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I am going on holiday, and am scared of loosing my Ubuntuphone which has all my contacts and SMS text messages. I have read the article on here about backup which says to copy /home/phablet/ (on the phone) to somewhere else.

My problem however, is that when I connect my Ubuntuphone to my computer via USB it only gives me access to the pictures (and the micro SD card) etc. The pictures copy fine, but I need to copy the phone's system files in /home/phablet/ (the whole directory to be safe), but I can not get access to /home/phablet/ on a remote device. I tried copying to the SD card via a Terminal app on the phone, but that did not work.

I also tried a Bluetooth dongle, connection established with my PC but I can only seem to send files from my PC to my Ubuntuphone (not the other way around).

I just need a simple solution to enable me to copy /home/phablet/ from my Ubuntuphone to my Linux PC. Please help.

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  • Try using adb pull
    – pomsky
    Aug 6, 2016 at 21:56

2 Answers 2

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Do You know the adb tools?

Here are some instructions how it should work for you*:

  1. Install adb tools on your Ubuntu desktop PC: sudo apt-get install adb
  2. Enable developer mode at your Ubuntu Touch Device: System settings > about > deleoper mode
  3. Connect your device via USB to your PC.
  4. Use adb pull to pull files and folders:adb pull /home/phablet/. ./backup If you use adb tools the first time, you will need to confirm access at the device and start this command again.
  5. Go and drink some coffee and have a great time until transfer is finished.
  6. Go for your holidays.

*written with Ubuntu Touch, Nexus 4.

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If you have an ssh server running on your linux PC you should be able to copy the whole /home/phablet directory using the scp command from a terminal on your phone. See http://linux.die.net/man/1/scp for more info on how to use scp.

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  • Thankyou for this suggestion. I have had a go at it, but it seems a little too complicated for me to master before I go on holiday. I tried to self-study for CompTIA Linux+ but I am just not up to it. Essentially I only need to backup up my Contacts and SMS Messages from my Ubuntu phone. Is there any other simple way I can do this ? I found the Wammu program in the Linux Mint Software Centre on my 64 bit home built Linux Box. However I have no idea what settings I would need to use. Aug 8, 2016 at 18:56

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