Related
Okay, I searched for "change icons" and got two pages of threads on how to change program icons. Some provided great information; however, none addressed my need.
I'm interested in changing only FOLDER icons, and ONLY those in QuickMenu (see attached images). The folder icons are all the same except for two, the Games folder and the Office Mobile folder. They both have a small file inside the directory that's called "icon."
I would like to change any and all directories to whatever icon I choose, or design. Is this possible? If so, how?
Thanks,
Peter
Try PExplorer - it works magic!!!
http://www.heaventools.com/
Confused???
eenbox said:
Try PExplorer - it works magic!!!
http://www.heaventools.com/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the quick reply. I had a look at that program, and the web site, and I'm completely confused. It looks like a program for my PC, and not my phone. Furthermore, I don't see anything mentioned on how to change an icon.
HELP!
ADDENDUM: Furthermore, as I said in my original post, I DO NOT want to change program icons, such as exe files or dll files. From what I can tell, PExplorer is desiged to modify the inner workings of exe and dll files, etc.
I want to change the icons for a directory (folder image). These are not programs or dlls.
Thanks,
Peter
Figured it out ...
I figured it out. It took a bit of thought, and some weird manipulation using Notepad, but now I can change any QuickMenu icon to almost whatever I want, as long as there's either an EXE or DLL file that contains the icon.
Cheers!
----------------------------------
Since I don't plan to return to this thread, and since there may be someone who wants to know what I did, here's my solution:
REMEMBER: This solution ONLY works if you want to change folder icons WITHIN the QuickMenu subset of folders. It does NOT work on program icons, or for any other icons for that matter (ONLY QUICKMENU FOLDERS).
01) Find an EXE or DLL file with the icon you want. If this file contains more than one icon, then you'll need to know the icon number within the program. This can be quite difficult to determine. However, for the purpose of this discussion, I'm assuming you want to use the MAIN icon, which is usually designated as icon "0" (zero) within the EXE or DLL file. We'll go with "0" for this discussion.
02) Your phone should already have at least one (probably two) folder icon files. The two in question are usually used for the Start Menu Games directory and for the Start Menu Office Mobile directory. Using Total Commander or any similar program (File Explorer will NOT work), make your way to either the Games or Office Mobile directory within the Windows\Start Menu. Whether it's the Games folder or the Office Mobile folder, you should find a shortcut file called icon. This is the file that determines how the folder will appear within the QuickMenu structure.
03) Copy this file to your PC. Anywhere will do as long as you remember where you put it. Make a second copy of it just in case you "ruin" your attempt to change the icon using these instructions. At least you can go back to what you had before.
04) Right click on this file and select Properties. In the General tab, uncheck the Read-only box. Click on Apply.
05) Open NotePad on your PC.
06) Within NotePad, click on File and then on Open. The Open dialogue box appears. At the bottom of this dialogue box are three horizontal white boxes. The second box has the title "Files of type." The default entry is "Text documents (*.txt). Click on the down arrow and change this to "All files." Now find the icon file you copied to your PC in (3) above and open it within NotePad.
07) You will see a line of instructions at the top of the file. These instructions tell your phone where to find the icon image. What we need to do, therefore, is change the instructions to another icon image.
08) Now let's assume that you have a Start Menu folder within QuickMenu called PDF files, and you would like that folder to have the Adobe Reader icon. To do this, change the line of instructions from what it currently reads to the following:
1#AdobeReaderLE.exe,-0
09) Make sure there's a carriage return after the final "0"
10) Re-save the file. The file name must not be changed. It must always remain as "icon."
11) Now copy this new file to the actual PDF directory within your phone's Start Menu. Soft reset your phone and the PDF folder will now have the Adobe icon.
DONE!
Here are some tips:
The above example assumes that the AdobeReaderLE.exe file is in your main Windows directory. If the EXE file you want to use is anywhere else, you need to direct the instructions appropriately. Here's an example for an EXE file contained on your Storage Card, and within the Program Files directory. Let's say you installed BsB Tweaks to the Storage Card, and you want to use the main BsB icon for one of your Start Menu folders. Here's how the instructions would look:
1#\Storage Card\Program Files\BsB\Tweaks\BsB Tweaks.exe,-0
Remember to always save the file with the name "icon." Always put the revised icon file inside the directory whose appearance you want to change.
Happy Changing!
Peter
P.S. Since I can't seem to add images to a post after the fact, I will submit another post shortly with images to show you what I did with my phone.
Before and After Images
As promised, attached (below) are images to show you what I did with my phone.
Peter
thanks alot man, i have been looking for days, to find a way to do this!!!!
Works in any Android ROM
This will teach you how to make a custom boot screen. (Usually replaces the default HTC quietly brilliant screen)
I HAVE NOW INCLUDED MY FIRST BOOTSCREEN. (It is katy perry wearing an elmo shirt) Download both items, and extract the one that says "EXTRACT THIS.rar" and make sure "Just download this.rar" is in the same file location. (I had to do this because the upload limit was 8mb and I had to split the file)
Then skip to Step 12
I sorted them into steps so you can easily follow what you must do.
1. Download "Root Explorer" from the Android Market. and allow SuperUser access
2. Open the application and go to system->customize->resource->and locate the file that says "bootanimation.zip"
3. on the top of the screen, there should read a toggle that says "Mount R/W". Click it, to where it says "Mount R/O". (Turns on the option to write to your Root)
4. Copy this file to your computer
5. Now put this aside for a while. Download the file attached to this post, extract it, and add it to your it to C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS5\Presets\Scripts
6. Get a .gif or .avi file and open it with Adobe Photoshop. (Make sure it is already edited and must have a frame size of 480X800)
7. Now in Photoshop, go to, File->Scripts->Export Layers to Files(Fast PNG)
8. Locate the file you downloaded earlier to your computer from your phone. Extract it and go into the "android" folder.
9. Go to wherever you saved the exported layers, and rename every frame with accordance the frames in the "android" folder. So it matches.
10. Put all the renamed frames in the "android" folder and delete the old ones.
11. Use WinRar to zip them up again. BUT DO NOT COMPRESS THE .ZIP FILE, OTHERWISE THE PHONE WILL NOT RECOGNIZE IT.
12. Go back to your phone and locate the old "bootanimation.zip" and rename it to "bootanimation.bak".
13. Copy the the new "bootanimation.zip" into the same location and reboot phone.
14. Enjoy!!
Thanks for this very interesting tutorial.
Does anyone know a way without using Photoshop?
thank you very much
thankx a lot buddy this is first working and no problem tutorial...thankx
Hi all;
Can i know why the thumbdata3 file folder in /mnt/sdcard/DCIM is so big in size (nearly 1gb) in my internal storage? Actually, all my photos or videos are in my ext-SD.
I have tried to delete the thumbnail folder but it come back again in same location. As shown in the picture, the device memory bar is almost full,but the available space still show 7.24gb. Please advice. Thanks.............
Anyone can help..? Thanks.........
Big thumbdata3 file in internal storage
erictanyh said:
Anyone can help..? Thanks.........
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Using a disk space analyzer, I was surprised to see that my Android tablet had 1.03GB of photos. This was odd to me, because I knew there were only a couple of photos on the device.
I pinpointed the problem to thumbnails. These are tiny copies of photos used by some apps to more quickly display pictures. Specifically, the 1GB was being taken up by a thumbnail index file, and I didn't need to lose that 1GB to a function I don't use on the tablet. I erased the file as follows:
1. Open a file manager on Android. I use File Manager from Rhythm Software.
2. Ensure that it can display system or hidden files. This is an option somewhere under Settings. In File Manager, tap Menu > Settings > Show Hidden Files.
3. Navigate to \mnt\sdcard\DCIM\ .thumbnails. By the way, DCIM is the standard name for the folder that holds photographs, and is the standard for pretty much any device, whether smartphone or camera; it is short for "digital camera IMages." Another BTW: when a folder name is prefixed with a period, then it is a hidden folder in Android (such as .thumbnails).
4. Select and erase the file that's about 1GB and contains the word 'thumbdata." The exact file name will vary.
After I did this, image viewing apps like Gallery operated just fine, with no apparent slowdown from the loss of this file.
In this way I freed up 1GB on my Android v4 tablet, 1GB on my Android v4 phone, and 750MB on an older Android v2 phone.
Keeping the 1GB Free
Because .thumbdata is a system file, Android recreates it. Indeed, you may find more than one copy in the .thumbnails folder, if you have reinstalled Android or similarly redid the system in some way.
To keep Android from creating the 1GB file anew, we need to create a dummy file that fools Android. In short, we create a text file with a text editor, and then move it to the thumbnails folder. Here are the steps to doing this:
1. Use File Manager to determine the exact name of the thumbnail index file. On one of my Android devices, the name is .thumbdata3--1967290299. Write it down.
2. Start a text editor or word processor on the Android, and then create a new text file.
3. Use the Save As command to save the file in the DCIM folder. (We move it to the .thumbnails folder in a later step.) Save it with the same name at that index file, such as ".thumbdata3--1967290299". Now, depending on the text editor's capabilities, it might not allow the "." prefix or a blank extension. Thus, you might end up with thumbdata3--1967290299.txt as the file name. We fix this in a later step.
4. Exit the text editor, and then switch to File Manager. Now, it is important you use a file manager like Rhythm Software's File Manager app, because it does what some others cannot: it can (a) rename file extensions and (b) access hidden folders.
5. In File Manager, navigate to the \DCIM\ .thumbnails folder. If the thumbdata3 file is there again, erase it again.
6. Move up a level to the \DCIM folder, and then right-click the thumbdata3--1967290299.txt file name. ("Right click" means hold your finger down on the name until a menu appears.)
7. From the menu, choose Rename, and then rename thumbdata3--1967290299.txt to .thumbdata3--1967290299 -- (a) add the dot (.) to the start of the file name, and (b) erase the ".txt" from the end of the file name.
8. Click OK (or Rename) to finish renaming.
9. Right click the file name, and then choose Move (or Cut).
10. Navigate down to the .thumbnails folder, and then tap Paste.
The dummy file will now prevent Android from creating the huge index file.
Thumbdata files allow most devices to access the file it is in i.e if u give another device permission to access your device it will create a thumbdata file so it can browse your personal files so should be treated with caution as app developers would be able to illegally access your sensitive personal images or information on your phone or smart device without consent from the owner therefore maybe should be treated as spyware permissions for thumbdata should be an optional decision from the user in Android systems and currently is not
Hi guys
Today I wanted to start porting some Galaxy Tab A apps to my Tab S by myself.
I searched for a Galaxy Tab A dump but there wasn't any...
So I decided to make a dump for myself.
Here are the steps I have done to create a system dump from a Odin firmware package
Let's start!
Things needed:
- Windows PC with...
- java installed
- sgs2toext4.jar downloadable from here
- ext2explore.exe downloadable from here
1) Take your time; download your Odin-Package from "sammobile.com/firmwares"
2) Extract the *.zip file using 7-Zip.
3) Now, extract the "system.img.ext4" in it
4) Open "sgs2toext4.jar"
5) A window called "Drop .img here" will appear
6) Take the "system.img.ext4" and drop it into the window
7) Wait; A new item called "system.img.ext4.img" will appear on your desktop
8) Now, open "ext2explore.exe" as Administrator
9) Click the "File"-tab and then click "open image"
10) Select your "system.img.ext4.img" which should be on your desktop
11) After this is done do a doubleclick on the harddisk icon on the right
11.1) Now you can see all things in your system partition
12) now go to the "Tools"-tab and select the "save" option.
13) Choose your place you want the dump
13.1) (Not recommended to select the desktop. Otherwise your desktop will be filled with a lot of things. Create a folder on the desktop instead)
14) Voila, your dump is ready. Be happy and press tha THX button now haha
I really do not know whose work the sgs2toext4.jar's is. Tell me via PM so I can give credit
Have a nice day :=)
awesome post!!!! Oh, if anyone needs updated links to the 2 file here, let me know as the original links no longer work.
So yesterday My phone, Sony Xperia S, decided to go into bootloop and not boot at all, no matter what I did. Tried flashing stock PRF, stock firmware, some stock based firmware, but it would get stuck in bootloop. The reason for this being I was not formatting the data partition, which I needed to preserve since it had all My sms, contacts, call logs and other app data. Luckily, I had a working recovery(TWRP) and was able to take a backup. Then using that I was able to recover My contacts, sms, call logs and app data. After a lot of Google searches, I was finally able to work it out. The process is as follows:
Needed software:
Code:
yaffs-mmssmsdb-calls-extractor.zip from [URL="http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1585957"]here[/URL].
Firefox Browser
Firefox addon of SQLite manager : [URL="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/sqlite-manager"]link[/URL].
Excel macro to convert .db contacts to .csv : [URL="http://thydzik.com/downloads/convert-contacts2.db-data-to-vcard-vcf.xlsm"]link[/URL].
Software for csv to vcard conversion (Windows) : [URL="http://www.csvtovcard.com/"]link[/URL].
CSV to vcard conversion (online) : [URL="http://labs.brotherli.ch/vcfconvert/"]link[/URL].
SMS Backup & Restore android app : [URL="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.riteshsahu.SMSBackupRestore"]link[/URL].
Call Log Backup and Restore app : [URL="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.riteshsahu.CallLogBackupRestore"]link[/URL].
The procedure is a lot crude as of yet, I would update as more universal and convenient options are found.
I know there is Titanium backup app which can restore contact, sms etc from nandroid backups, but You need a paid version of the app.
First we need to extract the data partition of nandroid
Rename the data.ext4.win to data.ext4.tar.gz . If Your files are like data.ext4.win000, data.ext4.win001, then rename each of them to data.ext4.tar.gz in separate folders.
On windows, now You can directly extract them using WinRaR or 7zip application, although You don’t need to extract it entirely.
On linux, You can do so using the following command. It is recommended to store the file in a separate folder as the file gets extracted directly.
Code:
tar –xf data.ext4.tar.gz
Now we need to find two files contacts2.db and mmssms.db . The contacts2.db files is for contacts as well as the call logs and the mmssms.db is for messages. The contacts2.db is constant across most ROM’s and OEM firmware apps. The mmssms.db file may vary as per app and ROM’s. So what You need to do is look for a .db file inside the SMS app You have been using with the firmware/ROM.
We will restore the SMS and Call logs first.
Currently it is limited to Windows OS only.
Extract the contents of yaffs-mmssmsdb-calls-extractor.zip to a folder.
Copy the mmssms.db file and contacts2.db file to the above folder.
Now open a command prompt at location of the above folder. This can be done by opening the folder, right clicking using shift key pressed in blank space. You get the “Open command window here” option.
In it type:
Code:
extract -s mmssms.db
It will ask You to enter a name for the output .xml file, You can press enter to let it give a default name. This will convert Your sms to a .xml file .
Then type:
Code:
extract –c contacts2.db
It will also ask You to enter a name for the output .xml file, You can press enter to let it give a default name. This will convert Your call logs to a .xml file .
Copy both of these files to Your newly formatted phone and then use the two before mentioned apps (Call Log backup& Restore and SMS Backup & Restore) to restore Your SMS and call logs.
Now retrieving contacts. It is a bit lengthy, but simple process.
Start firefox browser. In it, after You have installed the addon do following to enable the addon
Go to options (3 horizontal lines).
Select “Customize” and drag the “SQLite Manager” to the blue bordered box.
Now open options and select SQLite Manager. In it select Database>Connect Database. In the opened dialog box, select All Files(*.*). Then select Your contacts2.db .
From the left side tree structure in the SQLite Manager window, right click on “data” and select “Export Table”.
Now in right side part of the window, You will get CSV tab and SQL tab. Under CSV tab, simply press OK button without changing any other options.
It will ask You to save Your .csv file. Save it.
Now if You try to open this file directly, You will notice that file is not properly arranged.
To arrange it properly, open the convert-contacts2.db-data-to-vcard-vcf.xlsm file. If You don’t know how to enable Macros, then do the following:
It will show You a warning “Security Warning Macros have been disabled. Options..”
Press the Options button. Select “Enable this content” and press ok.
Now Press the office button present at left top corner. In it select “Excel Options”.
Select Customize tab from left side. Then from “Choose commands from:” drop down menu, select Macros.
Now add convertDatatoContacts and writeContactstovCard to right pane from left pane by selecting them and pressing add. Press OK button.
Now as You can see two white square icons have been added at top right corner next to save undo redo options.
Select the first white square icon. Select “Enable Macros” button. Now select Your .csv file in the opened dialog box.
Now the file must have opened in a separate excel. The format should be 4 rows with they being First Name, Last Name, Phone 1 and Phone 2.
Then select Save As>Excel Workbook>Save Type as CSV(Comma delimited).csv . Press ok and yes on the two warnings generated.
At the left bottom, right click on “contacts” sheet and press delete. Save and close the file.
Run CSV to vCard software and open the above saved .csv file. Here You can save all contacts as single vCard file or separate files.
In the “Properties” section on the window, in front of “Phone 1” and “Phone 2” select “Mobile Phone” from options. Press “Convert” button.
Alternative to above two steps, You can also convert .csv to vcard using the website.
Now a .vcf file will be created where the .csv file was stored.
Now simply copy the .vcf file to phone and import using the phone contacts app!
Done!
Credits and sources:
@abbot2
[TOOL] yaffs extractor, mmssms.db & contacts2.db converter
http://thydzik.com/export-android-contacts-contacts2-db-to-vcard-vcf-on-windows/
Reserved.
This is complicated, but youre great mate...
Sent from my C6903 using Tapatalk
odie70 said:
This is complicated, but youre great mate...
Sent from my C6903 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah yes, it's a lot complicated, but the need of recovering data was a lot important too!
Praise to you for saving me !
And if I may, I'd like to state my experience, which brings a few interesting facts into light:
1/ I was unable to open my tar.gz archives with 7-zip v9.20. It kept displaying an error message. Only the v15.14 version could handle them flawlessly.
2/ as a textra user, I discovered that it stores a duplicate sms database, which IS NOT compatible with yaffs-mmssmsdb-calls-extractor (which screams a message about a "missing sms table" or something) (praise to the author as well)
BUT, the system sms database can be found here, and is fully handled by the extractor tool:
data\data\com.android.providers.telephony\databases\mmssms.db
Now my sms are back and I can resume my thread about the best knitting techniques.
Thanks again
Add this cool service Online converter contacts2.db to vCard
OP - you're a deadset legend.
This is damn useful! :good:
Even if I do not need it right now but it is very good to know that there is a way.
Hello @Mirhawk, I am having this error when running the macro. What could be the issue?
http://i.imgur.com/baUmFci.png
Thanks for this. I wanted to comment to help others using Microsoft Office 2016 & now that Firefox Quantum has made old extensions incompatible. Call logs & SMS are easily imported by Nandroid Manager app (god bless the dev). This a short summary of steps to restore contacts, presuming you have the contacts2.db file extracted:
- Install Firefox 39 from here. Might work with FF 57, but did not want to take chances.
- Download the Excel Macro [which will help us later correctly arrange our data via pre-set changes, aka macros, on the Excel spreadsheet][see link above]
- Install & enable the SQLite extension in Firefox (already linked above by OP)
- Follow OP's steps until you obtain the .csv file
- Open the macro file you had downloaded earlier & click enable the content
- In Excel 2016, you need to add Developer Tab to your top menu: Go to File -> Options -> Customize Ribbon -> Check mark Developer option on the right side column. Click OK.
- Now we need to run the macros: Click on Developer Tab at the top -> Macros -> Run the first macro: convertDatatoContacts
- Select the .csv file & proceed
- Now run the second macro: writeContactstovCard
- Vcard (.vcf) is saved to same folder as your original macro file.
In Nougat, Contacts app can open and import .vcf file or you can use third-party app.
Great tutorial, thank you very much! This saved 6000 SMS when Titanium Backup had messed up. ??
Thank you very much! With your guide I could recover my SMS from a phone with a bootloop (TWRP bootable) but I did a different process:
1. TWRP Backup
2. Transfer it to PC
3. Rename the data.ext4.win to data.ext4.tar.gz . If Your files are like data.ext4.win000, data.ext4.win001, then rename each of them to data.ext4.tar.gz in separate folders.
4. Open each file in BandiZip program and search for mmssms.db
In my case it was in: data/user_de/0/com.android.providers.telephony/databases/
5. Copy this file to the same folder in spare phone / same phone after factory reset.
6. SMS appear now!
mmssms.db not found
I guess since Android 5+ mmssms.db is deprecated, refer https://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=74784136&postcount=3 to extract sms to xml file
owzm tutorial
tks for A DETIALED TUTORIAL
try this forum for retrive contacts ,given a easy method by "StefanPutureanu"
https://forums.androidcentral.com/ask-question/459773-how-do-i-retrieve-my-contacts-twrp-backup.html
Thanks for valuable infomation.I'd like to share my experience that I have use Android recovery program to extract and recover sms,contacts,call logs from backup files.It has powerful method and the operation is easy.
my samsung s9+ deleted all my contacts, slowly like 20 a month lol, no idea why, ****ty sammy soft and auto sync deleted em from sammy cloud too...
i had problems even extracting contacts2.db /Failed to extract calls: no such table: calls/
so i found a better way: just convert your contacts2.db right into vcf here: http://gsmrecovery.ru/db2vc/index.php?lang=en
all my contacts are back
Mirhawk said:
Reserved.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Any way to get attachments on SMS back ?
Cause i get all my sms back, but no more pics