Restore your Callmory backup on a new phone, step by step

Short answer: On the old iPhone, go to More → Backup and export → Encrypted app backup, set a passphrase of at least 12 characters and save the .cnbackup file to iCloud Drive or Files. On the new iPhone, install Callmory, sign out if you are signed in, then open More → Backup and export → Restore an encrypted backup → Choose file and unlock. Enter the passphrase, check the preview and confirm.

A new phone is the moment a backup proves whether it works. This guide walks through the whole move with Callmory: what to do on the old phone, how to restore on the new one, what the backup includes and what it leaves out, and what to do if something does not go as expected. The menu names below are the ones you see in the app.

Before you start: what you need

• The old iPhone, if you still have it. If it is lost or broken, skip to the restore steps and use the most recent backup file you saved.
• A place to keep the file that the new phone can reach: iCloud Drive, the Files app, or an email to yourself.
• Your backup passphrase. Callmory encrypts the app backup with a passphrase you choose. Without it, the file cannot be opened. Face ID and your account password cannot recover it, and neither can we.
• Callmory installed on the new iPhone. The app is in beta; invites come through the waitlist on the home page.

Step 1: create the encrypted backup on the old phone

1. Open Callmory and tap More.
2. Tap Backup and export. The screen asks what you would like to keep.
3. Choose Encrypted app backup. It puts people, conversations, promises and audio in one password-protected file.
4. Enter a backup passphrase of at least 12 characters and type it again to confirm. Use a passphrase you do not use anywhere else, and write it down somewhere safe that is not the same place as the file.
5. Tap Create encrypted file. Callmory builds the file on the phone; nothing is sent anywhere while it works.
6. When the file is ready, save or share it to iCloud Drive, Files or your email.

A share sheet does not confirm that the file arrived. Before you wipe or hand over the old phone, open iCloud Drive or Files and check that the .cnbackup file is really there.

What the app backup includes

The encrypted backup holds your active people, conversations, notes, promises (follow-ups), tags, saved lists and the audio files of your voice notes. Your theme, language and follow-up interval are included too, and you can choose whether to restore them.

What it does not include

• The private space. It has its own separate encrypted backup, on purpose, so moving phones means two files. Keep both files safe, together with the backup passphrase and the private space's own passcode and recovery key.
• Trash, device permissions, your sign-in and purchases. You grant permissions again on the new phone, and purchases come back through the App Store.
• Very large audio. The audio inside one backup is limited to 30 MB in total. If a recording is missing or the total is larger, the backup is not created, so you never end up with a file that silently left something out.

It is an app-data backup, not a backup of the whole phone. Your iPhone's own contacts are kept by iCloud or your other accounts; see where iPhone contacts are stored.

Step 2: restore on the new phone

1. Install Callmory on the new iPhone and open it.
2. If you are signed in to an account, sign out first. The backup restores into this device, not into a cloud account, and the app asks you to sign out before it writes to device storage. Your account data stays in your account.
3. Tap More → Backup and export → Restore an encrypted backup.
4. Tap Choose file and unlock and pick the .cnbackup file. If it arrived by email, save the attachment to Files first.
5. Enter your backup passphrase.
6. Read the preview: how many people, conversations, promises, tags and saved lists the file holds, and how many audio files. Opening the file alone changes nothing.
7. If you want your old theme, language and follow-up interval back, turn on Also restore theme, language and follow-up interval.
8. Confirm. When it is done, Callmory tells you how many records were restored and how many identical records were skipped.

How Callmory protects what is already on the new phone

Restoring never silently overwrites anything. Records that are exactly the same are skipped, so restoring the same file twice does not create duplicates. If the file contains a record with the same identity as one on the phone but different content, the restore stops as a whole instead of guessing which version you want; nothing is half-written. Trash is never overwritten.

Step 3: check that everything came back

Spend two minutes on this before you delete the old backup or reset the old phone:

• Compare the number of people with the preview you saw.
• Open three people you know well and check a note, a follow-up date and a voice note.
• Look at your saved lists and tags.
• Grant Callmory the permissions it asks for again, such as contacts and notifications, so reminders arrive on the new phone.

If you only want your contacts

The encrypted backup is for everything you keep in Callmory. If you only need a contact list, choose Contacts only on the old phone: it saves a vCard (VCF) file without conversations or promises. On the new phone, use Import a JSON, vCard or CSV file in the same Backup and export screen. The contacts are added to People in Callmory, not to your phone's address book. If you want them in the iPhone's own Contacts app as well, Callmory can restore them there with your approval. The iPhone also opens a VCF file itself like any other vCard. VCF or CSV for a contacts export explains what each file keeps, and our free VCF to Excel converter turns a VCF into a spreadsheet in your browser.

Moving to Android

Callmory is an iPhone app today; Android comes later. The encrypted app backup needs an iPhone to restore. A VCF file works on Android like any other vCard. For the general move, including iCloud and Google, see moving contacts to a new phone.

When something goes wrong

• "Could not finish." Check the passphrase first; it is case-sensitive. Then check that you picked the right .cnbackup file and that it downloaded completely from iCloud Drive.
• The file does not appear in the picker. Save it to Files first, then choose it from there.
• The restore stopped because of conflicting records. The new phone already has a record with the same identity but different content, often from an earlier attempt. Nothing was half-written. Write to support and we will help you sort it out.
• I forgot the passphrase. The file cannot be opened without it. If the old phone still works, create a new backup with a new passphrase.

Why the backup is encrypted at all, and how it differs from a plain VCF file, is covered in an encrypted contacts backup.

Checklist for changing phones

• Created an encrypted app backup on the old phone.
• Checked that the .cnbackup file is in iCloud Drive or Files.
• Wrote the passphrase down somewhere other than next to the file.
• Backed up the private space separately, if you use it.
• Signed out on the new phone before restoring.
• Compared the restored count with the preview and opened a few people.
• Granted permissions again so reminders arrive.