please help restore viber messages

VandC

Hey, pretty much as the title says. To summarise what's been done so far:

On old phone messages were backed up to google drive.

New phone - viber was installed and file downloaded. File can be seen in downloads but says "can't open file".
Can't seem to restore the old messages.
On viber now if you go in to restore section it only let's you do a current backup and then restore that.

How do we get the older file to work so that the messages on old phone are on new.

Phone is not rooted and I'm not going to be able to do that.

Thanks

Dubwat

Do you have a new phone number?

https://support.viber.com/customer/en/portal/articles/2810857-back-up-and-restore-viber-messages-

Once you have downloaded and reactivated Viber, you can restore your messages.

You can only restore your messages to the same platform and the same phone number. For example, if you have an Android phone, you can only restore your messages to a new Android phone with the same phone number.

VandC

VandC wrote: »

Hey, pretty much as the title says. To summarise what's been done so far:

On old phone messages were backed up to google drive.

New phone - viber was installed and file downloaded. File can be seen in downloads but says "can't open file".
Can't seem to restore the old messages.
On viber now if you go in to restore section it only let's you do a current backup and then restore that.

How do we get the older file to work so that the messages on old phone are on new.

Phone is not rooted and I'm not going to be able to do that.

Thanks

How did you download the file? Just go sliding menu > settings > account > viber backup > restore

VandC

No new number. It's not my phone, asking for a friend.I had found those instructions but when I went in to viber there was only a back up option. Then the restore option became available but it would auto select the back up we'd just done.

I also found instruction to move a copy of the file to the database folder in the viber folder on the actual phone but I'm guessing that since I couldn't see that folder that it was only an option if phone was rooted.

Do you reckon it would be an option to delete viber off the new phone and just start again. Even if the restore folder on google drive is overwritten from the recent backups we could upload the older one again.

VandC

Bump

You still have the downloaded file which actually contains the backed up messages? What format is it?

VandC

Still have the file but I can't see the format. Even if I press and hold the file on the phone I dont get any further information just options to move and copy. I have a screenshot of it in the downloaded folder in the phone. I'll upload it in a few

VandC

The screenshot

I'm still struggling to understand where this file came from, and how you got it to your download folder. There wouldn't be an option to do this through viber. You found the Viber backup on drive and downloaded it?

VandC

Exactly. I'm thinking now that best option is to upload it back to drive and uninstall viber and start again?

VandC

VandC wrote: »

Exactly. I'm thinking now that best option is to upload it back to drive and uninstall viber and start again?

Ok, I've had a bit of a read about it. The backup you have was created using settings > calls and messages > email message history. As far as I can see, this can't be restored to Viber, but it's just a zip file containing csv's of each conversation. You can use a file explorer to browse/read through these csv's, but that's about it. It is possible there are apps/methods of restoring these conversations, but I'd say your device almost certainly needs to be rooted.

To create backups that can be restored to Viber, you need to use settings > account > Viber backup.

VandC

Ok thanks Basil. I'll have a root through the file on a laptop. Hopefully they will still be able to read the messages