iPhone is a cool handset. The multi-touch is a really cool feature too. But this very fact could lead to the tip of your finger accidentally touch "Clear" and again, accidentally touch "Yes, I'm sure, just wipe my lovely text messages off." What are the odds of this happening? Not much, but it actually happens, at least it happened to me this morning.

To a reader of dochar, the first solution is to google, "Dear iTunes, I was stupid enough to delete all my text messages, could you help please?" The catch? No results in Google, nothing for Windows. The only thing Google brings up is "Yes, we can."

So, I had to roll my sleeves up. The good thing was I sync my iPhone almost everyday, so I knew I have the text messages somewhere in iTunes backups. But where does iTunes store the backup? How could I get it? And if and when I could get it, then how could I transfer it to the iPhone and have the iPhone talk to it?

I didn't simply want to have the texts. I wanted to have them back in the iPhone. A tool like MobileBrowserSync could easily dump the texts from the iTunes to a text file. Or I could do a restore, but that wasn't really worth the headache of having to reinstall and re-customize all the (jailbroken) apps.

So I'll write down what I did, hoping you would never need this instruction.

You don't have to jailbreak your iPhone for this to work. The tools that I used are: SQLite Database Browser, Notepad++, DiskAid, iTunes, and kind of obviously, the iPhone cable. All the software in this list are free and small. Simply google their name to find a download link.

1. iTunes stores the backup at %appdata%\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup\[some random looking string]. There are quite a few files with the extension .mdbackup in this folder. The name of the file that stores the SMS data starts with 3d0d7. Make a copy of this file as you are going to do your surgery on this one.

2. The file is actually an SQLite database. A more appropriate name for it, if Apple was kind enough, is sms.db. Not only the name of the file is not this, the headers are changed also. Open the file with Notepad++ and delete enough characters from thebeginning of the file so that the file actually begins with " SQLite format 3" (This string is actually in the file). Just to double check that you did everything correctly, open the new file in "SQLite Database Browser." If it could open the file, the viola! Great surgery job. If it didn't, try again or just bear with your text dump from MobileBrowserSync.

3. Open DiskAid, go to root folder\User\Library\SMS. You should see a file called sms.db there. Make a backup and then overwrite sms.db with your patched file.

4. Wipe off your sweat. You made the texts return. Call your bf/gf and brag about your geek qualities.

If you got questions, just drop me a line at alee<-a->dochar.com

PS. Install Chronus on your iPhone. It enables you to make backups of *every* app on your iPhone, including SMS and Notes (and third party apps).

پنجشنبه۱۷دی۸۸ | ۳۳:۰۴