? (I had tried using My Backup Pro on my old phone before activating my new phone, but my old phone was so run down that it wouldn't even let me install a new app, so that wasn't an option).

Anyway, any tips would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.

 

[DocsDad]

Someone else is definitely more qualified than me but did you go to the Market and install SMS backup and restore on the new phone? It might have a restore function once installed and pull them off the old SD card.

Edit... If I am understanding you... you are not trying to get the Back Up app off the sd (necessarily), but the sms data. Correct?

 

[Lulu11]

Turns out you are plenty qualified! Thanks so much for your reply. I actually just came back to this thread to report that I did just what you're suggesting. I didn't realize that if I re-installed the app, my data would come with it. I thought that only worked for paid apps. But I went to the market and reinstalled the app, and yes, all my text messages were still there -- happily!! Thanks again!

 

[thaDroidz]

Hmm.
I figured you would have had to transfer the sms restore's folder that was created on the original sd over to the new.

Man that is truly a great "free" app.
I had it on the d1 but didn't bother restoring yet. Guess I'll try..

----posted maxx'ed out----


Edit: just reread you actually have the old card in the phone for it to work...

 

[Lulu11]

Yeah, I tried transferring the file over (and, as your edit mentions, I also tried just moving the whole SD card over), but the problem was, neither time was I able to get the file off the SD card and onto the phone. I ended up being able to get the texts in a much simpler way, but I'm still sorta curious about why I couldn't get any of my apps off the SD card.

Anyway, yes, the SMS Backup & Restore app is great, even more so being that it's free! On my original Droid, one time all my texts got randomly erased for some reason, so I was able to restore them all from that app. And it turned out to be a nice simple way to transfer my texts to my new phone as well.