ActiveFile offline

File manager ActiveFile has some great extras. It's also a task manager, and it can reboot your phone, make screenshots, and make fake messages too. What really sets ActiveFile apart is that it can backup and restore your SMSs.

Unfortunately its website is down. Alietan.com expired on July 30, 2011. Maybe Alie Tan will renew it, maybe he moved on to Android and said goodbye to ActiveFile.

Since legit app sites point to the defunct alietan.com for their downloads, the only way to get the program is from forums of ill repute like iP-mart, noeman.org etc.

Or you can download it from here:

• Active File 1.44.5 (basic and manufacturer capabilities versions) hosted by symbian underground

ActiveFile fixes old bugs but comes with a new problem

X-plore is the best file manager for Symbian if you want to manage files. But file manager ActiveFile has a few extra features beyond file managing that make it a great program.

ActiveFile is also a task manager. And it can reboot your phone, make screenshots, back up your SMSs, and it can make fake messages too.

The file manager gets the job done. The two pane layout makes it easy to move files between folders. Unfortunately ActiveFile lacks the "tree view" option of X-plore. The # key selects and deselects files and folders, unlike previous versions of the program. Unfortunately the selection marker is very hard to see on white file icons.

The screenshot tool of ActiveFile usually needs to be triggered with the C (delete) key, unless you have a very old phone that still has a pencil key. The camera key can make screenshots in theory, but on my phones it keeps launching the camera instead of making screenshots.

The option "turn light on" is probably meant to light the led so you can use your phone as a flashlight, but this didn't work on any of my phones. If you want to use your phone as a torch, use BrightLight.

SMS backup and restore is the best feature of ActiveFile. You can back up and restore every message folder, including your custom message folders. Better yet, ActiveFile can restore your messages in a non-destructive way: if you restore a backup, new messages that arrived after you made the backup stay on your phone. If you send a backup from one phone to another, the two SMS folders are merged perfectly. Not even Nokia's own Ovi Suite will do that for you.

You can choose whether the SMS backup file should be stored on your phone's own memory or on your memory card, but you can't select the folder in which ActiveFile should store the backup. ActiveFile doesn't even tell you the location of the backup file, and the SMS backup screen has no options for copying backups to your computer, storing them online, or sending them to other Symbian phones to merge different messaging folders. Of course there's a workaround to do all that: just navigate to the backup files in any file browser to copy, send, move, or delete 'em. ActiveFile stores your backups in C:\Data\Others or E:\Others, depending on whether you choose internal memory or memory card as backup location.

ActiveFile may crash with an out of memory error when you restore backups with a lot (many hundreds) of messages, so don't rely on ActiveFile as your only SMS backup method.

ActiveFile can create fake SMSs. Unlike other fake SMS creators like Free-iSMS and Fake Messages (which can only fake incoming messages), ActiveFile can fill your inbox and sent folder with fake incoming and outgoing SMSs. Old versions of ActiveFile would get the date and time of your fake messages wrong, but the latest version gets it right.

The latest version (v1.44.5) fixes some other bugs (details here UPDATE: This link is dead. And so is Symbian.) too. It works well on my phones except for one: on my old Symbian S60v3 feature pack 2 phone the program shuts down whenever I try to open the options menu. On this phone I'll stick with version 1.44.0, which fortunately is still available on the ActiveFile website.

• ActiveFile from Alie Tan UPDATE: This link is dead. And so is Symbian.

MyNotes and ActiveFile fix bugs, but users of Contacts Transfer be warned

MyNotes

Symbian's built-in Notes application does its job, but MyNotes does more. With MyNotes you can protect your notes with a password, encrypt them, and organise them into folders. MyNotes used to choke on passwords that contain a zero, but the latest update fixes this bug.

MyNotes is a mobile Java program, so it doesn't launch as fast as Symbian's built-in notes application. But that's a small price to pay for password protection, encryption, and filing your notes into folders.

• MyNotes


ActiveFile

A new beta test version of file manager ActiveFile appeared on the ActiveFile website, but was quickly removed. For details about ActiveFile, check this review.

What's new (according to the changelog)?

The beta test version comes as a single installer for all versions of Symbian S60, and numerous bugs were fixed.

What's new (according to my own test, which is far from complete)?

The SMS backup and restore function has improved. The "backup options" entry in the menu of the SMS backup tool works now, so you don't have to click all the way to the settings menu to change your SMS backup/restore settings. And the "ignore duplicate" setting (which you can set to yes or no) doesn't forget your choice anymore.

The "fake SMS" feature has a new bug. When I created fake messages with the beta test version, ActiveFile got the dates wrong. August 10 became July 9, September 11 became August 10, etcetera. If you want to set a certain date for your message, you'll have to increase the day and month by one. This means you can't fake an SMS for the last day of the month, because ActiveFile won't accept the 32nd of August. If you set the first day of the month (or the first month of the year) and hit "create," ActiveFile crashes without creating the message, since one minus one produces an invalid date. On the bright side, ActiveFile can fake outgoing messages in addition to inbound SMSs, a feature you won't find (yet) in Free-iSMS or Fake Messages.

What's not new?

SMS backup files can be stored on your phone's built-in memory or on your memory card, but ActiveFile won't let you choose in which folder you'd like the backup to be stored. It doesn't even tell you the location of the backup file, which makes it unnecessarily difficult to copy the backup to your computer, store it online, or send it to another Symbian phone to merge different messaging folders.

You can move, copy, and send the SMS backup files manually if you know where they are. If you choose to store SMS backups in "internal memory" the backup files are stored in C:\Data\Others. If you choose "memory card" the files end up in E:\Others.

A bug that has not been fixed, and which may cause very unpleasant surprises: when you delete SMS backups from within ActiveFile's SMS backup screen it will also delete phone book backups created by Contacts Transfer if they're on the same drive. To be on the safe site, tell ActiveFile and Contacts Transfer to use different drives to store their backups until ActiveFile is fixed.

Other bugs may have been repaired (or introduced), but I'll wait for future updates to look into that. For managing my files I still prefer X-plore, and KillMe and JBak TaskMan are better than ActiveFile's built-in task manager. What really sets ActiveFile apart from other file and task managers is its nondestructive SMS backup and restore option and the Fake Message creator. These features work, even though there is plenty of room for bug fixes and other improvements.

• ActiveFile from Alie Tan
• ActiveFile v1.43.1 beta at Mobile Castle

SMS backup program X-SMS now also for touchscreen Nokia phones and Samsung Omnia HD

PC Suite restores your old SMSs and deletes your new messages, but X-SMS restores your messages in a non-destructive way. When you restore a backup with X-SMS, the messages you received after you made the backup are preserved. You can store your messages as .txt, .doc, .pdf, and .html.

The latest version adds the touchscreen Nokias N97 and 5800 XpressMusic and the Samsung Omnia HD to the list of supported phones.

X-SMS only backs up messages from your inbox. So move all your messages to your inbox before you make a backup, or else you may lose the messages from your sent folder and custom folders. To install and use X-SMS you'll need to have Python installed on your phone.

File manager ActiveFile comes with an SMS backup and restore function that backs up and restores messages from all messaging folders, including the custom folders you've made yourself. But if ActiveFile won't work for you, X-SMS is the most suitable alternative.

• X-SMS for N97, 5800 XpressMusic, and Omnia HD
• X-SMS for Symbian S60 3rd ed.

AutoSisInstaller automatically installs programs to your phone memory and memory card, now also for Symbian S60 5th ed.

Need to reinstall many programs on your phone because you switched phone, did a hard reset, or upgraded your firmware? That takes a lot of time and pushing of buttons.

AutoSisInstaller makes things a lot easier. Just copy your .sis, .sisx, .jar, and .jad installer files to E:\ThinkChange\c\ (to install them on your phone memory) or E:\ThinkChange\e (to install them on your memory card) and AutoSisInstaller deals with all the questions like "yes," "I agree," and "finish."

The old version would install everything on your phone memory. The option to choose between C:\ or E:\ is new. And AutoSisInstaller is now also available for the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic and other phones that run on Symbian S60 5th ed.

• AutoSisInstaller by Tong Ren

Chat and SMS: instant messaging with Slick and onesoup, copy and restore SMSs with Oxygen, undo the Curse of Silence with Nokia SMS Cleaner

Slick, multi-network instant messenger (free while beta testing lasts)

The latest version of multi-network instant messenger Slick now works with Nokia's touchscreen phone 5800 XpressMusic "Tube," and the ICQ and AIM bug (sends empty messages) is fixed.

Slick connects to GoogleTalk and other Jabber networks, and to MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, and AIM. It supports file transfer, but not voice chat.

The beta test versions are free. Slick is supposed to go commercial one day, but the free beta test has been going on for so long that it's hard to believe it will ever turn into payware. And if Slick ever asks for money, there are plenty of other instant messengers that won't cost you a penny.

• Slick


onesoup

Most Symbian mobile phones have an instant messaging program built in. But hardly anybody is using it because the program doesn't know which messaging server to use until you tell it where to connect to. If your phone operator doesn't have a messaging server, or if they want you to pay extra to use it, you can still use the built-in messaging program of your Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, or Siemens, or BenQ phone with onesoup.

Onesoup is not a program. It's a website and a messaging server that lets you use the built-in instant messaging program of your phone. So now you can do something with that strange program on your Nokia with the yellow icon that's called IM.

If you use onesoup, your options are limited by the limitations of your built-in messaging program. You can send pictures, but not other files. And no voice messaging either. For those things you can use programs like Nimbuzz or fring, which let you send anything you want and do VoIP (including Skype) as well.

• onesoup

UPDATE: Connecting through onesoup is a hit-or-miss affair which fails very often.


Copy and restore SMSs with Oxygen and the tutorials from eViLrAcEr

You can backup and restore SMS messages with PC Suite or make a full backup of your phone memory with the built-in backup option of your phone, but if you restore the backup it will overwrite everything, including the messages that you received after you made the backup.

And it's hard to transfer your SMS folders to another phone without killing the messages that are already there.

But eViLrAcEr found a solution. He explains how you can copy your messages to another phone with the free trial version of Oxygen. Even better, he describes how you can restore backups in a non-destructive way: restoring a backup won't delete the messages that are already on your phone.

• Copy SMS messages to another phone
• Restore messages from a backup in a non-destructive way


Nokia SMS Cleaner

The Curse of Silence is an SMS exploit that hits many Symbian S60 Nokia phones. If you receive a malformed SMS, your message box is effectively blocked and you'll no longer be able to receive incoming SMSs and MMSs.

If you've hacked your phone to set Symbian free, you can simply remove the offending SMS from the Symbian system folder. Those who're not in control of their own phones can use the FortiCleanUp Tool. And now there's another way of getting rid of the Curse of Silence, because Nokia made its own cleaner, a month after Fortinet did their job for them. Better late than never...

• Nokia SMS Cleaner

Backup your messages with X-SMS and SMSBackUp

X-SMS

X-SMS by Siraj is a Python application for Symbian which backs up your SMSs to a file. This way you can keep your old messages without an overflowing message box. You can choose to backup to txt, html, and doc. Future versions should include pdf as well.

X-SMS makes backups of your inbox only. It doesn't back up messages from other folders yet, and it won't restore SMSs back to your phone, but Siraj is working on it. Stay tuned!

• X-SMS by Siraj


SMSBackUp

SMSBackUp is supposed to work like X-SMS. In addition, SMSBackUp should let you select which messages to back up, filtered by contact or date.

Unfortunately I couldn't get SMSBackUp working on any of my phones. Maybe you have more luck with your phone. If not, just try X-SMS by Siraj.

• SMSBackUp


edit: The best way to backup and restore your SMSs is with ActiveFile.

Resource Cleanup, X-SMS, fix for empty contact list in PC Suite

Resource Cleanup

The resource folders of your phone (c:\resource\apps, e:\resource\apps) are full of files with names like x.r01, y.r02, z.r03, etcetera. These files contain the same stuff in different languages, and together they waste many megabytes. Not much of a problem on your memory card, but in your phone's internal memory every megabyte counts. To free up some space you can delete the files for languages you never use. For example, if you only use english, you'd keep all the *.r01 files and throw away the rest. For american english you keep *.r10. For swahili you keep the *.r84 files.

You can do the same thing with all the different language versions of the help files: *.h01, *.h02, etcetera from c:\resource\help and e:\resource\help.

And you can use a Python script to do it all for you. This script removes useless resource files from your phone's internal memory, your memory card, or both. It makes a backup for you if you want, so you can easily restore the files if you accidentally remove to much.

Resource Cleanup requires that you hack your phone to set Symbian free.

• Resource Cleanup for Python


X-SMS

X-SMS exports the messages from your phone to a text or html file, so you can save them on your computer in a format that any text editor or web browser can read.

Unfortunately X-SMS works one way only. It can save your messages, but it won't restore them back to your phone.

• X-SMS by Siraj on Mobile Castle


Nokia PC Suite empty contact list fix

If you back up your phone with Nokia PC Suite, it puts everything in a file with an .nbu extension which only PC Suite can read.

Sometimes things go wrong, and your comtact list backup stays empty.

And sometimes you may want to extract the contacts as vcard files to import them into another phone or share them with others.

Enter Nokia PC Suite empty contact list fix. You upload your .nbu backup file to this site, and it extracts your contacts and saves them as vcards, which you can download to your computer.

• Nokia PC Suite empty contact list fix

Back up, transfer, share, and send your Nokia Maps Landmarks and Google Maps Locations

You can back up your phone's Nokia Maps Landmarks (which are shared with Google Maps) with Nokia PC Suite. You can also back 'em up or send them to another phone without having a PC nearby, but Nokia kept the method well hidden.

You can't do it from Nokia Maps itself. Instead, you'll need to open the Landmarks application, select the Landmarks you want to save or send, and then hit "Send" from the Options menu.

You can choose between MMS and bluetooth. If you've configured an email account in the built-in messaging program of your Nokia, you can send them by email too.

Unfortunately you can't simply save your Landmarks as a file. Why, Nokia, why?

The same Landmarks are called Favourites in Google Maps. You can send 'em by MMS, bluetooth or email like you can do with the Landmarks application, but Landmarks lets you select multiple Landmarks and send them all together, whereas Google Maps can only send them one by one.

• Nokia Maps
• Nokia Map Loader alternative
• Google Maps
• Send Google Maps locations to Nokia Maps
• Send Google Earth locations to Nokia Maps

Delete RealPlayer recent clip list, delete Converter exchange rates, save and share mobile Java installer files

If you hack your copy of Symbian to force access to the system folders on your phone you can back up or delete all kinds of things.

To back up (or delete) access points, bluetooth devices, bookmarks, calendar entries, contacts, cookies, SMS and email messages, notes, profiles, and the T9 dictionary, click here.

To delete stuck installer files, dead themes, and "share online" on the active standby screen, go here.

A few more things you can do with a hacked phone and a file manager like ActiveFile or X-plore:

• Clear RealPlayer recent clip list
If you don't want people to find out what videos you've been watching in RealPlayer on your phone, delete C:\Private\10005A3E\mediaplayer.dat.

• Delete stored exchange rates in the Converter
Delete C:\Private\101F4668\UnitConverter.ini.

• Backup and share mobile Java applications
If you install a mobile Java program from a .jad file or on the fly from an SMS or mobile web site, you can copy the .jar file (the file that holds the Java aplication) from C:/private/102033e6/MIDlets (if you've installed the program on your phone memory) or E:/private/102033e6/MIDlets (if you've installed it on your memory card).

More:
• All Symbian hacking methods
• Symbian tricks

Backup your phone: access points, bluetooth devices, bookmarks, calendar, cookies, messages, notes, profiles, and T9 dictionary

New phone? Hard reset? Firmware upgrade? Or you just want to be prepared for just in case? Of course you can backup all kinds of things on your phone with PC Suite or the backup feature of the data manager on your phone, but that takes forever, requires a computer (PC Suite), and won't let you choose what to backup (data manager).

But if you hack your phone to set it free and get full access to all system folders, you can backup exactly what you want.

All you need is a hacked phone, and a decent file manager like ActiveFile, X-Plore, SExplorer, FExplorer, or Y-Browser.

Access Points:
Your access points are stored in C:\Private\10202be9\persists\cccccc00.cre. Just make a copy of cccccc00.cre, and restore it to your phone (or send it to another phone), restart your phone, and you have your access point settings back just the way they were when you made the backup.

Bluetooth:
Your bluetooth name is in C:\Private\10202be9\persists\10204dac.cre, your paired devices are in C:\Private\100012a5\DBS_100069CC_btregistry

Bookmarks:
The bookmarks of Symbian's built-in web browser are stored in C:\Private\100012a5\DBS_101FD685_BrowserBookmarks.db.

Calendar:
Calendar entries are stored in C:\Private\10003a5b\Calendar. For more info on backing up and restoring your calendar click here.
On some phones the folder name is 1000395b.

Contacts:
Your contacts database is in C:\Private\100012a5\DBS_100065FF_Contacts.cdb.
On some phones the folder name is 10001295.

Cookies:
The cookies of Symbian's built-in web browser are in C:\Private\101f8530\cookies.dat. Restart your phone after restoring or transfering the cookies file. If you've told your browser to delete your cookies, there is no cookies.dat file in C:\Private\101f8530.

Messages:
Your SMSs and mails from Symbian's built-in messaging application are stored in C:\Private\1000484b. If you've told your phone to store messages on your memory card, they are in E:\Private\1000484b. Copy the entire folder, and restore when needed. For more info on backing up messages click here.

Notes:
The notes you write in Symbian's Notes application are stored in C:\Private\100012a5\DBS_101F8878_Notepad.dat.
If you can't delete or replace the file, it's because Symbian is using it. But there's a workaround for this problem: go to settings, data manager, memory, and select "back up phone memory" from the options menu. While your phone is making the backup, you can delete or replace the DBS_101F8878_Notepad.dat file.

Profiles:
Your profiles are stored in C:\Private\10202be9\persists\101f8798.cre. If you restore the backup, restart your phone.

T9 dictionary:
Your frequently used words in SMS and email are stored in C:\Predic\101F8615_F.dat. You don't even need to hack your phone to get into this folder. For more info click here.


This post was stolen without referring to the source by the copycats of Mobile PC, Mobile Tricks on G-Blogs, and Mobile Geeks.

Backup and transfer your T9 dictionary

New phone? Hard reset? Firmware upgrade? And you don't want to rebuild your T9 dictionary full of frequently used words for SMS and email all over again?

Then backup and transfer your T9 dictionary. All your custom words are stored in a dictionary file called 101F8615_F.dat. Save it, back it up, and copy it back into your old phone or send it to your new phone. You can use any file browser that can read the C:\Predic folder. Symbian's built-in excuse for a file manager won't do it, but any decent free third party file manager like ActiveFile, X-Plore, SExplorer, FExplorer, Y-Browser) will do the job.

Contacts Transfer: backup, restore, and transfer all the data of your Symbian phone book

If you have a large collection of names, phone numbers, addresses etcetera in your Symbian phone book, then one day you'll want to make a backup copy of all your contact data to transfer to another phone, or to import everything back into the source phone if the original contacts database gets lost or damaged.

The built-in backup option of the Symbian contacts application exports your contact data as a folder full of .vcf files. PC Suite stores your phone book in a format that only PC Suite can read: sending the backup to a phone to unpack it without a PC won't work.

Worse yet, these backup and restore options have the ugly habit of forgetting things. Either the thumbnail pictures are lost, or the backup didn't remember which contact belongs to which caller group, or it forgot your contact's birthdays, or other data is missing.

Fortunately there is a backup, restore, and transfer option that doesn't forget. Contacts Transfer for Symbian S60 from Juha Riihimäki remembers everything. You can send your contact list to another phone by bluetooth or infrared, export your contacts database to a backup file, restore the backup to the same phone, or restore the backup to another Symbian S60 phone. No matter how you backup, export, import, or restore, Contacts Transfer saves and restores all the original data from your phone's contacts database without losing anything, and it's been doing so since 2003.

• Contacts Transfer website

Back up your messages: yet another good reason to hack your Symbian phone

Phones that run Symbian S60 (Nokia) and Symbian UIQ (Sony Ericsson) are like Fort Knox: you can't even access the files and folders that contain your messages on your phone, which means that the horrible piece of bloatware called PC Suite is the only way to back up your messages. The draconian restrictions of Symbian are like not having the keys of your own house.

But Symbian has been hacked : ) With a few modifications you can access all files and folders on your phone, and make backup copies whenever and whereever you want without having to connect your phone to a computer that runs PC Suite.

Need a quick way to back up your messages without having to hook up your phone to a computer to struggle with PC Suite?
Then hack your phone to get access to the c:\private folder. The built-in Symbian file browser won't get you there, but X-Plore or ActiveFile will.

Inside you'll find a folder with the user friendly (ahem) name "1000484b" which contains all the SMSs and mails from Symbian's built-in messaging app. Make a copy of the entire 1000484b folder and you have a backup of your messages.

No PC Suite needed, so Mac and Linux users can back up their messages too!

If you've told the messaging app to store your messages on your memory card instead of in your phone's built-in memory (not recommended, because it slows down the messaging application), you'll need to copy the 1000484b folder from e:\private.

Back up your calendar: yet another good reason to hack your Symbian phone

Phones that run Symbian S60 (Nokia) and Symbian UIQ (Sony Ericsson) are like Fort Knox: you can't even access the files and folders that contain your calendar entries on your phone, which means that the horrible piece of bloatware called PC Suite is the only way to back up your calendar. The draconian restrictions of Symbian are like not having the keys of your own house.

But Symbian has been hacked : ) With a few modifications you can access all files and folders on your phone, and make backup copies whenever and whereever you want without having to connect your phone to a computer that runs PC Suite.

Need a quick way to back up your calendar without having to hook up your phone to a computer to struggle with PC Suite?

Then hack your phone to get access to the c:\private folder. The built-in Symbian file browser won't get you there, but X-Plore or ActiveFile will.

Inside the folder with the user friendly (ahem) name "10003a5b" you'll find a file called "Calendar" which contains (yes, you guessed right) all your calendar entries!

Make a copy of c:\private\10003a5b\calendar and you have a backup of your calendar. Delete the file and you'll have lots of free time. Keep two different copies if you want a double agenda ;)
On some phones the calendar folder name is 1000395b.

No PC Suite needed, so Mac and Linux users can back up their calendar too!

If Symbian won't let you restore your calender backup (because the calendar file on your phone is in use), you can restore the backup with one of these tricks:

1) Tell Symbian to back up your phone memory to your memory card and send the backup program to the background. You can restore your calendar backup while Symbian's phone-to-memory-card application is running.

2) Rename c:\private\10003a5b to c:\private\10003a5ba (or any other name), delete the calendar file from the renamed folder, copy your calendar backup file into the renamed folder, rename the folder back to its orginal name (10003a5b), and restart your phone.
On some phones the calendar folder name is 1000395b.