If I run Smartswitch again to restore a deleted text thread, will it duplicate?

[userQbBkU457x5]

I am very familiar with Smartswitch and help friends setup new phones with it. I used it to setup a friend's new phone this week. 

After Smartswitch was run and copied everything to the new phone, within days, they deleted a long thread they want by mistake. Still has the old phone and a smartswitch backup to a Samsung portable drive that both have this thread. The same data is on both, a complete phone backup. 

If I rerun smartswich and just select messages, for all time (so all), will it know that there is only one missing thread and add it? Or will it duplicate every single text and thread that it previously copied earlier in the week? 

Of course another option is to delete all texts on the new phone and then run smartswitch again ( from old phone or the drive, I assume the same for a restore), just restore only messages, and then it will be where it was a week ago. Unfortunately the deletion was via messages+ and not samsung messages so they are not in the Samsung messages trash...

Thanks!

[LongHiker]

@userQbBkU457x5 It will copy all the texts from the old phone to the new one. So, yes, lots of duplicates. 

[userQbBkU457x5]

Bummer. Seems best solution is delete all texts on new phone and just rerun smartswitch for messages only from old phone?
I guess you could leave a few days and it wouldn't overwrite but not worth it.

Any other solution?

[BostonDrew]

From experience smart switch will not duplicate data if it already in the device

[userQbBkU457x5]

@BostonDrew,
Thanks for that! Can you confirm it won't duplicate messages/texts/MMS and just copy what is not on the new phone? I know if it is stopped mid-copy (like when these S23's reboot for an update during smartswitch!l it "knows" and picks up where it left off. But this is different as smartswitch ran to completion.

Also, if I rerun and only choose messages, will it prompt to move over accounts, etc etc?

Thanks to all

[notforhire · Accepted solution]

if you rerun SmartSwitch, you will not duplicate the various messages. you will replace the various threads (while adding back the missing thread). any messages received AFTER the original backup will not be there.

[userQbBkU457x5]

Thanks! That is absolutely fine. I assume when you mean replace thread you mean a thread that has had no new texts since the last smartswitch run will in fact be copied again.....another instance...but it will replace and not duplicate so at the end of the day, it will look the same to the user.

And of course you pointed out any threads with texts since the last run will be missing those few new texts. No issue.

Thanks!

[userQbBkU457x5]

Thanks to all for your help! It worked exactly as @notforhire and @BostonDrew described. No duplicates!

[LongHiker]

@userQbBkU457x5 That is good to know. It must be added functionality to Smart Switch. When I did the same years ago, the texts were duplicated by Smart Switch.