webOS backup utility in the works 90
Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:37 am EST 
The prospects of a cloud-connected phone were obvious from the day that the Palm Pre and webOS were announced. Apart from being always connected, having all your data backed up in multiple places was an alluring concept. Fast-forward to today’s webOS and while the always-connected bit is more or less true, there are still some glaring holes in the backup abilities of the OS. PreCentral forum member DrewPre decided that having things like your call logs, SMS conversations, and whatnot not backed up wasn’t good enough and set out to create a backup app for webOS.
And create it he did. For his first webOS app, Palm Pre Backup is quite impressive. Currently the app takes data from your phone (call logs, contacts, tasks, memos, and SMS conversations) web browser (bookmarks, cookies, and history), bundles them up with your apps and patches, and spits out a nice little zip package onto your phone’s USB drive partition. From there you can copy it to your desktop computer and have a handy backup at the ready for the next time you need to reset or replace your webOS phone.
In the even that you do have to reset or replace your webOS phone, restoring all the lost data is as simple as rooting your Pre and entering “tar -xvzf /media/internal/ppbackup/ppbku.tar.gz”. This will unzip the compressed backup file into its respective files on the phone. DrewPre has plans to build this restore functionality into Palm Pre Backup, but for now is focusing on ironing out some small issues with the way backups are handled. Once that feature is implemented all you’ll have to do is load the backup file back onto your reset phone and hit the Restore button. Voila, it all comes back.
Restore functionality isn’t the only thing on DrewPre’s plate. He’s hoping to address multiple and incremental backups, scheduled backups, automated transfer of the backup file to your computer, among other things. All in all, Palm Pre Backup is shaping up to be a very impressive app, especially when you consider that this is DrewPre’s first attempt at programming for webOS. And where did he get the help he needed to get this app off the ground? The PreCentral webOS Development forums, of course.
Palm Pre Backup is looking to be in Preware’s app feed in the next few days. Let the beta testing commence! DrewPre isn’t sitting idle, though. Apart from the updates addressed above he’s planning to make a webOS app to transfer your Palm Profile contacts to Gooogle, all without having to hook up to a PC.
Thanks to Kmax12 for the tip!
90 Comments
Impressive and a very needed application. A well deserved Thanks! is in order.
A well deserved Donation! is in order. Surprised it took this long for this to come up. Well done and keep it up!
Wow...very very impressive! Can't wait!
Awesome! Exactly what I've been hoping for :) I'll happily donate/pay for this when DrewPre's ready to release!
Very nice DrewPre....you solved one of our most troubling issues - especially being developers having to ##RTN a lot. You Rock, dog!!!!!
Yes finally a Back up utility I would be willing to pay for. It would be nice to be able to extract the contacts from the back up and restore it into outlook contacts so I can feel as if I own my data again!.
Way to go with this app! Can't wait to see it in action! Feeling a little inspired now too!
Yes!
cool. can't wait to try this. i just replaced my pre for the 3rd time and i wish i could have saved my call logs and sms history easily.
this is the best news ive heard all week!!!!
"restoring all the lost data is as simple as rooting your Pre and entering
So wait for another month till restoring is pressing a button. Others will use it like it is now.
Linux tends to attract the nerds, alright. I wonder why...
We like to fix the problems in out gadgets, rather than deal with them. Same reason I'm back on Ubuntu after giving Windows 7 a try. :)
I think it was a wise decision to releae the backup utilty ASAP. I'd rather be able to backup up the unit now, even knowing in the event I do need to restore, I might have to jump through a few 'nerd-hoops.'
Any device that is hackable will turn into a nerd toy. You benefit for free when the stuff you're bashing becomes polished. The rest of us (who are nerds ourselves, like I am, or who aren't afraid of following some complicated-seeming instructions) benefit more quickly than that.
You would prefer a locked-down device where you wait for the OEM to provide a solution?
This is the same clueless nerd arrogance that leads the violent Linux jihadists to rage on any forum where Windows is mentioned, "JUST GET UBUNTU!!! IT REPLACES EVERYTHING AND IS F-R-E-E!!!!" (And runs nothing useful. And is brown. And the GIMP |= Photoshop.)
If the twits are paying an extra $1000 for a Mac because it offers a candy-coated EASY button for computer n00bs, the Linux nutcases are suggesting that a no-charge DIFFICULT button that's encrusted with typhoid-painted razor blades, barbed wire, and the mucus of a pig sick with bird flu is just as useful. No, it's not.
If people want to hack their phones to enable tethering or have the LEDs blink the lyrics to "Never Gonna Give You Up" in Esperanto Morse code, then they can knock themselves out. More power to them. My beef is the juxtaposition of the words "simply" with the phrase "root their phone" and type a bunch of gobbledygook.
People willingly enslave themselves to iTunes and the iPhone because Apple makes it easy along with overpriced. I've loaded FileCoaster and DLed some Homebrews, but now that's broken and I can't download anything more due to Palm's retarded app limit. (Hey, clowns, people can't BUY STUFF AND MAKE YOU MONEY UNTIL YOU FIX THIS!!! SAVVY?!?) Oh, I can download something and do some "Fair Dinkum" nonsense, but frankly I don't want to be that nerdy to use my damn phone and I'm someone who builds his own desktops.
Awesome post!
If people want to hack their phones to enable tethering or have the LEDs blink the lyrics to "Never Gonna Give You Up" in Esperanto Morse code, then they can knock themselves out.
Still lmao over that line!
I wish/hope Palm incorporates some of the great patches into webOS and make it a true smartphone.
Beh? Clueless nerd arrogance? So in other words, you would rather wait for Palm to do something about it (which is OK) but you're jealous that computer nerds have a solution today. I don't get what you're angry about here.
You're either responding to something totally unrelated to what I actually said, or you're reading into what I said stuff that I would never say. (And boy, your impression of Mac and Linux makes them both look ever so desirable, yeesh.)
If you don't want to be that nerdy ... no problem. No-one is judging your or laughing at you or ... anything silly like that. Fine. It just means you have to wait for Palm to solve this problem, which they inevitably will, some day.
Those of us who are willing to be nerdy will work around the problem before Palm addresses it, and this makes you angry? Or are you angry at the apologists for Palm who say that it doesn't matter if Palm fixes it or not because there's this other solution? In that case I partially agree with you; homebrew is a lot easier than some people suggest, but it's not for everyone. Palm must directly address this problem in an update. And I'm confident that they know this.
Where is all that rage coming from?
Very nice reasonable post ekuns. You said it all. Well done.
Whats wrong with having a phone that if you dont like something you can change it? If I dont want "Sprint" at the top left corner well hey "there's a patch for that."
See what the palm profile backup failures lead to!!!! A peace of mind that one day were not all the sudden gonna loose memos/tasks outta the blue and all we could do was yell at some poor palm service agent...
A-Man Brothers and sisters lol its about time GOOD JOB....
I just reset my phone and lost all contacts with my palm profile. very upsetting. however the palm back up did save my downloaded apps :( I called and was told that since I got my pre on launch day that who ever transfered my contacts did not hit a add to palm profile key. Either way it load zero contacts noteven ones I have added since getting the phone. Palm has issued a desktop component on there old treo phones. they should have done that and the cloud, adding to functionality not taking it away. Look forward to trying this app out because everyone should have a hard backup of the contact and info.
DrewPre you are a LIFE saver! Thank you for addressing this much needed utility!
This looks great. To all the people who had trouble w/ the palm profile.. I've reset my phone about 3 times and the profile has worked flawlessly.
AS a back up though I have everything in my google contacts also.. can never be too safe :)
Beautiful!!!!
I just DR'd my pre on sunday and was sweating bullets the whole time that my contacts wouldn't come back after hearing the horror stories. But all worked out and they came back. Now with this option coming out I won't be as nervous to do it.
Thank you all who develop apps and patchs for us, without all of your hard work the Pre wouldn't be half the phone it is.
Well done DrewPre!
This app is SO important that I for one would support the forum/community having a way to donate up front. I've seen complete datasets get shot to hell with an update. Been there, done that. And for those that really don't want to screw around with things like using Google for your backup (which is just horse&^%$) this is a Godsend. Play on, sir, and thank you for your important work. (Derek, seriously, let's find a way to donate to this guy!) bj
grow up. There is nothing wrong with having google hold your contacts. There are millions of people who use google just for this purpose. I trust them more than I trust the palm servers that hold the palm profile backups.
Sync your Sh!t to google and export the contacts from there. It is so easy, but some people are just to ignorant to look for alternatives.
Someone fail to change your diaper this morning? I was simply giving kudos to the developer and suggesting we find ways to support such efforts. You should continue to keep verbal abuse between you and your parents.
i don't have parents. Looks like you are the next best thing.
no seriously though, it was not directed at you. I am just saying in general.
Oh, sure, I don't know why vnmous1 would take that as a personal attack when you start your post with "grow up" and then continue on to say that some people are "to ignorant to look for alternatives". He's soooo touchy for no reason at all!
May I suggest that someone who doesn't know the difference between "to" and "too" shouldn't be calling other people ignorant? Oh, but hey, don't take it personally. I'm just saying in general.
who really gives a shit about how people spell. I can type on the interwebz how ever I want.
OMG i spelled internet wrong!!!! call the grammar police. Shadowcat where are you!!!! i need help with spellllllllling.
So you studying to be an english teacher? grow up.
My, my. Look who's taking things personally now.
I don't care how reliable some third party is at backing stuff up. Their backup is for convenience, not for doomsday. Ask Sidekick users what they think of your sentiment.
I personally think it's just as ridiculous to have all of one's contacts in Gmail without occasionally downloading a full contact list to your own computer.
For those of us starting out with data imported from a Palm profile, should we manually re-enter everything so we can have the privilege of having all of our contacts on Google? While for most people, the security risks of this are minimal, Google is an impressive target due to hosting all of this information.
It's only a question of when, not if, Google's servers get hacked. For most of us, the information in our contacts can all be found in the phone books and we have no associations that can embarrass us if made public. As long as no data is destroyed or corrupted in the hack, the worst that would happen to most of us is inconvenience or minor embarrassment.
But there are valid reasons why Google contacts isn't the right choice for everybody.
ABOUT TIME!! Dude your awesome, we will owe the world to you!!! Keep up the great work!
How about we all poney up for a server? Have all of our info backed up there?
*sprays with bottle*
No! Bad Spartan! Bad!
what about making it so the backups automatically e-mail the file to yourself. that way the backup files are automatically off the phone and not reliant on the user to then transfer the file to a pc and makes it available to the user where ever they are and don't need their own computer to restore.
Derek, please make sure you update the article or make a new one when the app gets in the feed.
This app is about 5 days too late for me. I am one of those who DRed phone and can't get my contacts back. Waiting on Palm to call me back when they solve it.
Thanks DrewPre. If I ever get my contacts back, this will be a great app to have.
sync your stuff to yahoo or google. Don't trust the palm servers. Palm profile backups are new to palm. Google has been doing PIM stuff for years. trust them more that palm.
Millions of people use google for their PIM solution, if it was not safe people wouldn't be using it.
I really recommend not using the palm profile for anything. Sync all of your stuff (set google as default profile) for all of your PIM.
You will be waiting for every. The same thing happened to me and level 3 support was suppose to call me from last week. I am not waiting anymore. I just wait back to my palm desktop and reloaded everything from that. Yes, I am missing everything I added since I got my PRE but it's something.
I have to hold onto hope because my contacts are not anywhere =\
If this gets into a decent stable version I am happy to PAY and support the app !!! Well done and I am looking forward trying it out !!!
WELL DONE !!!
Great, cool and just what we needed :)
Thanks a lot DrewPre
EXCELLENT JOB... paid, donation, whatever, well worth it!!!
awesome! We the users and Palm are lucky to have you! Will definitely pay for this app
Hallelujah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
When I got the Pre I was excited to have everything backed up to 'the cloud' so if I had to replace my phone, everything would be right there on my new one. Nope. Only contacts and a handful of apps were redownloaded to my new phone. I was upset at losing my SMS messages, all my personal settings, and other misc. stuff.
Great news indeed!!
yeah, where is the donation link, i'd happily donate to speed up the process and get my hard copy of my Palm Pre stuff, I'm tired of re-entering all this crap!
Awesome DrewPre... you are going to be a Hero (pardon the pun) to the community!
Thanks to PreCentral for reporting it, and thanks to DrewPre for creating it! My only minor wish list item is that restoring data be made easy for those of us who don't know how to root our Pres and don't know the first thing about Linux. Other than that, it sounds dandy. :)
GREAT NEWS! Actually could have used it last night when I had to wipe my Pre and manually restore all apps etc. Where's the donation link? Can't wait till he gets the restore function working too! GREAT JOB - THANKS!
One weekend too late. I just recently had to exchange my PRE due to a hardware issue (power button). The one thing I couldn't find out how to retain were all my sms messages. Bummer. At least now we can. Thanks to those great developers out there. Now, if we can find a way to delete all those sms messages from the phone at once.....hmmmm.
This is a very needed Application
However, as restore becomes part of the program I would heavily suggest it be a selective restore (a la NVBackup, Backupbuddy) as some will use this for restoration after Update and (obviously) patches ought not be restored in those cases
Yes. I *definitely* need this.
Yesterday my Pre suddenly started telling me it couldn't connect its palm profile and then restarted itself twice and after the second time it completely wiped itself. I was relived to see that it then asked me for my palm profile ID so I then logged in.
All my contacts were restored, along with applications (not homebrew though, but some patches seem to still be there) but I was horrified to discover NONE of my text conversations had been backed up NOR any call history. So they are lost forever.
I mean neither of them are vital to my life, but if they were I'd be completely lost now!
I was thinking that I might leave it until 1.3.1 comes along (I'm in the UK) but the presence of patches means I will have to load up preware and then uninstall all the patches. Oh well.
were was this a week ago?
FML...
This is a *definite buy* (and/or donate) for me. For completeness, it would also *have* to back up and restore app-created data files, too, like the data file for SplashID.
Thanks DrewPre! Excellent work! You Rock.
Palm should give you a gold medal. You are doing their work.
**Really** wish Palm would step up to do this as its so tied into the OS structure itself... having to root the box may hinder its adoption unfortuntely me thinks...
having to root the box may hinder its adoption
As mentioned in the article, that's surely temporary. Drew's making sure the backup part is done clean and plans to tidy up the restore functionality after. Junk in, junk out and all that.
Great Job Drew!!
KUDOs to you for doing this!.... this is such a basic thing that it is scandalous that Palm didnt have a way to do a real backup from day 1.... shame on Palm for letting so many people like me lose data needlessly.... please give us a paypal account where I can donate to the cause and speed up making this a full blown app!
WOW, wish I had this saturday. I webOS doctor'ed me Pre, and my Palm profile was BLANK!! Palm pulled a micro/danger on me!
Great, lets see how it works. Im so use to everthing at work being backed up. Working on my Pre makes me nervous.
cant wait .. best app utility to come out .. hands down to the develeper
Good News indeed. I will gladly pay/donate for this App.
wish I would have something like this a week ago.
my Pre needed replaced and I lost things I wish I still had...including APPs(paid for and free, from Homebrew and Palm).
I knew I wasn't getting the Homebrew apps back...but I always thought I would be getting my apps back from the App Catalog from Palm.
looking forward to this; thanks for the work!
Hate to burst everyone's bubble but this app is only going to work for people who need to restore to the same version of WebOS as the backup was made with.
The palm database files can (and have) and likely will change between versions of WebOS as they introduce more functionality and support for more email/im/calendar services.
For example:
A user running v1.2.1 uses this utility to back up their Pre. User then updates to 1.3.1 and for whatever reason, needs to do a complete/partial erase. If that person then restores that v1.2.1 backup on v1.3.1 then their phone is going to have problems. Problems ranging from new functionality being missing to just completely screwing things up on the phone.
Perhaps a better approach would be to deal with the databases themselves via some utility to extract the data and be able to import it back in, knowing the differences between os version's databases and being able to handle them properly.
So in the case you're talking about, the person does an erase, then uses Palm's utilities to restore to a clean old WebOS version, then restores the backup, then re-upgrades to the latest & greatest version.
And that's today. As this application gets refined and developed, it can get better and more nuanced.
It's still not quite that simple.
There are issues with just copying files back onto the Pre after a wipe even if the files are from the same version of WebOS
uhhh - am I missing something?
You can just do the BACKUP AGAIN when you upgrade to a new version of WebOS. It's that simple - not rocket science.
Awsomeeeeeeeeee Drew'd!!
This is a HUGE step towards restoring basic functionality found on all the old Palm OS phones... But he would truly be a God Among Men if he could make the data work in Palm Desktop!!! That I would be willing to pay real money for. Like $20, no problem. I would never pay for the current apps that just want to create more profiles that will not sync with data in the Palm Profile...
Great Job Drew!!
Will it be compatible with 1.3.1 version that just currently came out?
I have been very concerned since the meltdown with the sidekick cloud, at least now we have the option to backup manually to our computer, similar to the i-phone method.
Looking forward to installing the App when it comes out on Preware! :-)
thank god good stuff since palm lost all my data 400 contacts and palm or sprint doing nothing about it so mad i updated to 1.3.1.
I love it, if only it had been available a week ago when I swapped phones... I would have had to learn how to root, but I would have done it. Can't wait for it to show up on Preware!
Backup App compatible w/ 1.3.1? Why can't palm create something similar to I-tunes where you can back up your phone!
Ugh! Would be awesome for me about week ago, I had my palm pre stolen and when I got my replacement from insurance peoplez, and all the backup done was restore the free apps since I am in the UK and grab my facebook/gmail contacts not even linked together. All my numbers was lost. seems kind of pointless.
this makes me so excited! I too had all my data lost by my prolfile after the update. Got a call from palm, waiting for the escalation..... I miss palm desktop and outlook sync backup capabilities!
Just had to replace my pre with a referb due to a drop at 5am that deemed the touchscreen dead.
Thank God for the cloud, I will not lose my contacts RIGHT??
WRONG-- cloud did not work. Centro was dropped in pool cant get from there. Didn't work for my brother last week that had to WEB OS DOCTOR his either...
WHY does Palm Profile not work? CRAP
I suggest everyone using GOOGLE for there backup, you wont know the feeling until it happens to you!
You sir, will be written into the PreHistory books!
Thumbs up for DrewPre, cause palm seems not to fix it's own PalmProfile backup:
http://forums.precentral.net/palm-pre/203201-palm-profile-backup-failure...
Ten thumbs up for a backup program that WORKS FOR ALL COMPUTERS. No OS dependencies, no annoying "PC" based companion app- just plug in and copy over the zip files!
What a simple and elegant solution. This is very interesting.
Great no need for 3rd party apps. Finally PALM listened to their customers and will create a back up system. Now we can control our data-data. Keep PALM user friendly...PALM never ends it's a work in progress.
Is there any update on this?
Desselle, you read my mind. This is becoming more and more useful... I lost some phone numbers in my mess last night.
FYI to anyone coming here to check on the status (since we last heard about this two months ago today), this now appears to be a for-pay ($5?) utility. See the URL
http://www.xybyresoft.com/webos/utils/
I was wondering why we hadn't heard an update on this, since it's such a big deal to so many people. I was waiting for something to come to Preware, but now it appears this will not happen?