SMS Backup+ removed from Google Play Store

[al-right]

Note added by @kurahaupo 2024-02-13:

As far as we can tell, @jberkel (Jan Berkel, the principal maintainer) has closed his Google PlayStore account (or allowed it to lapse). This has resulted the app being dropped from PlayStore, meaning it is now only available on F-Droid.
Jan has also ceased active development of this project; if you would like to contribute to rejuvenating it, please see #1059.

Original submitted ticket follows:

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Expected behaviour

Go to https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.zegoggles.smssync&hl=en&gl=US&pli=1 and you will be able to see SMS Backup+ in Google Play Store and install the app.

Actual behaviour

Go to https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.zegoggles.smssync&hl=en&gl=US&pli=1 and you will be greeted with the message:

We're sorry, the requested URL was not found on this server.

Also https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=Jan+Berkel&hl=en&gl=US does no longer show dev info on Jan.

Reproduce by

No response

Android version

13 (2022)

Phone brand

Samsung

Phone model number

S23

SMS Backup+ version

v1.5.11

Messaging app

No response

Other details

Actually I run android 14 (but not possible to select in github).
Re. SMS Backup+ version I simply select a random version as to be able to fill the bug form.

Is someone able to fix the problem or is there an easy way to install the app through some other trusted channel?

Thanks

[danyfire]

I'm confused the app is discontinued?

[amuagarwal]

It seems that app come under google store policy of non-maintance and security for OAuth issues. Now it will bck only once the app get some update and fix for OAuth issues as per new APIs

[codebuk]

As a workaround I have sideloaded and it works ok.

[kurahaupo]

This pushes up the priority of #1059.

If Jan is no longer contactable, that leaves me as one of the few with write access to this repo, but I still couldn't push to the PlayStore repo even if it still existed.

At least this gives a new project a clean slate with Google.

[kurahaupo]

@al-right thanks for the heads-up.

[cluehaven]

This pushes up the priority of #1059.

I imagine there are a fair few long time freeloaders (aka users) like me who would love to see this working again. My techie skills are modest and stale but I'm happy to be on videoconf/call/chat to review what help would make the task less of a burden and in that there may be something I can do (if only co-ordinating to find others to pitch in as wanted).

[CaTeNdrE]

I miss this app. Not sure what I can do to help but willing.

[BenJewell]

Just wanted to share an update on this effort.

My boyfriend is an Android developer and after the scheduler in this app broke, he tried writing me a new backup app, not realizing that the source code for this one was available.

After many hours of effort, he was unable to read and write RCS messages properly. Although we could modernize this app (probably more like a re-write since it's so old), it would not be worth the time and effort without RCS support, as SMS/MMS are slowly fading away.

Android seems to store RCS messages in its database in some weird way, possibly due to the end-to-end encryption. And there is not a documented method for interfacing with it.

Does anyone know of another open source backup app that DOES support RCS that we might be able to analyze? I don't know of any that are open source unfortunately.

[al-right]

@BenJewell Thanks to you and your boyfriends efforts! :) Very much appreciated. It seems as a larger project to get something going. Maybe some of the links below can be of some sort of help.

1. There seems to be these docs about RCS:

• https://www.gsma.com/futurenetworks/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/RCC.07-v11.0.pdf
• https://www.gsma.com/newsroom/wp-content/uploads//RCC.14-v8.0-5.pdf
  , from https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/wm18td/stop_telling_people_that_rcs_is_an_open_standard/

2. "The RCS-e stack is an open source implementation of the Rich Communication Suite standards for Google Android platform. This implementation is compliant to GSMA RCS-e Blackbird standards. ...": https://github.com/android-rcs/rcsjta

3. "Messaging in RCS": https://realtimecommunication.wordpress.com/2014/11/14/messaging-in-rcs/

4. "What is RCS messaging? Everything you need to know about the SMS successor": https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/what-is-rcs-messaging/

5. Wiki-article on RCS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Communication_Services

[chadcancode]

For me, this will still backup when manually initiated. I would love to see the scheduler working again. There appears to be a 3rd party approach to triggering the backup by broadcast intents but I don't know how to trigger these.

[kurahaupo]

@BenJewell I spent a long time looking into RCS support options, and (at the time) searching for "RCS API" always took me to pages offering server side support (usually for a fee), intended for companies to send bulk RCS messages without actually using a phone at all.

It became obvious that Google simply don't provide a new API to deal with RCS messages on a phone, but the consensus (among the very few with any technical information) seemed to be RCS messages were accessible using the existing Android API for dealing with SMS and MMS messages.

From the links provided by @al-right it appears that that's only partly correct; we need an interpretation layer over the top; it's not clear whether SMS-Backup actually needs such a layer, since it's not presenting messages, merely storing them.

(Personally I've been leaving RCS turned off on my phone precisely to ensure that all my messages continue to be backed up until this is sorted.)

I would like to see a wider community effort rather than get stuck again with a single developer who goes silent. We need a new architecture to support a range of related tasks:

• back-up and restoration (note that backing up a phone to a Google account now covers this use case, but that does not suit everyone);
• treating phone logs as "just another message type";
• record phone calls (probably using a separate app, since it would have to be gated by jurisdiction to be legal) and link them to the relevant phone log entries;
• allowing messages to be stored in various ways, including (as now) any IMAP account (including GMail), but as future options, re-enabling XOAuth access to GMail, and building a capability to store messages locally on the phone, or forwarded by SMTP. Also allow messages to be saved into a calendar, selectable by message type.
• allowing a unified archive search of sent and received SMS, MMS, & RCS messages alongside email and perhaps other message types (despite its name, that's actually the principal use-case for many existing users of SMS-Backup+, including myself).