[Joe Clean]

Hi,
I need to revive contacts from my parents' old BB Pearl backup to new smartphones (like an iPhone or Samsung Galaxy), is there a way to do that without the BB Pearl unit? Because it's broken, I left it at a repair store and the technician isn't sure he can fix it.
Thanks for the help guys!

[BigBadWulf]

As long as you have a backup, you can use Desktop Manager to do a device switch, and transfer select PIM data. There's no guaranty it will work, but it "should".

[Joe Clean]

When you said "to do a device switch", do you mean to another BlackBerry phone or other smartphones (like iPhone or Samsung Galaxy)?

[joeldf]

To the best of my knowledge, the Desktop Manager "Device Switch" is only from one BBOS device to another BBOS device. I don't think it worked to even go to BB10 device - but I could be wrong about that.

I used it to go from my 8100 on OS 4.5 to a 9800 on OS 6. But, when I got my Z10, I just redid everything from scratch.

I seem to remember something that could read the backup - which is just a zip file format with a bunch of files for each backup item - and extract contacts into a CSV list that could be imported into Excel or an address book like for Outlook. But I don't know if that's still possible.

Joel

[joeldf]

Apparently there are a few apps out there that can read unencrypted .ipd or .bbb backups from the legacy OS devices (meaning, not PlayBook or BB10 devices), and export contacts into Excel.

Google "BlackBerry Contacts Extractor", or "BlackBerry Backup Extractor". There are various apps for the PC or Mac out there.

Joel

[Joe Clean]

To the best of my knowledge, the Desktop Manager "Device Switch" is only from one BBOS device to another BBOS device. I don't think it worked to even go to BB10 device - but I could be wrong about that.

Joel

Yeah I thought so, there's no way BlackBerry let its Desktop Manager switch their phones to other company / manufacturer.

[Joe Clean]

Apparently there are a few apps out there that can read unencrypted .ipd or .bbb backups from the legacy OS devices (meaning, not PlayBook or BB10 devices), and export contacts into Excel.

Google "BlackBerry Contacts Extractor", or "BlackBerry Backup Extractor". There are various apps for the PC or Mac out there.

Joel

I think I'm going to try that app, thanks Joel!

[joeldf]

I've never tried them, so please let us know how it goes.

Joel

[BigBadWulf]

Though I remembered that feature before link, but its been a long time since I used Desktop Manager.

MagicBerry used to be decent at reading backups, and there was one other that starts with an E.