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I am hoping someone can help me with this. My brother passed away yesterday and we both have the same phone a Samsung Galaxy S3 on the Sprint network. I was wondering if there is a simple way with adb or some software on Windows 7 that I can use to get a list of his contacts off of his phone as I need to try to contact all his friends and let them know when his funeral is going to be as I don't have any of his friends phone numbers. I am familiar with rooting phones and installing roms as I have my xoom rooted but I have not rooted my Galaxy S3 or my brothers phone either since we had both just got it and dont want to void the warranty just yet.

Can anyone help me? I am not a programmer and really just want to get a list of his friends to contact to let them know what has happened. Please help me if you can time is of the essence as I am making funeral arrangements today with my mom and would really like to let his friends know that he is no longer with us.

Thank you all and hopefully you can help me!

wonea
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Jeff
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  • Just wanted to add his phone has been locked so I can't open the phone or I would just of course look at his contacts that way. – Jeff Aug 15 '12 at 13:29
  • Do you have access to his Google account? If he was syncing his contacts to Google it might be easier to get them from Gmail web interface. – Chahk Aug 15 '12 at 14:16
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    This one might be worth a shot: http://support.google.com/mail/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=14300 –  Aug 15 '12 at 14:20
  • Thank you Chahk and thank you very much Richard Borcsik, I am going to see if I can go to my mothers and get a copy of the death certificate from the hospital today. I have his wallet with his license and stuff so I have his ID. Maybe google will help me. God bless you both for your quick replies. – Jeff Aug 15 '12 at 14:29
  • The thing is I am not sure what his google account is since he didnt have one until two days ago when he setup the phone. He always emailed me from his Yahoo account maybe I should contact Sprint to see if they will help me also to find out what was the new gmail account that he created with google on the phone...he didn't even get a chance to send me an email from his google account so I don't know what it is. – Jeff Aug 15 '12 at 14:40
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    I don't think Sprint will be able to help you, as they have nothing to do with on-account phones AFAIK. However, if you attempt to lock yourself out from the phone ("guess" the password many times), it should prompt you to log in with the account. – Jeeva Aug 15 '12 at 15:23
  • @Jeeva is right. If you attempt to unlock the device too many times, it will give you an option to log in with the Google account. It will show the account name there. –  Aug 15 '12 at 15:28
  • Yahoo must have some similar policy for accessing accounts of deceased relatives, so you may want to check with them also. – Chahk Aug 15 '12 at 15:53
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    @Chahk They don't. Not without a court order. source –  Aug 15 '12 at 15:58
  • Jeff, you could search for some past invoices and go through the (if recorded) calling lists on it. Else, here's a guide how to root it. After that you might be able to 'adb shell' into the device and 'sqlite3 /data/data/com.android.providers.telephony/databases/mmssms.db .dump' to show all stored phonebook entries. Alas, the VZW S3 model has a locked bootloader which complicates all this. – ce4 Aug 17 '12 at 16:37

3 Answers3

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You may find the contacts have been uploaded to Google Contacts. From there, you can click "Export", download the file to the device you wish to upload them to, and reimport them. Unfortunately, this only works if you can get access to a device that has his Google password saved on.

Matthew Dann
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I had the same problem trying to get contacts off my broken galaxy s3, and the solution was a program called "My Phone Explorer" from http://www.fjsoft.at/en/ I had tried everything, but couldn't find a solution that worked for retrieving contacts AND SMS messages.

eldarerathis
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Coney
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This is an old question and my answer may be of little help. Since you know your brother's number, just call. Then answer the phone your self and viola! It is unlocked.access the contacts from there.

I have always wondered why this security hole is overlooked.

Andromeda
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  • Answering the phone doesn't unlock it. Do you mean you can browse contacts via the Phone/Dialer app while in a call? – Matthew Read Mar 11 '16 at 08:13