I have recently acquired a new Samsung Galaxy smartphone running Android 13. The Samsung "Smart Switch" application was able to migrate the Joplin app from my old Samsung Galaxy running Android 12, but failed to migrate the data. The Joplin version installed on the new smartphone, which appears to be 2.10.8, greets me with "Get Started" and a DB empty except for the instruction notes for beginners. What is the correct procedure to link the new installation with my existing account and DB (residing on Dropbox) without risking that my existing notes get overwritten by the essentially empty DB on the new device?
I'm on iOS, but the procedure should be the same:
- Make sure you have a recent backup just in case (export all as JEX)
- Make sure the fail-safe toggle is on in the mobile app's configuration menu (which is designed to prevent the kind of overwriting you're referring to).
- Connect to sync target and download notes.
In an ideal world we could speed up that process by simply copying over config folders with all notes and resources in them, but I'm afraid this procedure is confined to the desktop app only.
I have performed steps 1 and 2 as you suggest, but step 1 probably isn't necessary.
I just realized that, since my files are stored on Dropbox, I can just "Rewind this folder" if something goes wrong.
My big problem is to recreate the correct configuration n the new device. As you say, this would be easy if I could just copy the configuration file. Is there no way to do this?
As it is, I am going through the options one by one and comparing them between devices, but I am not sure I remember my "master password" correctly. What happens if I get it wrong?
P.S. False alarm: my old phone had "Master password: Loaded" but "Encryption is: Disabled". My new phone now says the same and the "Master Key" agrees between the two devices, which suggests to me that I entered the correct master password. However, the new phone has an orange bar at the top that says "Press here to set the decryption password". I am afraid to enter one for fear of now encrypting everything. How can I get rid of the prompt?
Synchronization appears to have downloaded all my notes and also "Created remote items: 9".
This puzzles me, because the only new thing I see is the notebook "Welcome (Mobile)" containing 5 items.
P.P.S. After reviewing my earlier thread, "Deliver me from encryption hell!", I realized that I must have entered the master password incorrectly. After reentering it correctly, the orange bar went away, without turning on encryption.
1 Like
It's a long time since I setup Joplin on a new device, but I guess that there must be 5 notes in the "Welcome" folder containing 4 resources (probably pictures and the like).
I don't see any pictures. IAC, not important, just idle curiosity ;-}
Joplin's ways of counting things like notes and resources (which it calls "items" as a parent term) are unfathomable 
This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.