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.
Assuming you don’t have an unlocked bootloader or custom recovery, the best shot you have is an adb backup. It can backup app apks and app data to some point. Apps like Whatsapp and Facebook cannot be backed up this way as it requires a specific data migration method and login.
If you do have root/custom recovery, it can make a full backup but the image would have difficulty booting on other phones/emulators. Don’t attempt this route if you see a locked bootloader as the process of unlocking will wipe everything
No perfect solution. The best you could do is to migrate/recreate the phone in an emulator and backup the emulator
Can you post the exact model of phone and version of Android it’s running?
It would not surprise me if there is some forensics software or system that does this…
Only two options. The phones in-built backup manager, smart switch works well. That’s not what you want though. Android emulator, replicate as near as possible. Problem is I fear you’ll need that number to be kept activated and whatever cloud service on the phone to keep going.
My primary objective is to find a way to preserve this phone in its current state, exactly as it is now, in a virtual environment. I want to capture everything - SMS, WhatsApp messages, call records, photos - exactly as they were at this moment in time. While I understand that apps like WhatsApp and photos can be backed up and restored to other devices, my goal is different. I wish to maintain the phone’s current state, preserving this snapshot in time, out of concern that the physical device might one day break beyond repair since it’s a old model.