Will your goshuin records survive a phone change? What to check before you move them

This article covers only what to check before you carry goshuin records you have already built up over to a new phone. It does not go into how to choose a recording app, faults in any particular app, or how other apps are built inside — there is no stating as fact what cannot be verified from outside.

What happens to your goshuin records when you change phones?

Records are lost when they existed only inside the old phone and neither the standard iPhone transfer nor a copy file carried them over to the new one. Which of those two routes is open to you is decided by where the records are stored, and walking into a phone change without settling that is the most dangerous way to do it.

The goshuin book itself stays in your hands. But the visit dates you corrected while looking at the photos, and the notes you added alongside them, have to be entered again one record at a time if the records go. A hundred entries means a hundred times over. That is exactly why it is worth acting before the move.

Where the records are kept changes the answer

There are three places records can sit — inside the phone only, inside the phone plus a cloud sync, or on the provider's server — and each asks you to watch for something different at a phone change.

By the standard iPhone transfer I mean two things: restoring a new iPhone from an iCloud Backup, and Quick Start, where you hold the old iPhone next to the new one and the data moves across.

None of the three is better than the others. Keeping everything inside the phone means the records never leave it, and that the move is your responsibility. Keeping them on a server makes the move easy, and means the records are not somewhere you hold.

Which one you are using is usually written in the app's description or on its settings screen. If you cannot tell, look instead for whether it can export at all. If it can, there is at least a route that puts the records in your own hands. Note, though, that exports come in two kinds: a copy meant for restoring, and a readable one such as a PDF or a list for a spreadsheet. The second kind cannot be relied on to go back into an app on the new phone. The difference between a copy for restoring and an export for reading is laid out side by side in a separate article.

Three things to do before the move

Whichever of the three places your records sit in, do these before you change phones: export, put the copy somewhere else, and check that the new phone can read it. Even if you mean to let the standard iPhone transfer do the work, this is your cover for the day it does not.

1. Export. If the app can export, run it, and end up with a file you hold yourself. If the format encrypts with a passphrase, write that passphrase down somewhere off the phone as well — on paper, say. Forget it and, encryption being what it is, nothing can be restored from that file.

2. Put the exported file somewhere else. This is the step most people skip. A file kept only inside the same phone does not work as a backup. Break the phone and it goes with it. Cloud storage, a computer, another device — anywhere will do, as long as the copy sits somewhere other than the phone it came from.

3. Check that the new phone can read it. This matters most and is skipped most. “I made a backup” and “I proved I can restore it” are two different things. A file can exist and still be missing something inside, and a restore procedure you have never followed is no use at the moment you need it. Once it reads, match the number of goshuin and the number of photos against the counts on the old phone. Not whether the file opened, but whether the numbers agree — only then can you say nothing is missing.

Do 1 and 2 the day before, not on the day you do the move itself. On the day you are working against the clock, with no room to stop when something does not go through.

Look at the room left on the phone you are moving to

Records with photos grow with the number of photos, so the phone you are moving to needs at least as much room left as the records take. Register several hundred photos of goshuin and the whole set comes to a fair size.

When you import from a copy file, the file itself and the photos unpacked out of it can sit side by side for a while, which asks for more room again. Before you choose the capacity of the new phone, look at how much you are using now.

If the phone change is also a move to a different app

Before you start putting records into whatever you move to, check that it can export them back into your own hands. Pour years of entries into something that cannot, and every phone change and every switch after it carries the same worry. How to judge a recording app by where it keeps your records is set out in a separate article.

How this works in the app I develop

In “Goshuin Ledger”, the app I develop, records and photos exist only inside the phone, and there are two routes across at a phone change: the standard iPhone transfer, and an encrypted copy file. No record and no photo is sent to a server, and there is no account and no syncing. Both routes work without an in-app purchase.

• The standard iPhone transfer. Records and photos sit where the standard iOS backup reaches them, so restoring a new iPhone from an iCloud Backup, or moving with Quick Start, brings the app's records along with everything else.
• An encrypted copy file. Records and photos go out together into a single file with the extension .goshuin. The passphrase is at least 8 characters, and you type it twice when exporting so a typo cannot lock you out. Send the file off the phone from the Share sheet, with iCloud Drive or AirDrop; on the new phone, choose “Import from Files”, pick the file, and restore with the same passphrase. Forget the passphrase and nothing can be restored from that file.

After an export the app asks whether you managed to save the file off the device. Only when you answer “Yes, I saved it” does it record the time of the last export, so closing the Share sheet never leaves you looking at an export that never happened.

For the matching in step 3 above you can use the numbers the app itself prints. An export reports the number of goshuin and the number of photos; a finished import reports how many goshuin were added and updated, and how many photos came in. An import adds to the records already on the new phone rather than clearing them, and where the same record exists on both sides the newer one is kept. Importing needs roughly twice the size of the file in room left. Photos are saved scaled to about 2,048px on the long edge, which does not change the fact that more entries take more space.

Photos that came in from your photo library and are not in a book yet do not go into the copy file. They are not counted in the numbers shown at export or at import either, so the matching in step 3 cannot catch them. If you are moving with a copy file, add them to a book before you export. Even when you move with the standard iPhone transfer, adding them to a book beforehand is the sure thing (one at a time needs no purchase).

Here is what it cannot do.

• The PDF and CSV export that comes with “Ledger Full” is for reading. It cannot be imported back into the app to restore records.
• A file exported by another app cannot be imported.
• The “Ledger Full” purchase is not in the copy file. A purchase comes back from Apple's own record of it, so if the new phone does not show it, use “Restore purchase” in the settings, with the same Apple Account you bought it with. What the purchase covers is set out in the pricing section.

If you are not using the standard iPhone transfer, exporting and importing the copy is something you do by hand. That part is not the easy path, and in exchange the records never leave your hands. Which of the two weighs more is, I think, for the person using the app to decide.

Putting the records into order by book and page once they are across is covered in “How to organise the goshuin photos piled up on your phone and record them afterwards”.