Samsung Notes File Management Nightmare

 i thought this needed its own post, but it goes along with the previous post about android migration.

i had over 600 notes in the samsung notes app v.2 from 2019, i intentionally never updated my phone for 5 years because EVERY SINGLE FUCKING TIME SOME DIPSHIT DEVS ROLL OUT UPDATES IT FUCKS EVERYTHING. 

for 5 years i had flawless function, clean & intuitive but practical & unobstructive interface. no unnecessary permissions or mandatory privacy invasions or straight up data larceny.

then when my phone was clearly at the end of its rope, i went through the process of migrating to a new device. most hurdles were surmountable, but when it came to samsung notes, .....another story.

i was able to back up to samsung cloud, but then couldnt import, THEN COULDNT DELETE FROM THE CLOUD & SAMSUNG CUSTOMER SERVICE DIDNT HAVE THE FIRST CLUE OF HOW THEIR SOFTWARE WORKS. probably because the dipshits update the fucking thing every 3 hours.

then i was able to export as pdfs, but it obliterated my carefully curated notes folder system & discarded all my notes titles.

then when i went back to my old phone to explore other options, the samsung notes app had somehow force updated COMPLETELY ON ITS OWN! 

that meant that now all my notes were not compatible with the new app without converting.

i was able to create backups in the form of .sdoc files, but literally NO OTHER SOFTWARE can open these. i converted one to a .zip as a test, which revealed the binary .dat files that make up the .sdoc, but no other program can translate those .dat files besides the fucking OLD VERSION of samsung notes.

i then tried to uninstall the new samsung app offline & install a backup .apk i made of the original samsung notes, but the app update planted some bug in my old phone that restricts it from installing the old app again...........

FUCK SAMSUNG SO MUCH. ill never use samsung notes again.

i have to sit & convert AND RELABEL all my PDF backed up notes, one by one on PC, but after that ill only be taking notes in .odt or .docx format on Collabora Office or Dark Note for the foreseeable future, the only non-data collecting non-ad spewing free office/notes apps ive found these days that support clear custom destination file exports.

Android to Android new phone transfer experience

 I've had maybe 4 phones in my life, the first was a TracFone, the next x2 I just went to the dealer for, paying for a new phone + activation fee.

My latest phone is a Samsung a15, coming from a Samsung j7.

After chasing a red herring concerning microsim vs nanosim, I realized that the j7 was switched to nanosim in its last 2 years of production, when I bought one. I kept reading that I would need to obtain a nanosim when I already had one, since most or maybe all typical modern phones use nano.

I'll mention I briefly tried to use a tcl 10l first, but it had shutter lag, & wouldn't let me save a pro photo setting template. To top it off, it was not fully compatible with MetroPCS. So I diverted to the Blu g84. The blu g84 did not have flash available during pro photo mode, & also would not allow split screen ratio adjustment in landscape mode. it also had some weird bug where it wouldnt accept my sd card as formatted, making me back it up, reformat, then repopulate (more on that in a second). pain in the ass. obviously it also wouldnt run samsung apps so i impetuously deleted all 600 of my samsung notes after backing up to pdf, only to realize it didnt save the titles of the fucking notes so i now have 600 untitled notes & i ended up using a samsung device anyway so none of it was necessary. 

The first hurdle was getting apps/data to transfer. I tried Bluetooth tether, cord tether, wifi direct tether, quick share tether, NFC tether, Samsung backup, Google one backup, Google drive backup, (ill never use Microsoft OneDrive). They were all failures.

What finally worked for me is using the file manager app from playstore to manually make an APK portable of each app I wanted. many of my favorite apps like hancom office & wavepad are incompatible with new phones.

To get my contacts & SMS i used dropbox backup but I had to use a specific backup & restore app from playstore on both phones.

Then another hurdle, when I tried to insert my old SD...the newer android couldn't run it & asks me to FORMAT IT.

I managed to not accidentally delete everything & made a basic image file + copy/paste clone of the SD. I used macrium reflect & it worked great & it was easy.

Then I formatted the SD in the phone, popped it back out & brought back over the files that weren't system files. (this was for the blu g84, i could have skipped this entire problem if i had just gone for the samsung a15 off the bat).

Finally, I bypassed the activation fee by going on mymetro & manually entering the new IMEI code from the new phone.

I also picked up a handy tip, at one point early on, I was stuck on a frozen boot & learned that holding power+volume up for a long time bypasses the freeze & opens the reboot/reset menu.

 

I had to find other new essential apps, Openweather for live weather, 

VLC for mp4 & mp3, 

Collabora office for Rtf, Docx, Word, & Pdf reading/editing, 

& Dark Note as a better version of samsung notes with actual export tools & dynamic/intuitive visual organization. No ads, no iaps, doesn't send or collect your data & they're free. That's fuckin hard to find.

Also, fuck Microsoft so hard & their subscription scams.

A major fucking annoying afterthought about the samsung a15, & apparently all the new samsung stuff, is that you cant shut off the camera shutter sound or assign a different sound like you used to be able to. a fucking basic function once again fucked up by dipshit devs.

i found a workaround by creating a mode/routine where the entire phone is set to silent during camera use. 

a fucking pain in the ass again to do something that should have just been a single button option in the camera settings. not to mention no other camera app is compatible even if you completely remove the current camera through an adb editor.