User blog:Mr.Sneis/Transferring Your Tiny Village from One Device to Another (Android)

Bought a new phone or tablet and want to move your Tiny Village to the new device without losing weeks or months worth of play time? I recently had to do this and by a stroke of luck I think I've figured it out. I looked around the web and couldn't find any useful information about a Village transfer other than through Tiny Co. support request (which some have had very challenging experiences with). In the end I was able to transfer my original Tiny Village from my HTC Sensation 4g to a Asus Nexus 7 tablet; I was even able to take the starter village I made on the tablet and transfer it to my old phone for kicks.

Some notes: 

1) I will not be responsible for ANYTHING if something goes wrong. You do this at your own risk!

2) I started at first by writing a support ticket to Tiny Co. requesting a village transfer to a new device. I gave them everything they needed (tiny Id's, device Id's) on a silver platter.  I waited about 2 weeks and finally broke down and took the law into my own hands. I am pretty sure they just ignored my ticket.  Note that the support information recommends you give them your Tiny Id's and Device Id's.  This essentially requires you to install and run and make a new Tiny Village on the new device, I’ve even heard of some users having completely lost their village after requesting through Tiny Co!

3) I did this with a moderate background in being able to unlock and root an android device; if you are unwilling to do these things or learn how to do them then going through Tiny Co. support may be the best way for you. This page is more of a generic guide than a specific how-to simply because android devices will differ.

4) I've only done this twice now so PLEASE share your experiences if you find a better/safer/faster/easier way! There are some steps noted below which I am not 100% sure if they are necessary; for instance I am not entirely sure what happens if progress is made between the time the backup is made and then restored on the new device.

Things you will need: 

-Android based devices to transfer to and from. If your old device is lost or broken then your best bet is to have the backups of the 4 files mentioned below available. I am not sure if a similar process will work with iOS based devices though I would like to find out!

<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">-Computer (PC) with Android SDK tools installed and drivers to interface with your devices (you generally need these to unlock and root your devices).

<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">-Cables to connect your devices to the computer.

<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">-Titanium Backup from the Play store (or comparable).

<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal">'''<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">OK. Let's get started. '''

<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">1) The first thing you should do is decide whether or not the risk of transferring your village is worth it. In my case, my phone was not playing the game very well, it was slow, choppy, and I often lost progress due to the game not saving.  I was level 16 at the time so I was invested into the village but if I lost it all it wouldn't be the end of the world.  If you lost your old device then I am sorry but this method generally requires that you have both devices present; however if you did a full backup of the lost device then you may be in luck!

<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">2) The general idea is to backup the 3 game files using Titanium Backup along with your Tiny ID file from the original device. Move these to the new device and you should be back in business.

<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">3) Unlock your bootloaders and root your two devices: Since Titanium Backup requires that your device is rooted you will need to unlock your phone or device's bootloader first before rooting, this will be necessary for both the new and old devices.  Some devices like the Nexus 7 even have "one click" programs to help you unlock and root but generally this process is different and varies in difficulty from device to device.  I don't believe that installing a custom recovery or ROM on your android devices has any bearing on this process.  Your best bet is to do a Google search for "guide unlock root Nexus 7" or something of that nature to find a tutorial specific to your device.  This is generally an involved process and may or may not void your manufacturer’s warranty. Keep in most cases an unlocked device can be re-factory imaged to appear unaltered however. Optional step: If you want to test to make sure your device is rooted you can download and install ES File Explorer from the Play store and enable 'up to root' from settings. You should then be able to see above the SD card directory of your device into the root folder (hitting 'Up' in the ES File Explorer browser); this will require Superuser access and hence should in theory only work on a successfully rooted device.

<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">4) Download Titanium Backup from the Play Store on the old device and on the new device: I used the purchased version but you should be able to do this with the free version as well.  Once installed you will want to make a backup of Tiny Village and only Tiny Village from the old device, this makes it easier to manage down the line to not have to sort through all of your other app backups.  To do this click the Backup/Restore tab and select Tiny Village from the list.  Hit 'Backup!' and it will save a copy of the game's files to your SD card.  On the new device just make sure Titanium Backup is installed for now.

<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">5) Connect the original device to the computer: You will want to make sure it is connected in 'disk mode' so that you can access files from your SD card.  If the 'TitaniumBackup' directory does not show in your device you may have to reboot the device and try again.  We need 4 tiles total.  On the root of your SD card should be a '.tinyid' file and in the 'TitaniumBackup' folder you should find the three backup files of the Tiny Village backup starting with 'com.tinyco.village...'  We will need to mirror these files in these locations on the new device so copy them to a folder on your desktop.  I did this all in Windows so if you are a Mac user in OSX you may have to show hidden files in order to see the '.tinyid' file. Once we have these files we don't need the old device any longer but I'd recommend to hang onto it just in case.

<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">6) Download Tiny Village onto the new device from the Play store. Don't open it.  I am not sure if this step is really necessary.

<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">7) Connect the new device to the computer: Here we will want to copy from the computer to the new device the 4 files from step 5. You will overwrite the '.tinyid' file from your recent Play store download and then place the backup files into the 'TitaniumBackup" folder.  Again if you don't see the folder, reboot your device and try again.

<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">8) Startup Titanium Backup on the new device, click 'Backup/Restore' tab. Scroll down to Tiny Village and then click 'Restore.'  This will overwrite the existing Tiny Village app with your backup.

<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">9) At this point you should be able to start Tiny Village on the new device and your old village along with Tiny ID should now be fully moved over! Note that I am not sure of the effect this has on the old device's existing village; recommend someone test this!

<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">tl;dr <span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman""> - Unlock and root your two devices. Install titanium backup on both devices. Backup and restore Tiny Village files from old device to new with accompanying .tinyid file. Profit.

<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">With any luck you should be in business, I almost gave up hope myself but I hope this guide helps somebody!

<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">I'm still new to this game but my TinyID is MrSneis if you care to visit!