Transfer SMS from Blackberry to Android

March 14th 2012 Posted in tagged as ,

This started out as a personal project to try and understand the IPD file format used by RIM when backing up their devices, but I ended up developing a simple application that may be useful to someone. As input it takes a backup of a Blackberry device as generated by the “Blackberry Desktop Software” and exports the SMS messages to a format that can be used by the popular SMS Backup & Restore Android application. The program is named “Blackberry 2 Droid”.

If there’s enough interest, I’ll look at doing this in reverse – But at the moment I think more people are moving away from Blackberry than to it.

Like this site on Facebook If you find this useful, please support me by liking this site on Facebook. Many thanks, Dave

Read more about Blackberry2Droid and download the latest version for free.

This article was written by Dave Hope. Dave is a Senior Software Analyst for a UK based retirement developer, in his spare time he enjoys digital photography and rock climbing.


One comment

  • Transfer SMS Messages from Blackberry to Android - Android Stuff
    March 26, 2012 at 7:34 am. Reply.

    [...] Hope has created a neat utility to convert SMS Messages from Blackberry devices into a format that can be used to import them into [...]

    • Bhupesh
      February 22, 2014 at 8:30 pm. Reply.

      Tons of thnxxxxxx….. Really greatful.you made my life.

  • Bongaj2003
    April 29, 2012 at 2:27 am. Reply.

    Hey, I would be interested in doing the reverse! Lol. My Android was stolen, but I had SMS backups and a friend has lent me a BlackBerry for a while. I trying to get everything back in sync and restored. Contacts, Calendar are easy. SMS possible?

    • Ana
      September 21, 2013 at 10:42 am. Reply.

      Hi! Can I ask how you made the calendar transfer? I’m currently looking for a way to transfer blackberry calendar events to my android. Many thanks! :)

      • Dave Hope
        September 23, 2013 at 3:26 pm. Reply.

        Hi Ana, I’m afraid I’ve not written any calendar transfer utility.

  • victoria
    May 2, 2012 at 8:52 am. Reply.

    I would be interested in the reverse as well!

  • Nirav_a_desai
    May 15, 2012 at 8:40 am. Reply.

    i used the app it created the file but how do i move the file from my computer to my phone? so that sms backup restore actually finds the file, i have saved it everywhere but theres no way directly to save it where sms backup reads the file, i have a samsung galaxy s2

    • Dave Hope
      May 15, 2012 at 8:50 am. Reply.

      Connect the phone via USB and transfer it to there, then browse to it in SMS Backup & Restore. Your phone should appear as a USB drive in “My Computer”.

  • From Torch (or any other Berry) to Note
    May 20, 2012 at 8:49 am. Reply.

    [...] SMSes 1. Open up Blackberry Desktop Manager, sync and backup your BB 2. Follow the instructions on this site 3. Download SMS Backup & Restore from Google Play onto your Android 4. Copy over the file [...]

  • acidikalien
    June 10, 2012 at 4:25 am. Reply.

    Hi there, Tried to use the app after using BlackBerry Desktop Manager .BBB file that contains about 20k messages.. An error comes up that says “Could not locate any SMS messages” & Exception of Type ‘System.OutOfMemoryExcecption’ was thrown. Any ideas?? Thanks!

    • Naresh Bhagtani
      June 22, 2012 at 12:47 pm. Reply.

      As soon as I click on Convert after selecting the .bbb file, the Blackberry2Droid application says it could not locate any SMS messages in this file. Then it throws an exception System.OutofMemoryException. There are 172 messages in the bbb file because I converted the same into CSV and I can see all the messages in excel.

      • Dave Hope
        June 22, 2012 at 1:39 pm. Reply.

        Sorry you’re having problems, it sounds like the application is running out of memory when it tries to read your backup file for some reason. Would you be willing to send me the BBB file so that I can see if there’s anything In your backup that might be causing it?

        • acidikalien
          July 9, 2012 at 9:59 am. Reply.

          I figured out the problem. Blackberry Desktop v6x or v5x needs to be used for backup, with the latest version, all backups end in error. When I downgraded to v5 or v6, it worked beautifully.

          Thanks! Hope this will help others as well.

          PS: Another helpful app to view bb data after backup by v5x or v6x is IpdDump 0.3 RC4

          • Dave Hope
            July 9, 2012 at 10:52 am. .

             Please download the latest version of the app, which includes support for the new BBB file format.

  • Barios
    June 11, 2012 at 10:28 am. Reply.

    I use a program called VeryAndroid SMS Backup. It is a smart Android SMS transfer software that can transfer SMS from iPhone, Blackberry, Nokia and Windows Mobile to Android. Works fine for me. So I recommend it here.

  • Naresh Bhagtani
    June 22, 2012 at 12:48 pm. Reply.

    As soon as I click on Convert after selecting the .bbb file, the Blackberry2Droid application says it could not locate any SMS messages in this file. Then it throws an exception System.OutofMemoryException. There are 172 messages in the bbb file because I converted the same into CSV and I can see all the messages in excel.

    • Dave Hope
      June 22, 2012 at 1:38 pm. Reply.

      Sorry you’re having problems, it sounds like the application is running out of memory when it tries to read your backup file for some reason. Would you be willing to send me the BBB file so that I can see if there’s anything In your backup that might be causing it?

  • Dev Rad
    August 8, 2012 at 6:58 am. Reply.

    Hi Dave, could you please make tool for transfering call logs from blackberry to android as well…
    I use SMSBackup+ to backup my call logs and SMS to Gmail, unfortunately BB doesn’t have this kind off app (there are few apps, but the way they work is not as good SMSBackup+). So please consider… we can use Ritesh’s Call Backup & Restore to load the converted file to Android.

    • Dev Rad
      August 8, 2012 at 11:19 am. Reply.

      By the way, I just found few bugs… tried both IPD and BBB backup files… the bugs are:
      1. The sender and receiver got switched. example: original message was you said “hi” and I said “whats up”… when the message converted and restored on Android, it will become me said “hi” and you said “whats up”.

      2. The time stamp was all wrong.. I dont know whether this is the fault in the program or its the way BB store time stamp on SMS.. anyway, when I restored the message on Android, usually there’s 6-12 hours gap between the original timestamp and the converted one. I also check the XML file, the gap already there, so it’s not SMS Backup & Restore fault. And I also already set the date, time, and time zone of both phones manually and identically (to avoid wrong time stamp due to automatic time update by network).

      Can you fix this please on the next release? :)

      • Dave Hope
        August 8, 2012 at 12:59 pm. Reply.

        Hi,

        I can certainly look into the first issue you’ve reported – It should be very easy to reproduce.

        As for the second, I believe the timestamp is correct – I’ll look into if there’s any way I can restore the timezone information with the messages.

        Thanks

        • Dev Rad
          August 15, 2012 at 1:06 pm. Reply.

          Any progress? Anything I can do to help with testing perhaps?

          • Dave Hope
            August 15, 2012 at 1:58 pm. .

            Hi Dev,

            Unfortunately I’ve not had much time as I’ve been working on other projects recently. I’ll take a look at the first issue you raised tonight and e-mail you a link to a private build you can try if that’s OK?

            Thanks,

            Dave

          • Dev Rad
            August 15, 2012 at 6:44 pm. .

            Yeah, sure.. just send it to my email address. I’ll look into it ASAP. Thanks.

          • Carla
            October 16, 2012 at 5:43 pm. .

            Good afternoon!  Thanks so much for creating this converter.  I’m having the same issues Dev is having — the senders are switched and the timestamp is way off.  Any guidance you could offer would be very much appreciated.

          • Dave Hope
            October 16, 2012 at 6:05 pm. .

            Hi Carla,

            Could you send me your backup file and give me an example message of where they’re switched?

            Thanks

            Dave

          • Rohit
            October 24, 2012 at 3:36 pm. .

            Hey Dave
            First of all, thanks for putting this tool together. It works quickly, and the instructions are clear!
            I also had the same bug that the two users above described. The sender/recipient are switched, and the time stamp on many messages are off by about 12 hours. I understand that there are probably a lot of things that you’re doing, but I was just wondering if you had a chance to take a look at this. Thanks!

          • Dave Hope
            October 24, 2012 at 3:58 pm. .

            Hi Rohit,

            I’m still waiting on someone sending me a backup that exhibits this problem – and an example of what it SHOULD look like. If you could e-mail me a backup, and an example of the sender issue and what it should look like I can fix it asap

            Cheers

          • DevRad
            October 25, 2012 at 9:46 pm. .

            The new build, alpha 1 version (not yet released), corrected the “switched sender-receiver”. As for the timestamp problems, Dave already sent me 3 alpha builds, but none of them fix this issues. I assume the real problem is on the BB OS itself, like the timezone setting reset to 0 while the clock “still correct” making the user unaware of “the reset”, and thus making the timestamps incorrect when converted. I can’t go into details, but I’ve tested lots of scenarios with 3 different alpha builds provided by Dave himself and the incorrect timestamp only happens if the BB has different timezone than the Android when the SMS sent/received. 

            Example: SMS received on our BB at 1AM with BB timezone set to GMT+7. But unknown to us, BB reset the GMT to 0 while the clock still point at 1AM thus making the timestamp wrong since the beginning. Then we convert this SMS and restore it on Android with GMT+7 resulting the SMS has a way-off timestamp.

            The funny thing is, if we backup the SMS, factory reset the BB, and restore them using BB Desktop Software, the BB device can show the correct original timestamp (even with the timezone reset bug issue). So the way BB OS stores data of SMS must’ve been very different than Android.

          • Dave Hope
            October 26, 2012 at 8:35 am. .

            Thanks Dev,

            If one more person can provide me with a backup demonstrating the switch sender/receiver I’ll gladly release a fix for that.

            I have an idea of the timezone issue, and how we can potentially address it but need some more samples to be sure.

            If anyone can send me their backup file, with SMS messages in, I’ll treat it in the up-most confidence and should be able to get these problems resolved.

  • Safigirl88
    September 3, 2012 at 6:35 pm. Reply.

    Do you have a Mac version of the Blackberry2Droid app? Thanks! 

    • Dave Hope
      September 4, 2012 at 10:35 am. Reply.

      Sorry, there’s no version for Mac computers.

    • Dave Hope
      November 15, 2012 at 3:44 pm. Reply.

      No, Sorry.

  • Rohail Wasim
    October 12, 2012 at 11:21 pm. Reply.

    You sir, are an awesome person.

  • DeadKidd
    November 12, 2012 at 10:03 am. Reply.

    Sir, do you have an App doing the reverse of this?  Would need that.. I’m trying to transfer my SMS backup file from android to my Blackberry curve..

    • Dave Hope
      November 14, 2012 at 9:50 am. Reply.

      That’s not something I have, sorry.

  • Cm214
    November 15, 2012 at 3:07 pm. Reply.

    What a find, fantastic tool, thank you!  Saved me writing something to do what you’ve already achieved.  

    • Dave Hope
      November 15, 2012 at 3:43 pm. Reply.

      No problem! Glad it helped

  • Test
    November 16, 2012 at 5:08 pm. Reply.

    hello, I’m getting an output buffer error:

    System.ArgumentException: The output char buffer is too small to contain the decoded characters, encoding ‘Unicode (UTF-8)’ fallback ‘System.Text.DecoderReplacementFallback’.
    Parameter name: chars
       at System.Text.Encoding.ThrowCharsOverflow()

    anyway to increase the buffer?

    • Dave Hope
      November 16, 2012 at 5:12 pm. Reply.

      That’s an odd error. Not something I’d have expected to see. What languages are your test messages written in? – Do they have any unicode characters in them?

      • test
        November 16, 2012 at 6:58 pm. Reply.

        As far as I know, not. but there may be some international texts that I had received while traveling from friends. Not sure if the encoding is different in those.

      • test
        November 16, 2012 at 7:35 pm. Reply.

        tried on a win2k8 intel x64 and it worked. failure was on win7 x64 on amd. weird, really.

      • rachna
        May 8, 2013 at 1:44 pm. Reply.

        hi im getting the same message – except mine ends at parameter name:chars.

        im not sure of what to do. all my sms are in english.

        • Dave Hope
          May 8, 2013 at 1:47 pm. Reply.

          Make sure you’re using the latest version. If you are email me the backup file you have and I’ll take a look.

  • Nezar
    November 17, 2012 at 11:42 am. Reply.

    Amazing App, but it could not support Arabic language :(

  • etchkoobi
    November 20, 2012 at 5:46 pm. Reply.

    Is the sender/receiver swap issue fixed yet?

    • Dave Hope
      November 20, 2012 at 5:58 pm. Reply.

      I need someone to provide me with a file that has this problem, showing how they’re swapped so that I can resolve this.

      • Rob
        January 19, 2013 at 11:38 pm. Reply.

        Do you still need a file? I’ve just tried to copy my SMSs over and I have this problem.

  • Dayanni
    November 25, 2012 at 4:47 pm. Reply.

    fantastico !!!!! otimo programa

  • Escartin Aurélien
    January 1, 2013 at 6:27 pm. Reply.

    congrats, it works very well :)

  • Toan N.T.
    January 18, 2013 at 4:14 am. Reply.

    Love you, Dave…I have to try to sync Contacts & SMS from BB to Android.

    It takes me days to do this.

    Just want to share with all people here:

    1. Connect BB & Android by Bluetooth

    2. Change Option in BB of Address Book Transfer = All Entries

    3. Transfer to Android (it names Phonebook.vcf)

    4. Go to Android Contacts to import, if OK -> finished, if not, go to 5.

    5. If can’t import contacts, go to Gmail, import this vcf to Gmail Contacts

    6. Then open Contacts in Android -> Accounts, choose your gmail acc & sync -> Finished.

  • Justin Marquez
    January 21, 2013 at 5:01 pm. Reply.

    hi there.. which email do i use to send you the sms file? i’m having the reciever/sender swap issue as well

  • Justin Marquez
    January 21, 2013 at 5:04 pm. Reply.

    hi.. what email can i send my sms file? im having the sender/receiver swap issue as well..

  • Meee
    February 9, 2013 at 2:43 pm. Reply.

    absolutely fantastic! thank you so much, couldnt find the storage folder myself so just put it in my documents and worked perfectly! thank you so much!

  • Mark M
    February 10, 2013 at 11:06 am. Reply.

    I’ve found a workaround for those with the sender/receiver swap, which happened with me transferring from BB 8520 to Nexus 4.

    If you look at the generated XML file using notepad, you should see type=”1″ or type=”2″ within each entry. Swap those round using Replace All and hey presto!

    Fantastic program, Dave!

  • rohme
    March 14, 2013 at 12:56 am. Reply.

    HI..just downloaded blackberry2droid-1.0.2-alpha4 and tried to run it but my system shows up with this message – ” Blackberry2droid-1.0.2-alpha4.exe is not a valid Win32 application ” ….whats the problem ? if u can help…i need to transfer my sms from blackberry 9700 to my new samsung s2

    • Dave Hope
      March 14, 2013 at 8:34 am. Reply.

      When does that message appear? When you double-click it to run? If so, it sounds like you don’t have the .Net Framework installed.

      • rohme
        March 15, 2013 at 1:07 am. Reply.

        hi..thanks for replying, Yes message appears when i double-click to run it …. but i have following listed (installed )in my control panel program list :-
        Microsoft .Net framework 2.0 – SP2
        Microsoft .Net framework 3.0 – SP2
        Microsoft .Net framework 3.5 – SP1 and am having windows xp (professional ) SP3 – build- 2600 installed in my notebook.
        i am still unable to run this file..same message..
        Need your help..
        thanks

        • Dave Hope
          March 15, 2013 at 9:43 am. Reply.

          I’ve re-downloaded it and it seems to work fine for me. Do you get the same problem if you download the last stable release (not alpha 4) from http://hope.mx/blackberry2droid ?

          I wonder if your download was corrupted somehow, perhaps by Anti-Virus software or similar?

          • rohme
            March 18, 2013 at 10:46 pm. .

            Hi..Dave….i uninstalled the last download…again downloaded the new version and disabled my anti virus for sometime and also uninstalled magicberry and one android software…..and it worked….i was able to run your file and transferred all my messages ( except few ) from blackberry to my new android phone. Thank you very much

  • DEBBIE O
    March 17, 2013 at 12:19 am. Reply.

    Fantastic app Dave. You are a lifesaver.

  • Juan
    May 14, 2013 at 8:56 pm. Reply.

    it says unhanded exception has occurred in your application when i chose the back file.

    • Dave Hope
      May 14, 2013 at 8:58 pm. Reply.

      Can you email me your backup file so I can investigate?

  • heidelbeere
    May 29, 2013 at 7:54 pm. Reply.

    i almost fell into a depression because of loosing almost 3k sms.
    you saved my life.
    one very big THANK YOU!

  • Hexe72
    June 16, 2013 at 12:51 pm. Reply.

    I’ve followed the instructions and copied the converted file to my Samsung S3 mini SD card but when I run SMSBackup it doesn’t find the file.

    • Dave Hope
      June 16, 2013 at 12:52 pm. Reply.

      You copied the saved .XML file across, right?

      You’ll need to place it on your storage card and then manually browse for it using “SMS Backup & Restore”.

      • Hexe72
        June 16, 2013 at 12:53 pm. Reply.

        Thanks Dave,
        How do I manually browse?
        Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

        • Dave Hope
          June 16, 2013 at 12:56 pm. Reply.

          Install “SMS backup & Restore” from the google play store. Once installed, launch the application and click the “Restore” button. You will be prompted that it could not find any backup files, click the “Yes” button to search other folders.

          You will now be able to browse your device to find the file, in the top-right corner is a picture of a folder icon with an upwards arrow. Press it to go up a level as required.

          • Hexe72
            June 16, 2013 at 12:57 pm. .

            I get the message “No backup file exists!”
            But there are no further actions I can take from that point :-/

          • Dave Hope
            June 16, 2013 at 12:58 pm. .

            Are you sure you’re using the right application, it’s this one:

            https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.riteshsahu.SMSBackupRestore&hl=en

          • Hexe72
            June 16, 2013 at 1:00 pm. .

            Ahhh possibly not!
            Mine has the same name but a different icon.
            Will try that now thanks ever so much!!

          • Hexe72
            June 16, 2013 at 1:10 pm. .

            Seems to be working well now but the transferred message has a strange time stamp on it.

          • Dave Hope
            June 16, 2013 at 1:16 pm. .

            In “SMS Backup & Restore” try going into “Preferences” and beneath the “Adjust Time Zone” heading tick the box next to “On Restore” then try restoring your messages.

          • Hexe72
            June 16, 2013 at 1:24 pm. .

            Looks a bit better :-)
            Thank you ever so much you’re a star!!

  • Arun
    June 18, 2013 at 9:13 pm. Reply.

    Awesome!!!! Dave…. No words…YOU ARE JUST GREAT!!!!!…. Really appropriate your hard-work and THANK YOU SO MUCH for making this FREE…. I don’t know how many hours I spend behind this…. Thanks Again!!! For your great heart…

    Let me know if you need any help from me anytime. I love to assist you!!!!! My ID: sendtoarunp@gmail.com

  • San.J
    July 3, 2013 at 7:58 pm. Reply.

    Hey there ! That was wonderful. Any app for restoring the call logs too ?? Wishes

  • Neeti
    July 9, 2013 at 4:53 pm. Reply.

    Hey! It says unhandled exception has occurred in your application and on clicking continue, nothing happens. Please tell me what to do…

    • Satya
      August 11, 2013 at 10:28 pm. Reply.

      you must be using encryption back up without encryption on it will work for sure.

  • Enmi Rivera
    July 30, 2013 at 1:58 am. Reply.

    You’ve made my life THAT much easier! Thank you so much! :D

  • Life Saved
    September 4, 2013 at 6:04 pm. Reply.

    Thank you, thank you, thank you. I lost 32 of ~10k messages — 0.3%. I’ll take that error rate any day.

  • Whattt
    September 14, 2013 at 1:22 pm. Reply.

    I did everything and when I look at the messages on my Samsung S4, all I see are my received SMS but my sent SMS are not there.

    • Dave Hope
      September 14, 2013 at 1:24 pm. Reply.

      I’d imagine they’re there, but all the sent message messages are first then received. This is indicative of a problem with “SMS Backup & Restore” not getting the time right. Make sure you’ve ticked the option in the app on the phone to automatically adjust time zone.

  • jerem
    October 12, 2013 at 11:29 am. Reply.

    Very nice app. First try didn’t work because i only backed up sms. You’d add it works with full backup (step 2 :Connect your Blackberry to your PC and create a —FULL backup— of your phone using the Blackberry Desktop Software)
    thx a lot

  • Marty
    November 8, 2013 at 2:28 am. Reply.

    Hi, like everyone else above, THANK YOU for this app! It’s the only one out there that works for what I need.

    However, I am having one small issue: some of my messages that contain quotes aren’t being parsed correctly. Here’s an example output from Blackberry2Droid:

    When the message is imported it reads as “I love it that I am now just” and the “PC” part is missing. I think it should be imported as

    body=”I love it that I am now just & quot;PC." :) ”

    Will that fix the issue? Thanks again!

  • Kharisma
    December 3, 2013 at 10:56 pm. Reply.

    Hi there, is it possible to transfer bbm conversation in curve 8250 to android’s bbm? I switch device from blackberry to android with the same blackberry id but my conversation is gone and I can’t find the chat history as well. I hope you can help me. Thanks.

    • Dave Hope
      December 4, 2013 at 7:14 am. Reply.

      Hi,

      I’ve not implemented BBM and have no current plans to do so.

      Thanks

  • Sunny
    January 26, 2014 at 9:15 am. Reply.

    Thanks Dave for this beautiful converter. Due to this, I was able to transfer 514 SMS from Blackberry 9870 to HTC One X. Besides, this pretty much ends my affection for Blackberry, and I am happy about it.

  • Vijay
    February 4, 2014 at 7:33 am. Reply.

    Hi Dave,

    An Excellent application you have made. It is very simple yet very powerful. Really appreciate your effort made to help. This was something I was looking for some time now. I have got the solution to my issue.

    It would also be very good if you could build in the a tool in Blackberry mobile itself for transfering messages directly from Blackberry mobile to android instead of using a PC. I mean a mobile to mobile transfer. You could incooperate tranfer of all and selected messages/for a particular date/s. That would also be really an excellent application. Also you could include the transfer of Tasks and memos in it

    Thank you so very much. Really appreciate it.

    Regards
    Vijay

  • Nitin S
    February 27, 2014 at 10:40 am. Reply.

    Hi Dave… this is just too cool.. really appreciate you efforts here, it has saved a lot of us time and money.

    I wanted to know if there is a way to transfer MMS as well!

    best regards
    Nitin

    • Dave Hope
      February 27, 2014 at 11:31 am. Reply.

      Hi Nitin,

      It’s certainly possible, it’d just mean working out the file format for MMS. Blackberrys store their data in a proprietary database format. I’m not interested in further development as I no longer have any Blackberry devices but if someone wants to carry it forward and has suitable .Net experience I’m happy to provide the code.

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